Investigating the Relationship Between Work Burnout and Engagement With Business Performance (Study Case: Rural Entrepreneurs of Nahavand County)

According to the literature, psychological factors play an important role in explaining entrepreneurial outcomes, but the impact of these factors on rural businesses has received less attention. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between two factors of psychological well-being, namely work burnout and engagement, and the performance of rural businesses in Nahavand county. The statistical population of this research consisted of all rural entrepreneurs in Nahavand county (N = 200), among whom 110 people were selected as the sample using a convenience sampling method. Research data were collected through a questionnaire, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data in SmartPLS 3.0 statistical software. The results indicated that work burnout was not directly related to business performance. However, indirectly, it has a negative relationship with business performance via work engagement. In other words, work burnout reduces entrepreneurs’ work engagement, and the reduction in work engagement, in turn, leads to a decrease in the performance of rural businesses. This finding improves our understanding of how psychological factors influence entrepreneurial outcomes and suggests that entrepreneurs can increase their business performance by improving their work well-being.