BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 182 Study on the Influence of Spousal Support on the Happiness of Spousal Entrepreneurship Xiaokang Wang School of Sunwah International Business School, Liaoning University, Shenyang, China. wxk1994673295@163.com Abstract. In the context of mass entrepreneurship and innovation initiative, it has become a hot topic in academic circles to take the spiritual feeling of entrepreneurs in the process of entrepreneurship as a "soft index" to measure the success of entrepreneurship. As a branch of family entrepreneurship, spouse entrepreneurship has the characteristics of joint governance and spousal support based on the identity of spouse. Compared with ordinary entrepreneurs, spouse co-founders have more complex sources of stress and different evaluation criteria for happiness. Based on the method of questionnaire survey, this paper established a regression model, which first proved the positive relationship between husband and wife's joint entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial happiness, and further confirmed that spousal support would promote this relationship. From the perspective of happiness, it turns out that joint entrepreneurship of spouses can better meet the individual needs of entrepreneurs and family needs. Spouses' commitment and caring to each other can further boost happiness and reduce stress in starting a business, with the aim of offering a better form of entrepreneurship to stressful entrepreneurs around the world. Keywords: spousal entrepreneurship; shared governance; spousal support; entrepreneurial happiness. 1. Introduction Under the background of mass entrepreneurship and innovation initiative, spousal entrepreneurship meets the couple's pursuit of common cause and free lifestyle and plays an important role in promoting the healthy growth of China's economy. According to relevant data, more than 30% of listed family enterprises in China are controlled by couples (Xiao Jinli et al., 2018), such as SOHO China, AAC Technologies and Goertek, which are all started by couples. In order to develop and grow rapidly, entrepreneurial enterprises of couples must give full play to the advantages brought by the spousal support generated by the joint governance of husband and wife, which provides both material and spiritual support for the entrepreneurial couples. However, most previous studies have focused on whether entrepreneurial couples can identify, evaluate, and exploit market opportunities under the co-ownership principle. The coordination of entrepreneurial resources is regarded as an important objective factor to evaluate the success of entrepreneurship. However, in the process of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs not only have to bear the pressure of the work itself in the process of entrepreneurship, but also bear pressure from society, family and heart. Since there is no conclusion on the happiness of entrepreneurial couples in the existing domestic literature, this study aims to explore whether entrepreneurial couples can improve their happiness in the process of entrepreneurship through spouse support under the condition of co-managing the company. 2. Literature Review Copreneurship, as a special form of family business, has attracted more and more attention at home and abroad. The term "copreneurship" was first conceptualized by Barnett and his wife to describe the phenomenon of entrepreneurship in which husband and wife participate in business management and share ownership, commitment and responsibility in the business (Barnett and Barnett, 1988). In the late 1990s, critics represented by Heenan and Bennis proposed the concept of "co-leadership", that is, two leaders share leadership responsibilities in a vertical position. Since then, the issue of whether co-leadership can improve organizational performance has been widely concerned by BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 183 scholars. According to Xiao Yujia (2019), based on the particularity of relationship identity, co- leadership of husband and wife consists of four core characteristic dimensions: commitment consistency, role complementarity, cooperation reciprocity and emotional dependence. The inherent advantages of co-leadership can be inferred from the four core characteristics. In terms of relationship attributes, the husband and wife shoulder the dual roles of spouse and founder at the same time, which is different from non-family entrepreneurial team members who only assume the role of task (Danes and Jang, 2013). Entrepreneurial couples participate in entrepreneurship based on the same values and goals under the premise of spouse relationship (Matzek et al., 