Ex-entrepreneurs can thrive in the right employee roles, UCF researcher finds in new study
Assistant Professor Jeff Gish co-authored a study which found that former entrepreneurs can successfully transition into employees, especially in roles that harness their entrepreneurial spirit.
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IN THE STUDY, RESEARCHERS EXAMINED THE IDENTITY CONFLICT LEVELS OF FORMER ENTREPRENEURS WHO WENT ON TO WORK FOR AN ORGANIZATION. IMAGE CREDIT: ANTOINE HART
view moreCREDIT: ANTOINE HART/UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
ORLANDO, Dec. 7, 2023 — Once an entrepreneur always an entrepreneur? Not necessarily, says a new study by researchers at the University of Central Florida and Purdue University. Former entrepreneurs can transition from being their own boss into successful employees within an organization, especially in roles that harness their entrepreneurial spirit, according to a recent study published in Personnel Psychology.
“With today’s career paths typically spanning multiple roles across a variety of organizations, understanding the transition between someone’s old work self and new work self may be critical to not only the employee’s success but also the company’s,” says Jeff Gish, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship in UCF’s College of Business and the study’s co-author.
Gish and co-author Jordan Nielsen, an assistant professor of management organizational behavior/human resources at Purdue, examined the identity conflict levels of former entrepreneurs who went on to work for an organization.
Research has shown that former entrepreneurs frequently experience a “founder penalty” when applying for jobs, losing out to applicants who have never been self-employed. Employers assume former entrepreneurs may be more difficult to manage or will jump ship to start another company and be their own boss again. This new research suggests that this need not be the case for all jobs or for all ex-entrepreneurs.
They surveyed ex-entrepreneurs about their current work identity and whether they felt they could act like an entrepreneur in their current work role or if they had to suppress their entrepreneurial spirit. They also surveyed the ex-entrepreneurs’ romantic partners about whether the employee spoke highly of their current organization, engaging in boosterism or experienced burnout in the role.
Gish and Nielsen found that identity conflict between the old entrepreneurial self and the new employee self was associated with higher levels of burnout and lower levels of boosterism.
“Ex-entrepreneurs who felt a strong nostalgia for being their own boss tended to be the ones who were the most negatively affected, with the highest levels of burnout and lowest levels of boosterism,” Nielsen says. “To mitigate this, organizations could use interview questions to help identify those who may be more likely to suffer negative consequences or develop positions and onboarding practices that minimize this source of conflict and lay a stronger foundation for success.”
JOURNAL
Personnel Psychology
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
When old and new selves collide: Identity conflict and entrepreneurial nostalgia among ex-entrepreneurs
Petty Bourgeoisie and Middle Class. The lower middle class or the petty (petite) bourgeoisie (the bourgeoisie was sometimes called the middle class in this era), “are smallowners who still work their own means of production, or owner-workers” (Adams and Sydie, p. 134). The characteristic of this class is that it does own some property, but not sufficient to have all work done by employees or workers. Members of this class must also work in order to survive, so they have a dual existence – as (small scale) property owners and as workers. Because of this dual role, members of this class have divided interests, usually wishing to preserve private property and property rights, but with interests often opposed to those of the capitalist class. This class is split internally as well, being geographically, industrially, and politically dispersed, so that it is difficult for it to act as a class. Marx expected that this class would disappear as capitalism developed, with members moving into the bourgeoisie or into the working class, depending on whether or not they were successful. Many in this class have done this, but at the same time, this class seems to keep recreating itself in different forms.
Marx considers the petite bourgeoisie to be politically conservative or reactionary, preferring to return to an older order. This class has been considered by some Marxists to have been the base of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. At other times, when the petty bourgeoisie is acting in opposition to the interests of large capital, it may have a more radical or reformist bent to it – for example, small employers may express opposition to large monopolies that may be attempting to eliminate small businesses.
Note on the Middle Class. The issue of the middle class or classes appears to be a major issue within Marxian theory, one often addressed by later Marxists. Many Marxists attempt to show that the middle class is declining, and polarization of society into two classes is a strong tendency within capitalism. Marx's view was that the successful members of the middle class would become members of the bourgeoisie, while the unsuccessful would be forced into the proletariat. In the last few years, many have argued that in North America, and perhaps on a world scale, there is an increasing gap between rich and poor and there is a declining middle.
While there have been tendencies in this direction, especially among the farmers and peasantry, there has been no clear long run trend toward decline of the middle class. At the same time as there has been polarization of classes, there have been new middle groupings created. Some of these are small business people, shopkeepers, and small producers while others are professional and managerial personnel, and some intellectual personnel. Well paid working class members and independent trades people might consider themselves to be members of the middle class. Some segments of this grouping have expanded in number in recent years. While it is not clear that these groups hold together and constitute a class in any Marxian sense of being combined in opposition to other classes, they do form a middle grouping. Since Marx's prediction has not come true, sociologists and other writers have devoted much attention to explaining this middle grouping – what is its basis, what are the causes of its stability or growth, how it fits into the class structure, and what are the effects of its existence on proletariat and bourgeoisie.
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