A person-centered perspective on entrepreneurial success: combining proactive behavioral strategies across various life domains Open Access

Entrepreneurs are essential for the economy; driving jobs, societal advancements, and innovations. Their work combines highly autonomous and meaningful work with long hours and high levels of uncertainty and responsibility (Stephan et al., 2023b). Unlike salaried employees, entrepreneurs experience varying work intensity, alternating between busy and quiet periods based on projects (Welter et al., 2017). This makes them vulnerable to numerous demands (i.e. work aspects requiring effort and are associated with individual costs; Demerouti et al., 2001). Managing these demands requires a wide range of resources (i.e. aspects that help in achieving goals, reducing demands, or stimulating development; Demerouti et al., 2001), which are often limited (Williamson et al., 2021) and difficult to obtain (Jumelet et al., 2022). Consequently, entrepreneurs frequently depend on their external environment, such as customers, suppliers, government, and/or representative organizations, for resources (Adisa et al., 2019; Jumelet et al., 2022), which are often accompanied by external demands (e.g. customer complaints, supply shortages. Thus, entrepreneurs’ demands and resources stem from different life domains (Demerouti and Bakker, 2023), such as working long hours due to shortages (i.e. personal time resources) or relying on family to help address customer issues (Adisa et al., 2019). These affect both business and personal lives, leading to overwork, limited personal development, and other challenges. To manage these demands and resources, entrepreneurs must be proactive (van den Groenendaal et al., 2022), which is defined as taking initiative to modify the demands and resources instead of reacting to changes. Proactive behavioral strategies employed across different life domains can be especially helpful (Mäkikangas, 2018; Demerouti and Bakker, 2023). For example, an entrepreneur without website-building experience may ask a family member for help. Entrepreneurs who are proactively aware of these demands and resources and actively seek or optimize them manage their business in such a way that their well-being and business performance are protected. Hence, this study aims to identify which particular combination of proactive behaviors supports entrepreneurial success (van den Groenendaal et al., 2022).

To gain a more profound understanding of the specific combinations of proactive behaviors contributing to entrepreneurial success, we differentiated strategies across key life domains. The extended JD-R theory (Demerouti and Bakker, 2023) differentiates the organization, leader, family, and individual as important life domains. We expand on this theory conceptualizing the organizational domain as the entrepreneur’s business and the work domain as the broader business-environment, recognizing that entrepreneurs also encounter external demands and resources in their work. We merge the individual and family domains into a single personal domain. Hence, our domains include the business domain (Newman et al., 2022), the personal domain (Wach et al., 2021), and the business-environment domain (i.e. the context they operate in; Frese and Gielnik, 2023).

To uncover which combination of proactive behaviors underpins entrepreneurial success, we will employ a person-centered analysis to identify unique profiles or patterns of attributes, dividing individuals into distinct groups based on their overall characteristics. While a variable-centered perspective focuses on understanding the relationship between variables across the entire population, a person-centered approach provides a representation of underlying response patterns (Mäkikangas, 2018) and may better capture real-time entrepreneurial behavior. Fundamental strategies in entrepreneurs’ business domain are considered crafting and idea generation, whereas this applies to environmental exploration and network crafting in the business-environment domain, and self-insight and boundary management in the personal domain. Typically, entrepreneurial success has been defined by the business growth or performance of entrepreneurs (e.g. Dimov and Pistrui, 2024). However, this overlooks the complexity of entrepreneurial success. The dynamic and ever-changing context of their work affects their business performance and well-being (Stephan, 2018). For entrepreneurs to be successful, it goes beyond traditional performance indicators and should also be measured by personal achievement criteria (Wach et al., 2016), which includes performance measures that are not influenced by market complexity and well-being measures. We assess operational and financial goal attainment to reflect the business’s immediate success and idea implementation for long-term sustainability (Angel et al., 2018). Moreover, to capture well-being, fatigue is included as a negative assessment, and motivation and happiness are included as positive assessments (Stephan et al., 2023a).

Additionally, to get a more profound understanding of how entrepreneurs’ daily proactive behavior aligns with their general profile (Wach et al., 2021), we also study (the effects of) specific strategies (i.e. boundary management, seeking resources, idea generation, and network crafting) on a daily basis. Entrepreneurs face daily changes in demands and resources that impact performance (Weinberger et al., 2018; Wach et al., 2021), and examining their use of proactive strategies helps us understand how entrepreneurs perform during those days and if they follow similar sequential patterns in response to daily fluctuations.

