Formal Sector Work Socialisation and Venture Practices among Gulf-returnee Entrepreneurs in Nepal: The Mediating Role of Psychological Resilience

This article investigates the role of psychological resilience as a mediator between Gulf formal-sector employment experience and enterprise practices in which returnees engage in Nepal. This research employed cross-sectional data of 403 Gulf-returnee entrepreneurs from 65 districts in all seven provinces using PLS-SEM, treating work socialisation and venture practices as higher-order constructs. All four hypotheses were supported by the empirical evidence. Work socialisation was positively associated with both resilience and venture practices, and resilience was also positively associated with venture practices. Resilience was a weak partial mediator, with the bulk of the association between Gulf work experience and venture practices being direct rather than via resilience. The pattern is indicative of more adaptation of familiar workplace practices rather than personal transformation. Because the study is retrospective and cross-sectional, all relationships are presented as associations, rather than causal effects. This study has limitations such as self-reported data from one source and a three-item resilience scale. Thus, the estimated mediating effect can be regarded as suggestive instead of definitive. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study treats social remittances as the transmission of work-related knowledge and practices and contributes new insights to the little-researched Nepal-Gulf migration route.