2010). Therefore, spousal identity is the fundamental source of the difference between husband and wife copreneurship and general entrepreneurship. Xiao Yujia (2019) suggests that couples maintain and consolidate their spouse identity by providing relationship support to each other. In view of this, emotional support usually takes the other party's emotional response as the reference of its own behavior adjustment, and perceives the other party's emotion. Instrumental support is manifested in the fact that co-sexuality in the marital relationship also encourages couples to value giving and giving rather than desire reward. In the early days, the origin of happiness was a philosophical concept (Wilson,1967). In addition to the economic field, happiness also provides a new perspective for entrepreneurial activities, namely, happiness in the entrepreneurial process, which focuses on the emotional experience and cognitive judgment of entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial process (Hahn et al., 2012). Hyytinen and Ruuskanen argue that entrepreneurs typically work longer hours and are more exposed to job risks and stress. Expectation theory suggests that the difference between expectations and actual achievement is related to subjective well-being. As the main body in the process of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial couples not only need to meet personal needs, but also need to meet the needs of the family. Some scholars even believe that maintaining marriage is more important than business value for husband and wife entrepreneurship (Nelton, 1986). In view of the fact that husband and wife start- ups face pressure from individual, family, society and other sources, and they require a lot of time and effort from the husband and wife together, the entrepreneurial pressure borne by husband and wife start-ups is more complex than that of husband and wife entrepreneurs or non-self-employed workers. To sum up, co-leadership is a normal form of leadership in the early stage of husband and wife entrepreneurship based on the principle of co-ownership of husband and wife. As a means of maintaining spousal identity, whether spousal support can relieve pressure and increase family happiness in the process of entrepreneurship is not only a key theoretical issue that needs to be revealed, but also has important practical significance for guiding the practice of spousal entrepreneurship and promoting the high-quality development of China's economy. H1：Spousal co-governance has a positive impact on entrepreneurial happiness H2 ： Spousal support can promote the positive relationship between co-governance and entrepreneurial happiness Combined with the above assumptions, the model is proposed as follows: Fig.1 Combined with the above assumptions BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 184 3. Study Design 3.1 Sample Collection Considering the particularity of couples' entrepreneurship samples and the need for sample size for scale verification, the author adopts network questionnaire survey for formal investigation in this paper, so as to complete data collection. The researchers applied an online survey agency to assist in sample collection. The network platform has 322.33 million registered members and 402,900 monthly active users (the number of users who log on the website in a month) as of May 2016. The sample attributes cover individual (gender, age, marriage, etc.), society (region, education, etc.), job (industry, occupation, etc.), property (income) and other aspects. The questionnaire is distributed to the registered and active network users of the platform. Based on the original sample attributes of the network platform, the questionnaire should first fill in the screening items, and the screening conditions are as follows: ① Occupational status: private owners, individual industrial and commercial households, entrepreneurs; ② Marital Status: Married; ③ Additional conditions: husband and wife jointly run and manage the business (full-time), and have 3 or more subordinate employees. The screening items are set to ensure that the answers meet the basic requirements of husband and wife entrepreneurs. After completing the answers successfully, the platform points will be refunded as an encouragement. After screening, 432 questionnaires were collected, and 273 valid questionnaires were obtained after deleting questions (incomplete, inconsistent and obvious rules, etc.), with an effective rate of 63.19%. 