A cross national preservative work job
Although many governments actively stimulate self-employment, their work-related mental well-being remains understudied. The aim of current study is to investigate the mental well-being of different types of self-employed, testing whether mental well-being differences among self-employed are explained by the presence of work characteristics that are in accordance with the ideal-typical image of the “successful entrepreneur” (e.g. creativity, willingness to take risks, innovativeness, high intrinsic motivation, skilfulness and the ability of recognizing opportunities). Moreover, we investigate the relation of country-level “entrepreneurial climate” and the individual mental well-being of self-employed. For this purpose, data from the European Working Conditions Survey, round 6 (2015) was analysed, including 5448 cases, originating from the 28 EU-member states. Multilevel random intercept modelling was used to investigate associations of both individual- and country-level characteristics with mental well-being. We found that motivation, the ability to recognize opportunities, and finding it to self-employed positively influences the mental well-being self-employed.
Defining the self-employed
Two approaches towards defining and classifying the self-employed may be adopted. A first, objective, approach derives self-employment from the legal, societal, and contractual framework of each country (Casson, 2003). Although, such an approach typically results in idiosyncratic descriptions, some general criteria can be applied to distinguish self-employed from other types of workers and to make sub-classifications among the self-employed. According to Eurofound (2010), characteristics to identify and classify self-employed are: the absence of a wage-labour-relation (at least formally); a certain degree of economic and organisational independency; working alone or having employees; and the magnitude of the economic activity (De Moortel & Vanroelen, 2017). In order to turn the objective approach into an element of research, multiple combinations of attributes and characteristics can be used to make typologies (Webster, 1977). In this research, a 7-category classification based on a consensus model developed for EUROFOUND is used, distinguishing between (1) medium-to-big employers, (2) small employers, (3) independent freelancers, (4) dependent freelancers, (5) liberal professions, (6) farmers, no employer and (7) others (De Moortel & Vanroelen, 2017) – this classification is further discussed in the methods section.
The second approach is of a subjective nature, and attaches the definition of self-employment to the discourse of the “entrepreneurial self” . According to entrepreneurial discourse, key characteristics of an ideal and successful “entrepreneur” are creativity, willingness to take risks, innovativeness, high intrinsic motivation, skilfulness and the ability of recognising opportunities According to this discourse, the self-employed person is projected as a hero and seen as the engine of society . The characteristics of the self-employed are even something to aspire to for everyone So, from this subjective perspective, “real self-employed” are those people disposing of the attributes associated with the entrepreneurial self According to critics, pursuing the entrepreneurial characteristics traps people in a new highly ideological ideal of neoliberalism of which it can be questioned to what extent even “real self-employed” actually meet up to. It can certainly be assumed, that different types of self-employed meet up to the ideal of the entrepreneur to different extends. Therefore, in this study we will test whether these characteristics embedded in the entrepreneurial discourse are able to explain mental well-being differences between types of self-employed.
. The mental well-being of self-employed
If entrepreneurial characteristics are a recipe for a successful life, it is logical to assume that the self-employed should experience positive individual consequences from their work, since it can be assumed that they have high amounts of entrepreneurial characteristics. This assumption is supported with some empirical evidence, showing that self-employed experience more autonomy, self-determination and freedom in their job In general, self-employed appear to be more motivated and which could be the reason for findings of higher job satisfaction , life satisfaction and mental compared to other groups of workers.
Other studies however, show that better health status of self-employed is largely due to selection effects of healthy people into self-employment, while engaging in self-employment itself is not particularly beneficial for health High economic insecurity low support , high workloads and long working may have negative consequences for the mental well-being of self-employed. A too strong work-commitment may also lead to insufficient effort into other domains of life, affecting mental well-being negatively.
- Enable small and new businesses, especially in untapped communities, to prosper and create good jobs through access to capital, networks, and technology
Enetrepreneurial followers are defined as the crucial members of a specific entrepreneurial team and do not include the leader or normal employees in the present paper. This population can be viewed as indispensable factors in the success of entrepreneurship, especially in the start-up stage. In addition, according to the following time, they can be divided into two groups, namely long-term entrepreneurial followers and short-term entrepreneurial followers. However, studies focusing on entrepreneurship cultivation for entrepreneurial followers are relatively few. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the needs of Chinese entrepreneurial followers in entrepreneurship cultivation the early stage entrepreneurship.
- Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea
