IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v32y2018i2p292-311.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Work Orientations, Well-Being and Job Content of Self-Employed and Employed Professionals

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Warr

    (University of Sheffield, UK)

  • Ilke Inceoglu

    (University of Surrey, UK)

Abstract

Drawing on psychology-derived theories and methods, a questionnaire survey compared principal kinds of work orientation, job content and mental well-being between self-employed and organisationally employed professional workers. Self-employment was found to be particularly associated with energised well-being in the form of job engagement. The presence in self-employment of greater challenge, such as an enhanced requirement for personal innovation, accounted statistically for self-employed professionals’ greater job engagement, and self-employed professionals more strongly valued personal challenge than did professionals employed in an organisation. However, no between-role differences occurred in respect of supportive job features such as having a comfortable workplace. Differences in well-being, job content and work orientations were found primarily in comparison between self-employees and organisational non-managers. The study emphasises the need to distinguish conceptually and empirically between different forms of work orientation, job content and well-being, and points to the value of incorporating psychological thinking in some sociological research.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Warr & Ilke Inceoglu, 2018. "Work Orientations, Well-Being and Job Content of Self-Employed and Employed Professionals," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(2), pages 292-311, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:2:p:292-311
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017017717684
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017017717684
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017017717684?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchflower, David G & Oswald, Andrew J, 1998. "What Makes an Entrepreneur?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 26-60, January.
    2. Andreas Freytag & Roy Thurik (ed.), 2010. "Entrepreneurship and Culture," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-87910-7, February.
    3. Warr, Peter & Bindl, Uta K. & Parker, Sharon K. & Inceoglu, Ilke, 2014. "Four-quadrant investigation of job-related affects and behaviours," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 53129, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Matthias Benz & Bruno S. Frey, 2008. "Being Independent is a Great Thing: Subjective Evaluations of Self‐Employment and Hierarchy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(298), pages 362-383, May.
    5. Benz, Matthias & Frey, Bruno S., 2008. "The value of doing what you like: Evidence from the self-employed in 23 countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(3-4), pages 445-455, December.
    6. Robert Tuttle & Michael Garr, 2009. "Self-Employment, Work–Family Fit and Mental Health Among Female Workers," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 282-292, September.
    7. Matthias Benz & Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "The Value of Autonomy: Evidence from the Self-Employed in 23 Countries," IEW - Working Papers 173, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Andersson, Pernilla, 2008. "Happiness and health: Well-being among the self-employed," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 213-236, February.
    9. Florian Noseleit, 2010. "The Entrepreneurial Culture: Guiding Principles of the Self-Employed," Springer Books, in: Andreas Freytag & Roy Thurik (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Culture, chapter 0, pages 41-54, Springer.
    10. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk & Niels Noorderhaven, 2005. "Personality Characteristics of Self-Employed; An Empirical Study," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 159-167, March.
    11. Jerome A. Katz, 1993. "How Satisfied Are the Self-Employed: A Secondary Analysis Approach," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 17(3), pages 35-51, April.
    12. Chris Dawson & Andrew Henley & Paul Latreille, 2014. "Individual Motives for Choosing Self-employment in the UK: Does Region Matter?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(5), pages 804-822, May.
    13. Gail Hebson & Jill Rubery & Damian Grimshaw, 2015. "Rethinking job satisfaction in care work: looking beyond the care debates," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 29(2), pages 314-330, April.
    14. Stefanie König & Beate Cesinger, 2015. "Gendered work–family conflict in Germany: do self-employment and flexibility matter?," Post-Print hal-02011121, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Carree & Ingrid Verheul, 2012. "What Makes Entrepreneurs Happy? Determinants of Satisfaction Among Founders," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 371-387, April.
    2. Nikolova, Milena, 2018. "Self-Employment Can Be Good for Your Health," GLO Discussion Paper Series 226, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Thomas Markussen & Maria Fibæk & Finn Tarp & Nguyen Do Anh Tuan, 2018. "The Happy Farmer: Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being in Rural Vietnam," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1613-1636, August.
    4. Martin Binder & Alex Coad, 2013. "Life satisfaction and self-employment: a matching approach," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 1009-1033, May.
    5. HONJO Yuji & IKEUCHI Kenta & NAKAMURA Hiroki, 2019. "Do Entrepreneurs Have High Life Satisfaction? Evidence from Japan," Discussion papers 19083, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Nikolova, Milena, 2019. "Switching to self-employment can be good for your health," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 664-691.
    7. Aguilar, Alexandra Cortés & García Muñoz, Teresa M. & Moro-Egido, Ana I., 2013. "Heterogeneous self-employment and satisfaction in Latin America," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 44-61.
    8. Raquel Justo & Emilio Congregado & Concepción Román, 2021. "Becoming self-employed from inactivity: an in-depth analysis of satisfaction," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 145-187, January.
    9. Thomas Lange, 2012. "Job satisfaction and self-employment: autonomy or personality?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 165-177, February.
    10. Koch, Michael & Park, Sarah & Zahra, Shaker A., 2021. "Career patterns in self-employment and career success," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(1).
    11. Josette Dijkhuizen & Marc van Veldhoven & René Schalk, 2016. "Four Types of Well-being among Entrepreneurs and Their Relationships with Business Performance," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 25(2), pages 184-210, September.
    12. Díaz Serrano, Lluís & Teruel, Mercedes, 2020. "On the Link between Self-Employment and Job Satisfaction: What Do Really Change after Becoming a Self-Employee?," Working Papers 2072/376034, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    13. Cueto, Begona & Pruneda, Gabriel, 2015. "Job Satisfaction of Wage and Self-Employed workers. Do preferences make a difference?," MPRA Paper 65432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Roy Thurik & Marcus Dejardin, 2012. "Entrepreneurship and Culture," Post-Print halshs-00943684, HAL.
    15. Falco, Paolo & Maloney, William F. & Rijkers, Bob & Sarrias, Mauricio, 2015. "Heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing: An application to occupational allocation in Africa," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 137-153.
    16. Tåg, Joacim & Åstebro, Thomas & Thompson, Peter, 2016. "Hierarchies and entrepreneurship," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 129-147.
    17. Michael Wyrwich, 2020. "The value orientation of entrepreneurs in challenging institutional contexts: Insights from a unique historical episode," Jena Economics Research Papers 2020-001, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    18. Pakura, Stefanie, 2015. "Unternehmerische Motivation und Wiedergründungsbereitschaft: Eine empirische Untersuchung deutscher Unternehmensneugründungen in der Frühentwicklungsphase," Lüneburger Beiträge zur Gründungsforschung 10, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Department of Entrepreneurship & Start-up Management.
    19. Shashwati Banerjee & Kishor Goswami, 2020. "Self-employed or Paid Employed: Who can Earn more among the Slum Dwellers and Why?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 20(1), pages 7-25, January.
    20. Pham, Tho & Talavera, Oleksandr & Zhang, Mao, 2018. "Self-employment, financial development, and well-being: Evidence from China, Russia, and Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 754-769.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:2:p:292-311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.