Our study has three contributions. First, we advance entrepreneurial literature by taking a person-centered perspective, using Latent profile analysis (LPA), to examine proactive behavior across different life domains. This method provides a more accurate representation of the underlying response patterns, particularly since entrepreneurs might use different proactive behavioral strategies simultaneously. This is especially relevant because various life domains play a crucial role in having a thriving business and a healthy personal life (e.g. Adisa et al., 2019; Wach et al., 2021).

Secondly, we link these profiles (i.e. combinations of proactive behavioral strategies) to entrepreneurial success indicators, which include their well-being and business performance (Wiklund et al., 2019; Stephan et al., 2023a). This may increase our understanding of what behavioral combination is important for the multifaceted success of (small- and medium-sized) enterprises.

Third, by integrating daily diary data, we deepen our understanding of how proactive strategies manifest daily (Oksa et al., 2023), and explore how daily behavior and the corresponding daily performance of entrepreneurs are in line with their corresponding profiles and how this daily proactivity is related to the daily performance of entrepreneurs.

To understand how proactive behavioral strategies in different life domains relate to entrepreneurial success, we use Job Demands and Resources (JD-R) theory (Demerouti and Bakker, 2023). High demands increase effort and deplete resources, leading to health issues that can hinder both business and personal success (Bakker et al., 2023). Conversely, adequate resources and manageable demands enhance engagement, well-being, and performance. Recently, JD-R theory highlight the interconnectedness of demands and resources across domains and emphasizes the role of proactive strategies in balancing them (Demerouti and Bakker, 2023). Demands and resources come from various domains, including organization, leadership, family, and individual factors, which all interact and influence each other. For example, time resources can be used for free time but also for working longer. The extended JD-R theory proposes that proactive regulatory strategies help mitigate the negative effect of demands from either domain and enhance the positive impact of resources. Hence, proactive strategies can be used to regulate this process (Demerouti and Bakker, 2023). Entrepreneurs, in particular, often face high demands with limited available resources, as they must manage everything themselves. They need to be creative in finding external resources to support their business. By proactively adjusting the demands and resources from various domains, entrepreneurs may be able to enhance their success.

We aim to identify which combination of proactive behavioral strategies across life domains can drive entrepreneurial success (van den Groenendaal et al., 2021), balancing the demands and resources within and across the business, personal, and business-environment domains.

A thriving business requires a strong business idea and a supportive context (Frese and Gielnik, 2023). This involves managing existing demands and resources (van den Groenendaal et al., 2022), while also preparing for dynamic changes that may require the generation of (new) ideas (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010). Consequently, crafting strategies and idea generation become relevant for entrepreneurs.

Crafting helps entrepreneurs manage work (e.g. reorganize work tasks), focus (e.g. avoiding new tasks), and adapt to crises (e.g. learning new coping methods). Key crafting strategies include seeking resources (i.e. seeking support to deal with demands, achieving goals, and stimulating personal growth, learning, and development), optimizing demands (i.e. removing obstacles), and seeking challenges (i.e. setting more challenging goals to stay engaged). These strategies are linked to positive outcomes like well-being, performance, and satisfaction (Tims et al., 2022).

Idea generation focuses on opportunity exploitation within and outside the business, leading to new products, services, or processes, entry into new markets, improvements in current work processes, or identification of problems (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010). Idea generation is a combination of reorganizing information and existing concepts to solve problems or improve performance and is important for entrepreneurs’ business performance, development, and survival (e.g. by improving the products or services offered), providing a competitive advantage (Weinberger et al., 2018).

Entrepreneurs often face resource constraints within their business (Williamson et al., 2021), making it crucial to mobilize external resources (e.g. network, competitors, technological developments, and opportunities). Being aware of their environment (i.e. environmental exploration) and network (i.e. network crafting) helps entrepreneurs to have the necessary resources to advance and identify opportunities outside their business. Specifically, environmental exploration is defined by intentional actions and thoughts aimed at accessing information not previously present in the context and helps entrepreneurs understand their business environment and identify opportunities (Stumpf et al., 1983). Network crafting (i.e. creating a better fit between their network connections and their business) involves optimizing and expanding network connections (van Gool, 2022) and is essential for business growth (Nijkamp, 2003), as it provides valuable information, advice, and problem-solving support (Hoang and Antoncic, 2003).

