Time pressed, yet unbroken: Understanding personal resources against entrepreneurial exhaustion

Wei Yu, Shuhua Sun, Maw-Der Foo, Stephen X. Zhang and Jizhen Li

Journal of Small Business Management, 2025, vol. 63, issue 6, 2950-2991

Abstract: Entrepreneurs frequently face time pressures to achieve milestones, often resulting in significant effort and exhaustion. Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, we analyzed a two-stage path model using 514 observations from 70 startup entrepreneurs, surveyed twice weekly over four weeks. We examined how venture team identification (VTI) and state positive affect (PA)—entrepreneurship-specific personal resources—serve to buffer or mitigate the negative effects of time pressure on emotional exhaustion. Our study advances the existing literature by developing a theoretical model on personal resources in the entrepreneurship context. We further extend the JD-R theory by disentangling the distinct buffering mechanisms of resources: VTI primarily weakens the relationship between time pressure and venture effort, while PA mainly mitigates the connection between effort and emotional exhaustion. We suggest that fostering VTI and PA can help break the cycle of stress and exhaustion, offering practical insights for sustaining entrepreneurial well-being.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00472778.2025.2465379

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