Spousal Education Difference, In-Group Collectivism, and Entrepreneurial Subjective Well-Being: Implications for HRM

In a competitive, unpredictable, and information-driven economy, individual social networks exert increasing impact on one's career sustainability. Drawing on the relational view of human capital, we theorize that entrepreneurs benefit from their social networks to accumulate human capital, which promotes their career subjective well-being (SWB). In this study, we explore how familial relationship (i.e., spousal education difference) and cultural context (i.e., in-group collectivism) influence entrepreneurs' SWB, a crucial indicator of career sustainability. Using data from the 2015 and 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), our results reveal that more educated spouses and higher in-group collectivism are positively related to entrepreneurs' SWB. However, in regions with high in-group collectivism, the effect of their spouse's education on human capital accumulation for entrepreneurs is weakened. Our study contributes to human resource management by highlighting the relational approach of human capital accumulation beyond the workplace and its importance on career sustainability.