3.2 Measurement of Key Variables (1) Co-governance：The joint leadership of husband and wife is the ability of husband and wife to share leadership responsibilities and play a leading role at the highest level of entrepreneurial organizations. The marital co-leadership scale developed by Xiao Yujia (2019) consists of 22 items, consisting of four core characteristic dimensions of commitment consistency, role complementarity, cooperation reciprocity and emotional dependence. For example, "MY spouse and I share our complementary expertise, knowledge and skills." "My spouse and I are independent leaders in our respective fields." "My spouse and I trust each other in starting a business." (2) Spousal support: Spousal support indicates the extent to which an individual satisfies the psychological or spiritual needs of a spouse. Based on the family social support scale designed by Procidano and Heller (1983) and according to the research on couples' entrepreneurship by Danes et al. (2013), this study selects emotional or psychological supporting behavior items suitable for couples' entrepreneurship to form a 5-item scale. For example, "I rely on my spouse for psychological support," or "I talk to my spouse if I'm feeling down about starting a business and can't adjust." (3) Entrepreneurial happiness: Wei Jiang and Quan Ziheng (2014) published an empirical Study on the Entrepreneurial Motivation, environment and Entrepreneurial Happiness of the Second Generation in The Journal of Management. Combined with the characteristics of couples' entrepreneurship, Likert five-point scale was used to quantify the happiness in the entrepreneurial process. For example, "How I feel about the performance of my business", "how I feel about the state of my life". (4) Control variables: This study refers to the study of Matzek et al. (2010) and selects control variables from the three levels of individuals, families and new ventures. Individual variables included gender, age, education level and dominant field. Family variables include marriage years; The level of entrepreneurial enterprises includes the industries they belong to. 3.3 Research methods In this paper, Stata statistical analysis software was used to conduct descriptive statistics and correlation statistics on the samples, and regression analysis was conducted on the statistical results. Empirical data were used to prove the existence of its moderating effect. BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 185 4. Empirical Results The hypothesis testing of the research model is divided into two parts: the first part is the correlation test between descriptive statistics and variables, the second part is the reliability and validity analysis, and the third part is the moderating effect test. Through linear regression test, the correlation coefficient and significance level between variables were investigated, as shown in Table 3 and Table 4. 4.1 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis The following is the descriptive statistics and correlation analysis of the sample data. The correlation coefficient between spouse support and entrepreneurial happiness is 0.69. The correlation coefficient between co-governance and spousal support is 0.77, and that between co-governance and happiness is 0.74, showing a significance level less than 0.01. There is a positive correlation among co-governance, happiness and spousal support. Table 1: Descriptive Statistics (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) VARIABLES N mean sd min max GENDER 305 1.525 0.500 1 2 AGE 305 3.131 0.998 2 6 EDU 305 2.380 0.823 1 4 MARRAGE 305 2.200 0.800 1 5 INDUSTRY 305 2.662 2.060 1 8 COLEADERSHIP 305 5.695 0.624 2.364 6.909 SPOUSALSUPPORT 305 5.557 0.659 2.625 7 WELLBEING 305 5.622 0.609 2.200 6.800 Table 2: Correlation Coefficient SPOUSALS UPPORT WELLB EING COLEAD ERSHIP GEN DER AGE EDU MARR AGE INDUS TRY SPOUSALS UPPORT 1 WELLBEIN G 0.692*** 1 COLEADER SHIP 0.772*** 0.745** * 1 GENDER -0.064 -0.017 -0.015 1 AGE -0.037 0.027 -0.000 - 0.072 1 EDU -0.101* -0.033 -0.134** - 0.191 *** - 0.085 1 MARRAGE -0.037 0.029 -0.019 - 0.025 0.803 *** - 0.211 *** 1 INDUSTRY -0.012 -0.094 -0.035 0.054 0.167 *** 0.202 *** 0.057 1 BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 186 4.2 Reliability and validity test The standardized clonbach Alpha coefficients of co-governance, spouse support and entrepreneurial happiness calculated by SPSS24 software are 0.93, 0.738 and 0.746, respectively, which are all greater than 0.7, so the reliability of this analysis is good. The kronbach coefficients of each item deleted in the scale were all smaller than Alpha after standardization of variables, so there was no need to adjust the three dimensions. After KMO and Bartlett tests, the KMO value is 0.93>0.9, so the questionnaire has good validity. Table 3: Reliability Statistics Variable Alpha Standardized term based Cronbach Alpha Items Co-governance .904 22 Spousal support .748 8 Entrepreneurial happiness .751 5 Table 4: KMO and Bartlett Tests KMO sampling suitability quantity. 