Rumination and Entrepreneurial Well-being: It’s Complicated!

Rumination, as a recurring thought process, can have detrimental or beneficial effects on well-being depending on whether it increases or decreases ideal-actual self-discrepancy. Drawing upon control theory and considering rumination’s nature together with entrepreneur heterogeneity, we explore how rumination influences changes in entrepreneurial well-being. Utilizing two waves of the longitudinal data we find that while a general tendency to ruminate improves entrepreneurial well-being, Covid-19 specific rumination decreases the well-being of entrepreneurs and this effect is stronger for solo self-employed entrepreneurs compared to employer entrepreneurs. Our study offers novel insights into cognitive challenges and associated changes in entrepreneurial well-being during times of crisis.