The causes and consequences of stress for small business owner/managers

Numerous studies have considered work related stress for employees and concluded that certain situations were frequently perceived and evaluated as stressful often resulting in a negative experience which has been defined as stress. However, insufficient attention has been paid to stress and small business owner / managers. Therefore, the aims of this study were to make a contribution to the knowledge concerning work related stress for owner/managers. All the small business owner / managers interviewed considered the role of the owner / manager to be stressful. The research found that some of the issues identified by the previous studies concerning employees were also relevant to owner/managers. However, the results suggested that other sources of stress also need to be considered. These included: • issues external to the business over which they had no control • relationships: customers, suppliers, business partners and employees • the role and responsibility of being the owner/manager often means dealing with a wide variety of daily problems • finance: slow paying customers, bad debts and lack of knowledge and understanding of financial management • family and social life vs. the business: unable to take holidays and cancellation of social events • role conflict when running a business from home. The work related stress model for small business owner/managers developed as a result of the data collected from the twenty owner/managers interviewed for this exploratory study makes a contribution to the knowledge concerning work related stress and owner/managers. It could assist educationalists, trainers and advisors in understanding the relevant issues which could influence the owner/manager's response to the sources of stress. However, this model will need to be tested more widely in order to evaluate and confirm the issues raised.