0.935 Bartlett sphericity test Approximate chi-square 3760.323 Degrees of freedom 595 significant 0.000 4.3 Regression analysis The regression coefficient of co-governance and entrepreneurial happiness is 0.73 (P <0.01), which indicates that co-governance has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial happiness. Therefore, hypothesis H1 is valid. After the inclusion of control variables, it is tested whether co- governance moderates the positive effects of conjugal governance and entrepreneurial happiness, and its regression coefficients are 0.30 (P <0.01) and 0.04(P <0.01), respectively. Therefore, H2 is assumed to be valid. Table 5: Regression Analysis (1) (2) (3) (4) WELLBEING WELLBEING WELLBEING WELLBEING COLEADER~P 0.7268*** 0.2990** 0.7395*** 0.2986** (0.000) (0.003) (0.000) (0.003) interact~n 0.0435*** 0.0449*** (0.000) (0.000) GENDER 0.0259 0.0495 (0.587) (0.284) AGE -0.0074 0.0044 (0.853) (0.909) EDU 0.0796** 0.0839* (0.010) (0.005) MARRAGE 0.0616 0.0524 (0.220) (0.279) INDUSTRY -0.0276** -0.0286** (0.020) (0.012) _cons 1.4831*** 2.5288*** 1.1434*** 2.1581*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) N 305 305 305 305 p-values in parentheses * p<0.1, ** p<0.05, *** p<0.001 BCP Social Sciences & Humanities HASS 2022 Volume 18 (2022) 187 5. Conclusion In this paper, the theories of co-leadership, spouse support and entrepreneurial happiness are reviewed. Moreover, the empirical analysis method of questionnaire survey was used to explore whether joint governance of husband and wife in the process of husband and wife entrepreneurship has a positive impact on happiness, and whether spousal support can promote this impact. Certain empirical evidence was obtained, which enriched the theoretical research on husband and wife entrepreneurship in China, and verified the following conclusions: Husband and wife co-governance has a positive impact on entrepreneurial happiness. Husband and wife co-governance, as a normal way of leadership in the early stage of a husband and wife business, requires entrepreneurs to achieve consistent commitment, complementary roles, mutual cooperation and emotional dependence. Although the couple has to deal with more complex stressors and devote a lot of time and energy at the same time, they also increase emotional communication at work, and the process of "caring and commitment" increases marital satisfaction. Through the joint efforts of husband and wife, the quality of marriage and life is improved while meeting the needs of individual and family, and the happiness in the process of entrepreneurship is finally improved. Spousal support can promote the positive relationship between co-governance and entrepreneurial happiness. Under the framework of the principle of co-ownership of husband and wife, husband and wife act as a close entrepreneurial community. When entrepreneurial couples face business crises or seek opportunities together, they help each other in human and material resources and comfort each other emotionally. The mutual support of spouses will promote the positive effect of joint governance on entrepreneurial happiness from instrumental and emotional approaches, reduce entrepreneurial risk and entrepreneurial pressure of entrepreneurs, and then improve entrepreneurial happiness in the process of entrepreneurship. References [1] Xiao Jinli, Pan Yue, Dai Yiyi. "Conservative" marriage: Co-ownership and corporate risk taking [J]. Economic research journal,2018,53(05):190-204.] [2] Xiao Yujia. Research on co-leadership mechanism of husband and wife entrepreneurship based on relationship identity [D]. Dalian University of Technology,2019. [3] Wei Jiang, Quan Yuheng. An empirical study on entrepreneurial motivation, environment and entrepreneurial well-being of the "Second generation of entrepreneurs" [J]. Journal of management,2014,11(09):1349-1357. 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In love and in business：How entrepreneur couples are changing the rules of business and marriage.New York：Wiley，1986 [11] Procidano ME,Heller K.Measures of perceived social support from friends and from family:Three validation studies[J].American joumal of community psychology,1983.11(1):1-24 [12] Wilson W R.Correlates of avowed happiness[J]Ps ychological bulletin,1967,67(4):294 1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Study Design 3.1 Sample Collection 3.2 Measurement of Key Variables 3.3 Research methods 4. Empirical Results 4.1 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis 4.2 Reliability and validity test 4.3 Regression analysis 5. Conclusion References