Entrepreneurs often work within their personal spheres (Adisa et al., 2019), making it crucial to regulate energy and emotions across various life domains (business, family, personal). Hence, entrepreneurs need to understand what is causing stress and manage their work-home boundaries. This personal-related proactivity includes self-insight and boundary management. Self-insight helps recognize stress signals, regulate emotions, and take actions (Grant et al., 2002), improving understanding of how resources and demands affect their business and well-being (Newman et al., 2022).

Boundary management is defined as the approaches individuals use to demarcate boundaries between work, family, and other non-work roles (Kossek et al., 2012). By proactively managing the boundaries between work and non-work activities, entrepreneurs will be better able to protect themselves from overworking, which helps them recover after work and deal with unexpected work events (Wach et al., 2021). In doing so, entrepreneurs can better protect their well-being, perform at the desired level, and be creative (Weinberger et al., 2018).

Combining these strategies from a person-centered perspective, we expect to find different proactivity profiles. Some entrepreneurs may be proactive in one domain, others in two, and some across all three (i.e. the business domain, personal domain, and business-environment domain). Although eight theoretical combinations are possible (2 × 2 × 2), not all are likely in reality, as entrepreneurs lacking key strategies may not “survive”. Specifically, entrepreneurial success depends on the actions that entrepreneurs undertake (Frese and Gielnik, 2023). Without proactive behavioral strategies in any of the three domains, success becomes elusive, given the lack of essential actions to manage their business and increase persistent goal pursuit. Hence, we do not expect a profile that scores low on all proactive strategies. Conversely, we expect a profile featuring entrepreneurs proactive in all domains, including entrepreneurs who actively seek to enhance their business across diverse areas (van den Groenendaal et al., 2022) and understand and focus on the interconnection between their home and work situation (Wach et al., 2021).

We also expect profiles focusing on one or two domains. Some profiles may primarily revolve around occupational endeavors, concentrating on business and/or business-environment domain strategies and not their personal atmosphere. Entrepreneurs often initiate business ventures to establish a successful enterprise (van den Groenendaal et al., 2022), indicating that their decisions, actions, and resource allocation predominantly align with the success and sustainability of their business (Williamson et al., 2021). Furthermore, entrepreneurs may start their own businesses to improve the balance between their work and private-life (Adisa et al., 2019; Wach et al., 2021). This suggests the possibility of profiles where entrepreneurs primarily employ proactive behavioral strategies in the personal domain to maintain this balance.

To validate the profile solution, we relate the different profiles to well-being (Wiklund et al., 2019) and business performance (Stephan et al., 2023a). Entrepreneurship involves energy-consuming and stressful demands across multiple domains, often leading to fatigue and reduced motivation due to resource depletion and reluctance to invest further energy (Demerouti et al., 2001; Demerouti and Bakker, 2023). On top of that, the state of their mental well-being beyond their business endeavors is a crucial aspect (Stephan et al., 2023a), including factors such as happiness, characterized by a positive attitude, emotions, and mood, which can be influenced by both work-related and individual-related experiences (Fisher, 2010). Moreover, it is important to capture entrepreneurs’ business performance using indicators that are not influenced by the complexity of markets (Dimov and Pistrui, 2024). To do so, we used entrepreneurial-level non-monetary criteria (Angel et al., 2018), their financial and operational goal attainment, and idea implementation (Rahim and Mohtar, 2015). This attainment of financial (e.g. achieving revenue, getting money from customers, and getting money for a specific assignment) and operational (e.g. contact with customers, to-do list, responding to emails, and new assignment) goals is defined as the progression towards, reaching or exceeding predefined (financial) goals (Grebner et al., 2010). Additionally, to remain sustainable, entrepreneurs also need to be able to implement (new) ideas. Idea implementation includes making innovations part of regular work processes (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010).

Although proactive behavioral strategies may be important on their own, they do not always enhance entrepreneurs’ success (Jumelet et al., 2022) due to potential misalignment with domains demands and resources. Nevertheless, employing proactive behavioral strategies across business, business-environment, and personal domains could potentially foster this alignment and, consequently, improve entrepreneurs’ well-being and business performance. Entrepreneurs who actively seek business improvements (Jumelet et al., 2022), understand its needs (Newman et al., 2017), and recognize the potential of the home domain in addressing work-related issues (Wach et al., 2021) seem better equipped to comprehend the dynamics of entrepreneurship (Frese and Gielnik, 2023) and the development of their career (Presbitero, 2015).

