Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Human Sciences, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden.
Unit of Research, Education and Development, Östersund Hospital, Östersund, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2022 Mar 18;17(3):e0265029. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265029. eCollection 2022.
The response of small business managers to an external event such as the pandemic can have a profound effect on the work environment, health and well-being for themselves and their employees. Previous research on small business managers during the pandemic has mainly focused on traditional pathogenic effects, and there is a lack of studies looking at the issue from a salutogenic health promotion perspective. The aim of this study is to explore whether a sense of coherence and general resistance resources were experienced by small business managers in Sweden and Norway during the Covid-19 pandemic.
A qualitative design was applied through exploratory interviews with 16 managers of small businesses in Sweden and Norway. A content analysis of the interviews was conducted using the sense of coherence concept by Aaron Antonovsky, with the three main components of comprehensibility, meaningfulness and manageability acting as a conceptual framework for the analysis process.
Within the three main sense-of-coherence categories, six general resistance resources were identified as being important for the managers to handle uncertainty during the pandemic. These were understanding rules and regulations, social support, optimism, proactivity, problem-solving and flexibility and cooperation.
The small business managers handled the pandemic in a way that worked well in their contexts, and the pandemic generally did not have a negative effect on their businesses or themselves. A salutogenic approach, through which the managers focused on identifying and using resources, was an important factor for managing stressors and adversity during the pandemic. Hence, the concept of salutogenesis may be used as an intervention to foster better health in small businesses, both at a personal and organisational level in order to handle future challenges effectively.
小企业管理者对外部事件（如大流行）的反应会对他们自己和员工的工作环境、健康和幸福感产生深远影响。先前对大流行期间小企业管理者的研究主要集中在传统的病原学效应上，缺乏从健康促进的角度来看待这个问题的研究。本研究旨在探讨在新冠疫情期间，瑞典和挪威的小企业管理者是否体验到了综合感和一般抵抗资源。
采用定性设计，通过对瑞典和挪威 16 名小企业管理者的探索性访谈进行研究。采用 Aaron Antonovsky 的综合感概念对访谈进行内容分析，以可理解性、有意义性和可管理性这三个主要综合感组成部分作为分析过程的概念框架。
在三个主要的综合感类别内，确定了在大流行期间对管理者处理不确定性非常重要的六种一般抵抗资源。这些资源包括了解规则和法规、社会支持、乐观、主动性、解决问题和灵活性以及合作。
小企业管理者以适应其环境的方式应对了大流行，大流行总体上对他们的企业或自身没有负面影响。一种健康促进方法，即管理者专注于识别和利用资源，是在大流行期间应对压力源和逆境的重要因素。因此，在个人和组织层面上，生成健康学概念可用于促进小企业的健康，以有效应对未来的挑战。
