Liability of newness: assessing couple social support when starting a new business venture

Study purpose was to investigate adapted social support instruments of nurturance and affiliation with male and female entrepreneurs and spouses starting a new business. Family Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation theory was the theoretical grounding. Business structure differed by entrepreneur gender in both direct and indirect spousal involvement. Both couple types were highly connected with their firms having high nurturance and affiliation scores. When couple discrepancies were compared, more male entrepreneur couples had shared meaning on business-oriented nurturance questions compared with female entrepreneur couples. The opposite was true for shared meaning on relationship-oriented nurturance. For all affiliation questions, more male entrepreneur couples had shared meaning than did female entrepreneur couples. Clinical applications of resulting instruments are discussed.