Using German panel data, this study compares responses of self-employed workers' wellbeing and paid employees' well-being to the loss of work. The empirical analyses show that life satisfaction ...decreases substantially more in the probability of losing work when self-employed than when paidemployed. It also turns out that becoming unemployed yields a much stronger decline in self-employed workers' life satisfaction than in paid employees' life satisfaction. Although these results do not necessarily represent causal effects, they indicate that losing selfemployment is an even more harmful life event than losing dependent employment. Further analyses substantiate this conclusion. It is also shown that nonmonetary reasons may explain much more than monetary reasons why the self-employed seem to suffer in particular from unemployment. In addition, the difference in the responses of well-being to unemployment between self-employed workers and paid-employed workers originates from varying levels of life satisfaction after terminating work, but not from divergent levels of life satisfaction before terminating work. One implication of these findings is that the potential psychological cost of unemployment might constitute a risk that prevents workers from going into business by themselves.
For older workers, self-employment is an important alternative to waged employment. Drawing on social learning theory and social cognitive career theory we examine how attitudes toward one's own ...aging, future time perspective (captured by perceived time left to live) and perceived support from referent individuals predict self-efficacy for entrepreneurship and outcome expectations, influencing self-employment interest. Findings from a sample of professional association members (
= 174, mean age 52.5 years), revealed that an open-ended time perspective relates positively to entrepreneurial self-efficacy, while social support relates positively to outcome expectations. Consistent with social cognitive career theory, entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediated the relationship between future time perspective and interest in self-employment, and outcome expectations mediated the relationship between social support and interest in self-employment. This study extends current career and entrepreneurship theory in several ways. First, the inclusion of age-related psychosocial and sociocultural factors in the study model shed light on the intersection between older age, the contextual environment and development of self-employment interest. Second, the findings support earlier arguments that older entrepreneurship is a social process whereby the social context in which people work and live influences their interest in entrepreneurship, and that entrepreneurial behavior among older people needs to be supported to occur. Finally, the findings suggest the utility of social cognitive career theory in informing the development of self-employment interest in the late career stage. We discuss implications for the career and entrepreneurship literatures as well as practitioners involved in late-career counseling or seeking to promote entrepreneurship for older people.
Being a Self-Employed Older Woman Meliou, Elina; Mallett, Oliver; Rosenberg, Shoshanna
Work, employment and society,
06/2019, Letnik:
33, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article presents an autobiographical account of an older woman’s lived experience of self-employment. Little is known about women who experience ongoing self-employment into their 50s and ...beyond. Shoshanna’s personal narrative describes her experiences and the challenges she has faced as she reflects upon her attempts to grow and sustain her business and the implications of ageism and gender inequality in laying a claim to entrepreneurship. The narrative proceeds to reflect on her activist work, as it is constructed through the creation of a social enterprise to support older people. Shoshanna’s narrative provides valuable insights into the intersection of age and gender in self-employment moving from discrimination to active support.
Using survey data from 25 European countries, we can show that in most of the countries the self-employed are more satisfied with their jobs than employees. This paper aims to discuss the reasons why ...this is the case. The results show that part of the differences in job satisfaction between employees and self-employed individuals are due to creativity and autonomy in self-employment. This suggests that our results are in line with procedural utility theory (Benz & Frey, 2004, 2008). In other words, especially self-employed individuals seem to derive utility from the way outcomes are achieved.
PurposeThis research extends the knowledge on the less-frequently explored outcomes of entrepreneurial endeavour. The study provides unique insights into the overall satisfaction of entrepreneurs ...with their life, job and financial situation, as well as perceived economic self-sufficiency and income. The obtained findings represent a specific group of Czech self-employed individuals who started their businesses while unemployed, with the help of public financial assistance.Design/methodology/approachThe presented contribution is based on a primary survey among those individuals (N = 128), conducted in 2022 and triangulated by insights from informal interviews with the respondents and earlier empirical evidence.FindingsThe main findings document that most of the surveyed entrepreneurs are overall satisfied with their lives and jobs, their incomes are above the minimum wage and, despite the challenges faced, they mainly benefit from autonomy associated with this career choice. The multivariate ordered logistic regression results highlight the significance of several previously identified variables, such as gender, health status, formal education, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and family situation, that influence the studied outcomes and provide opportunities and challenges for ongoing research.Originality/valueThe conducted study acknowledges the need to consider the whole picture of entrepreneurship success. Therefore, it provided insights into the monetary and non-monetary outcomes of the specific type of entrepreneurship.
