Stephan Ute, Tavares Susana M, Carvalho Helena, Ramalho Joaquim J S, Santos Susana C, van Veldhoven Marc
King's College London, King's Business School, 30 Aldwych, London WC2B 4BG, United Kingdom.
Business Research Unit, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisbon, Portugal.
J Bus Ventur. 2020 Nov;35(6):106047. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2020.106047. Epub 2020 Sep 9.
This study investigates and self-employment is related to higher levels of eudaimonic well-being. We focus on meaningfulness as an important eudaimonic process and subjective vitality as a eudaimonic well-being outcome that is central to entrepreneurs' proactivity. Building on self-determination theory, we posit that self-employment, relative to wage-employment, is a more self-determined and volitional career choice, which enhances the experience of meaningfulness at work and perceptions of work autonomy. In a multi-level study of 22,002 individuals and 16 European countries, meaningfulness at work mediates the relationship between self-employment and subjective vitality and explains this relationship better than work autonomy. We identify moderating effects of context: the societal legitimacy of entrepreneurship in a country affects the choice set of alternative career options that individuals can consider and thus shapes the experience of meaningfulness at work and work autonomy, and thereby indirectly subjective vitality. These findings expand our understanding of eudaimonic well-being, entrepreneurs' work, and the role of context in entrepreneurship and well-being research. They complement existing research on hedonic well-being of entrepreneurs and extend the scarce literature on their eudaimonic well-being.
本研究调查了自营职业与更高水平的心理幸福感之间的关系。我们将意义视为一个重要的心理幸福过程，将主观活力视为心理幸福感的一个结果，而主观活力对于创业者的积极性至关重要。基于自我决定理论，我们认为，相对于受雇就业，自营职业是一种更具自我决定性和自主性的职业选择，这会增强工作中的意义体验和工作自主性认知。在一项对22002名个体和16个欧洲国家的多层次研究中，工作意义在自营职业与主观活力之间起中介作用，并且比工作自主性能更好地解释这种关系。我们确定了背景的调节作用：一个国家创业的社会合法性会影响个体可考虑的替代职业选择集，从而塑造工作中的意义体验和工作自主性，进而间接影响主观活力。这些发现扩展了我们对心理幸福感、创业者工作以及背景在创业与幸福感研究中作用的理解。它们补充了现有关于创业者享乐幸福感的研究，并扩展了关于其心理幸福感的稀缺文献。