Entrepreneurs may experience different types of demands and resources on different days, making daily manifestations of the profiles relevant. They might have to deal with a customer complaint on one day, a sick family member on another, and a networking event on the third day, which may influence them in multiple domains (e.g. Wach et al., 2021). A daily perspective eliminates recall bias due to semantic memory (Demerouti and Peeters, 2018), giving clearer insights into whether entrepreneurs follow distinct or similar proactive behavioral patterns daily (Weinberger et al., 2018).

In line with Mäkikangas (2018), we expect that daily proactive behavior is manifested in their unique general combined proactive tendencies. Hence, the proactivity of entrepreneurs is rooted in daily behavior, which will give us similar and stable daily profiles of proactive strategies. We expect this because the behavior of an entrepreneur is determined by daily events, which are the building blocks of their general behavioral actions. By looking at this daily behavior with a person-centered approach (Mäkikangas, 2018), we state that although the days will differ, the personal styles remain consistent. The action-oriented nature of the behavioral strategies and the interconnectedness of daily proactivity in various domains (Demerouti et al., 2020) suggests that entrepreneurs who are proactive in one domain are likely to display proactivity across all domains on a daily basis, leading to consistent behavior across days.

Including this daily perspective also lets us assess the effect on daily performance (Petrou et al., 2012). Proactive entrepreneurs are better equipped to consistently address daily events by managing daily demands and maintaining sufficient resources, leading to enhanced daily performance. Specifically, daily proactivity enables entrepreneurs to better manage both expected and unexpected daily demands and resources (e.g. Wach et al., 2021) and helps them maintain a balance that supports optimal performance.

Data were collected among Dutch entrepreneurs owning private companies with fewer than 250 employees (cf. Jayasekara et al., 2020). They were recruited via network organizations (e.g. FNV Zelfstandigen), magazines, LinkedIn Groups, and a database (i.e. Prolific). After completing the informed consent, respondents filled out the questionnaire. Confidentiality and anonymity were emphasized and assured. The study was approved by the Ethics Review Board of the first author’s university.

We examined cross-sectional data from 2021–2023, with 286 entrepreneurs completing the general survey. The sample included 145 men (59.7%) and 95 women (39.1%). Their mean age was 39 years (SD = 13.68). The average age of their business was 6.63 years (SD = 6.71), with most active in business services (18.5%), health and social work (9.4%), trading (9.1%), and the culture and leisure sector (8.7%). Of these participants, 49 also participated in the daily questionnaires, resulting in 255 daily entries (M = 5 per participant). This sample included 36 men (73.5%) and 12 women (24.5%). Their mean age was 42.5 years (SD = 14.61). The average age of their business was 8.5 years (SD = 7.50), and most participants were active in business services (26.5%), industry (12.2%), and trading (10.2%).

All responses were rated on 5-point Likert scales from 1 ((almost) never) to 5 ((almost) always), referring to the past two weeks. We used validated Dutch translations of existing scales, adapted for entrepreneurs.

Crafting strategy dimensions were assessed with three items each (Boesten et al., 2024). For seeking resources (e.g. “I have tried to learn new things for my business”), Cronbach’s α was 0.75. For increasing challenging demands (e.g. “I have tried new approaches”), Cronbach’s α was 0.87. For optimizing demands (e.g. “I look for ways to do my work more efficiently”), Cronbach’s α was 0.74. Idea generation was measured with three items (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010) e.g. “I came up with original solutions for problems”. Cronbach’s α was 0.77. Network crafting was measured with five items (van Gool, 2022), e.g. “I improve my network of relations with connections outside of our company to make my job more productive”. Cronbach’s α was 0.90. Environmental exploration was measured with four items (Stumpf et al., 1983), e.g. “I researched business opportunities”. Cronbach’s α was 0.80. Self-insight was measured using four items based on the factor loading and content fit of a scale developed by Grant et al. (2002), e.g. “I usually knew very well why I behaved in a certain way”. Cronbach’s α was 0.65. Boundary management was measured with four items (Kossek et al., 2012), e.g. “I determined whether I mixed up my work and personal activities throughout the day”. Cronbach’s α was 0.84.

