From Emotional Rollercoasters to Spock Strategists: A Person-Centric Approach to Unravelling the Coping Profiles of Entrepreneurs for Enhanced Well-being

How entrepreneurs cope with stress is instrumental to their well-being. Past research has focused on individual or groups of coping strategies in isolation from each other. In this study, we adopt a person-centric approach and show that most entrepreneurs adopt a blend of coping strategies. Using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), we first uncover four distinct coping profiles: (1) Emotional Rollercoaster (27%), characterized by low problem and high emotion-focused coping; (2) Zen Minimalist (39%), exhibiting moderate problem and low emotion-focused coping; (3) Integrated Problem Solver (16%), with high problem and moderate emotion-focused coping; and (4) Spock Strategist (19%), marked by high problem and low emotion-focused coping. Spock Strategists report the highest levels of psychological well-being across numerous measures (eudaimonic well-being, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and mental health), whereas Emotional Rollercoasters exhibit the lowest. However, only 19% of entrepreneurs adopt the optimal Spock Strategist profile. Compared to waged workers, entrepreneurs are twice as likely to be Spock Strategists and half as likely to be Emotional Rollercoasters. Most entrepreneurs belong to profiles that are not explored in the literature. Personality traits, education, and job characteristics provide initial insights for why some entrepreneurs gravitate towards certain profiles.