The relative stability of differences in entrepreneurial activity across countries suggests that other than economic factors are at play. The present paper offers some new thoughts about the ...determinants of entrepreneurial attitudes and activities by testing the relationship between institutional variables and cross-country differences in the preferences for self-employment as well as in actual self-employment. Data of the 25 member states of the European Union as well as the US are used. The results show that country specific (cultural) variables seem to explain the preference for entrepreneurship, but cannot explain actual entrepreneurship. The present paper also introduces the remaining four papers of the special issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, which center around the theme Entrepreneurship and Culture. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
This study examines the main push and pull factors driving Hispanic self-employment in the USA by modeling the self-employment decision as a function of sectoral earnings differences, country of ...origin, and other factors. Findings indicate that a main reason Hispanics engage in self-employment is they can earn more working for themselves than in wage/salary work. Immigrants appear to be pushed into self-employment as a result of limited opportunities in the wage work sector. Although low relative earnings in wage/salary work could push workers with limited English proficiency into self-employment, our findings indicate barriers to this. Results suggest that workers pulled into selfemployment are those with more work experience and a college degree. Workers who originate from Southern South America and Colombia have relatively high selfemployment rates, while Mexico-origin workers have relatively low self-employment rates. We also uncover differences across Hispanic origin groups in terms of the influence of gender, education, and personal wealth on self-employment participation.
Previous studies have argued that entrepreneurs earn less and bear more risk than salaried workers with otherwise similar characteristics. In a simple model of entrepreneurship, I show that estimates ...of mean and variance of returns to entrepreneurship used by these previous studies are biased, as they fail to account for the option value of experimenting with new ideas. Using longitudinal data, I find patterns that are consistent with entrepreneurship as experimentation and returns to entrepreneurship that are more attractive than established by previous research.
This study examines how modes of entrepreneurship education (active, such as business simulations, versus reflective, such as theory lectures) - alone and in interaction with the universities' ...regional context - affect students' self-employment intentions. Results from a cross-level analysis show that active modes are, irrespective of the regional context, positively related with intentions and attitudes towards entrepreneurship, whereas the effect of reflective modes is contingent on the regional context. The findings have important implications for the ongoing discussion on the teachability of entrepreneurship, the design of educational programmes and for future research.
Purpose
Unlike the effect of management styles on employee attitudes, little is known about the effect of managerial assumptions on workers within the gig economy. The purpose of this paper is to ...utilize McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y as a framework to discuss two gig economy platforms and how their differing management assumptions affect worker perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.
Design/methodology/approach
The author utilized qualitative interviews and demographic surveys with 41 contract workers from TaskRabbit, a personal assistant platform, and Kitchensurfing, a “rent-a-chef” service, to examine the impact of differing management assumptions on independent contractor perceptions of themselves as entrepreneurs.
Findings
The Theory X management assumptions and correlated behaviors directly contradict the entrepreneurial ethos marketed by the platforms, resulting in a psychological contract violation for workers and negative responses to the platform. In comparison, Theory Y managerial assumptions and correlated behaviors can be utilized to encourage worker innovation, creativity and sense of self as an entrepreneur.
Practical implications
As the gig economy continues to grow, algorithms are likely to take on increased importance as a management tool. Although some have suggested that such algorithms may reduce the impact of a capricious manager, the fact remains that algorithms are created by management. If the gig economy intends to encourage entrepreneurship, additional attention must be paid to how differing management assumptions, and their resulting behaviors and algorithms, affect worker attitudes and experience.
Originality/value
This study represents one of the initial academic investigations into how the Theory X and Theory Y management assumptions and correlated perspectives may be applied to independent contractors within the gig economy. Additionally, this study is among the first to examine how gig worker attitudes toward platform firms, and views of themselves as entrepreneurs, are affected by algorithm-implemented management policies.
PDF