Motivation and fatigue were measured using shortened subscales of the Checklist Individual Strength (CIS; Bültmann et al., 2000). Four items were used to measure each construct. For motivation (e.g. “I was full of plans”), Cronbach’s α was 0.74. For fatigue severity (e.g. “I felt tired”), Cronbach’s α was 0.70. Happiness was measured using the 1-item faces measure of Kunin (1998). Operational goal attainment was measured with three items (Grebner et al., 2010). e.g. “I completed my tasks”, Cronbach’s α was 0.86. For financial goal attainment, we used the same scale of Grebner et al. (2010), e.g. “I completed my financial goals”. We specified that the goals were tied to financial aspects because financial goals differ conceptually from operational goals. Financial goals involve more substantial investment, are subject to greater external influences (e.g. customers did not pay, new clients were assigned), and occur less frequently (i.e. not multiple times per day). Operational goals may involve smaller tasks (e.g. writing an email) and more within the control of the entrepreneurs themselves. Cronbach’s α was 0.91. Idea implementation was measured with three items (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010) e.g. “I have systematically translated innovative ideas into practice”. Cronbach’s α was 0.80.

Daily seeking resources was measured with three items of the job crafting scales by Petrou et al. (2012). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.64. Daily Idea generation was measured with three items (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.79. Daily network crafting was measured with five items (van Gool, 2022). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.81. Daily boundary management was measured with four items (Kossek et al., 2012). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.86.

Daily operational goal attainment was measured with three items (Grebner et al., 2010). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.83. Similar to the general measures, the three items by Grebner et al. (2010) were adjusted to measure financial goal attainment. The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.93. Daily idea implementation was measured with three items (De Jong and Den Hartog, 2010). The within-person Cronbach’s α was 0.82.

To identify profiles based on proactive behavioral strategies, we applied Latent profile analysis (LPA), an exploratory method used to detect latent subpopulations within a population (Spurk et al., 2020). We estimated profiles using the mean scores of our selected proactive behavioral strategies. The model parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. All models were estimated using Mplus (version 8).

There are no standard best-fit criteria to determine the number of profiles (Spurk et al., 2020; Mäkikangas et al., 2021; Oksa et al., 2023). Therefore, we determine the model fit using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Log Likelihood (LL), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), the sample adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion (SABIC), the Bootstrap Likelihood Ratio Test (BLRT), and entropy, which classifies accuracy (Spurk et al., 2020; Mäkikangas et al., 2021; Oksa et al., 2023). The models with the smallest BIC and AIC values are considered to have a better fit. The BLRT determines if one of the profiles has a significantly better fit by comparing solutions with different numbers of latent patterns. For the test, a p-value below 0.05 suggests that the solution with k profiles fits the data better than the solution with k-1 profiles. Theoretical interpretability and relevance were also considered.

The auxiliary variables (i.e. happiness, fatigue, motivation, operational goal attainment, financial goal attainment, and idea implementation) were related to the profiles using the Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaar’s (BCH) method, which accounts for profile assignment uncertainty (Spurk et al., 2020).

Next, we used these profiles to predict daily behavior based on the diary study. ANOVA for repeated tests if strategies differed significantly over the days within each profile. Multilevel analyses in Rstudio were conducted to assess if the LPA profiles predicted daily performance. For the multilevel regression analyses, the day-level predictor variables were centered around the person-mean for the within-person analyses.

 Table sI of the supplementary materials presents the results of the profile enumeration. We assess the number of profiles by examining if a new profile offers significant new insights compared to existing ones (Spurk et al., 2020). The results indicate that the four-profile solution fits the data better than the other profile solutions.

The first group (16%) exhibited low business-related and business environment-related proactivity and high personal-related proactivity (Figure 1). This group focuses more on work-life boundaries and self-insight, showing interest in something other than the business side of being an entrepreneur and can therefore be characterized as the minimum business effort entrepreneurs. The second group (41%) showed average levels of all proactive behavioral strategies, balancing enough effort for success without excelling. We labeled them the solid and self-caring entrepreneurs, as this was the biggest and rather stable group. The third group (11%) showed low personal-related proactivity but average business-related and business environment-related proactivity. This group might work very hard without the corresponding (personal) fulfillment labeling this group the needy and self-ignorant entrepreneurs. The fourth group (32%) showed above-average levels of all proactive behavioral strategies. We named this group the proactive business entrepreneurs. Thus, to answer our research question, four distinct profiles characterized by different proactive behaviors emerged.

Hypothesis 1 stated that profiles with higher levels of business-related proactivity, business-environment-related proactivity, and personal-related proactivity would report higher levels of (a) well-being and (b) business performance. In contrast, entrepreneurs who are not proactive in one or two of the three domains will report lower levels of well-being or business performance. This means that the solid and self-caring entrepreneurs and the proactive business entrepreneurs will be most successful, whereas the minimum business effort entrepreneur and the needy and self-ignorant entrepreneur will be less successful (Figure 2).

Compared to the solid and self-caring entrepreneurs, the minimum business effort entrepreneurs were indeed less happy (β = −0.42, p < 0.05) and implemented fewer ideas (β = −1.18, p < 0.001; Table 1; Figure 2), the needy and self-ignorant entrepreneurs attained fewer operational goals (β = −1.21, p < 0.001) and financial goals (β = −0.77, p < 0.01) and were less happy (β = −0.86, p < 0.01; Table 1), whereas the proactive business entrepreneurs implemented more ideas (β = 0.39, p < 0.001) and were more motivated (β = 0.51, p < 0.01; Table 1). Hence, Hypothesis 1 is mostly supported as the proactive business entrepreneurs and solid and self-caring entrepreneurs showed higher levels of well-being and business performance compared to the other two profiles.

Next, we examined how the identified profiles relate to daily proactive behavior. Of our daily sample, 18.4% belonged to Profile 1, 36.7% to Profile 2, 6% to Profile 3, and 38.8% to Profile 4, closely reflecting the general sample distribution (16%, 41%, 11%, and 32%, respectively). Our result demonstrated no significant differences in daily proactivity within each profile across the six days, indicating stable proactivity, supporting Hypothesis 2 (illustrated in  Figure s1 in the supplementary materials).

Hypothesis 3 states that the daily use of proactive behavioral strategies of entrepreneurs leads to higher performance outcomes. Our results showed that, compared to the solid and self-caring entrepreneurs, the minimum business effort entrepreneurs attained similar (financial) goals (respectively β = 0.32, p > 0.05; β = 0.32, p > 0.05) but implemented fewer ideas (β = −0.58, p < 0.05; Table 2 and Figure 3). The needy and self-ignorant entrepreneurs performed worse overall, though this was not significant. The proactive entrepreneurs implemented more ideas (β = 0.78, p < 0.01) and attained similar (financial) goals (β = −0.17, p > 0.05). Hence, Hypothesis 2b is partially supported.

This study investigates whether different profiles of entrepreneurs who use a combination of proactive behavioral strategies within their business, personal, and business-environment domains can be distinguished and how these profiles are related to well-being and business performance. Moreover, we aimed to understand how these general profiles were related to daily proactivity and daily business performance. We identified four distinct and meaningful profiles, with those proactive in multiple life domains simultaneously demonstrated greater success. This implies that entrepreneurs who combine business-related proactivity (i.e. seeking resources, optimizing demands, seeking challenges, and idea generation) business-environment-related productivity (i.e. network crafting and environmental exploration) and personal-related proactivity (i.e. boundary management and self-insight) report higher levels of happiness, motivation, and idea implementation. In contrast, profiles lacking personal-related proactivity attained fewer financial and operational goals and suffered from reduced happiness, whereas lacking business-related and business-environment-related productivity resulted in less happiness and fewer idea implementations. Our findings further indicate that daily proactive behavior tends to be relatively stable (Mäkikangas, 2018). Consistent with the general profiles, the profiles characterized with higher daily proactivity across all domains show improved daily performance, reflecting increased idea implementation.

Our study contributes to the existing literature by using a unique combination of person-centered and intra-individual analyses and by relating the extracted profiles from these analyses to entrepreneurial well-being and business performance. These differences in behavior may stem from the motivation behind starting their businesses (van den Groenendaal et al., 2021). Entrepreneurs who predominantly prioritize the personal domain might initiate their businesses with the goal of improving the balance between their work and private-life (Adisa et al., 2019). In contrast, those emphasizing occupational endeavors concentrate on strategies within the business and business-environment domains.

