Measurement of hard-life experiences through the psychological sense: the SEM approach

This paper aims to develop a scale for hard-life experiences through the psychological sense. Past hardships can impact individuals' cognition, stress levels, and resilience.  This scale can be applied in various research areas, such as psychology, health, behavior, and decision-making in organizations. Learning about hard-life experiences is one aspect of longitudinal studies on the historical life of key leaders, who are business owners, crucial managers, and entrepreneurs focusing on the traumatic feeling during lifetime living from childhood to adulthood. A total of 149 key leaders who are business owners, crucial managers, and entrepreneurs in Vietnam responded to a survey. Structural equation modeling investigated the validity and reliability of hard-life experience measurement scales with two coherent constructs. The findings of this research discovered two sub-scales chronic and acute hard-life experiences to measure key leaders’ hardship during their lifetime, equivalenting for the period of childhood up to adolescence, and the adult period of individual key leaders essentially. This study makes a significant contribution by introducing a new benchmark to the existing literature on the experiences of business owners, crucial managers, and entrepreneurs. Scholars can later use this scale to investigate relationships between hard-life experience factors and others by quantitative methods.