Fairness for entrepreneurs? Relevance of stakeholders for entrepreneurs’ fairness, associations to health and business success across different time lags and groups of entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are important for Sweden’s economy, yet the Swedish welfare and support system is built around employees’ needs.

Many entrepreneurs feel that they do not get their fair share out while paying into the system (e.g. parental leave, sick pay, pension rights).

Some may disregard such complaints as trivial, but extensive research on employees shows that perceptions of fairness are decisive for health and performance.

For entrepreneurs, little to nothing is known about how fairness perceptions arise, how significant they are for entrepreneurial health and business success, or how they vary among entrepreneurs.The project therefore aims to 1) explore entrepreneurs’ fairness perceptions in relation to different stakeholders (state, clients, banks etc.), 2) investigate associations between entrepreneurs’ fairness perceptions and health and business success over different time lags, and 3) study to what extent fairness perceptions and associations with outcomes differ among entrepreneurs (individual, business characteristics).The project uses a mixed-method approach (interviews, longitudinal survey, weekly event-based study).

First, interviews with entrepreneurs will explore how fairness perceptions are formed in interactions with stakeholders.

Results inform a) a longitudinal survey (6 months apart) in a representative group of Swedish entrepreneurs, and b) an event-based study (10 weeks) capturing fairness perceptions from weekly contacts with stakeholders, and their short-term associations with outcomes.

With this data, the role of different stakeholders for entrepreneurs’ fairness perceptions, cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with health and business success, and the role of heterogeneity (individual, business characteristics) can be studied.Combining rich qualitative data and survey data from different time lags, the project contributes to knowledge development of theoretical and practical significance in a scarcely researched field.