Further, our study emphasizes that entrepreneurs who combine proactive behavioral strategies across diverse life domains tend to experience greater success in terms of well-being and business performance than those who do not employ such a combination. Being proactive across life domains might enable entrepreneurs to effectively align and mobilize their demands and resources, as Demerouti and Bakker (2023) suggest these demands and resources are interconnected in predicting well-being and business performance. Specifically, entrepreneurs who are proactive across the three life domains are happier, more motivated, and implement more ideas. In contrast, those lacking personal-related proactivity attain fewer financial and operational goals and experience less happiness compared to entrepreneurs who are more proactive within the personal domain and have similar levels of business-related and business environment-related proactivity. Hence, these entrepreneurs might perform less because they do not understand and recognize what to do when (Op den Kamp et al., 2020). Moreover, they might be less happy because they are less able to correctly appraise their demands and resources (Newman et al., 2022). Therefore, simultaneously using proactive behavioral strategies within the business, personal, and business-environment domains seems essential for entrepreneurs to be prosperous and healthy (Grant et al., 2002). Our findings highlight that previous variable-oriented studies may not have provided a comprehensive understanding, as they cannot show how a person performs across domains.

Lastly, our study contributes by demonstrating that the profiles used similar patterns of daily proactive behavior as their general profiles and that general proactivity is rooted in daily behavior. In a subgroup of the sample, we found that the minimum business effort, the solid and self-caring, and the proactive business entrepreneurs showed similar daily proactive behavior patterns compared to their general profile. Despite the influence of daily events (e.g. changes in demands or resources), which impact daily proactivity (Petrou et al., 2012), it remains worthwhile to foster daily proactivity across domains (Demerouti et al., 2020). Being more consistent over the days, like the solid and self-caring and proactive business entrepreneurs, helps entrepreneurs to implement more ideas daily. Moreover, we concur that daily proactivity in the personal domain (Wach et al., 2021) and daily idea generation (Weinberger et al., 2018) help entrepreneurs perform better throughout days, although the key lies in combining these strategies.

Practically, our findings indicate that none of the identified profiles experiences increased fatigue when they exhibit proactivity. Thus, entrepreneurs can be encouraged to be proactive without becoming fatigued. Our findings suggest that the energy invested in proactive behavior is replenished through well-being gains (i.e. happier and more motivated). This implies that proactive behavior can initiate a positive behavioral spiral for entrepreneurs (Weinberger et al., 2018; Wach et al., 2021).

Several limitations must be mentioned. First, while this study used Latent Profile Analysis, which is data-driven, we applied a theory-driven approach based on JD-R theory to emphasize why entrepreneurs need to be proactive in general and, more specifically, to be proactive in (a combination of) different domains. Because of this theory-driven approach, our analyses are better substantiated (Mäkikangas et al., 2021). Moreover, we did not control for stable individual differences like personality, limiting our ability to examine behavior independently of personal traits, which may be valuable for future research because personal differences could also explain why entrepreneurs use different combinations of proactive behavioral strategies. With this study, we wanted to focus on behavior because behavior can more easily be changed than personality. Third, we did not use an objective measure for performance, which may have provided a more realistic picture of business success (Dimov and Pistrui, 2024). However, given the heterogeneous group of our sample, selecting an objective measure that accounts for factors like the magnitude of the business (e.g. revenue differences due to size) was not feasible. Fourth, not all participants participated in the daily study, and while the profile distribution of this subsample was similar to the complete (general) dataset, more daily data would have been preferable. Moreover, the daily study focused on business performance, excluding a broader range of variables related to well-being. Although we expected that the daily use of proactive behavior would relate to well-being, as already proven (e.g. Weinberger et al., 2018; Wach et al., 2021), we limited our study to focus on business performance to ensure active engagement and meaningful participation. At the same time, this limits our ability to fully explore the potential connections between daily proactive behavioral strategies and well-being. Therefore, this study concentrated on specific strategies due to their direct relevance to business performance. Future research could address this gap by expanding well-being variables to better understand the interaction between daily proactive behavioral strategies and well-being.

This study showed the importance of combining proactive behavioral strategies across various life domains for entrepreneurs. To navigate interconnected demands and resources, entrepreneurs can best use a combination of proactive behavioral strategies within the business, personal, and business-environment domains. This not only enhances their general happiness, motivation, and idea implementation but also aids in addressing daily struggles.

Funding: This work was supported by ZonMW, Grant number 10430 03201 0008.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online