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

Peter Warr and Ilke Inceoglu
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Peter Warr: University of Sheffield, UK
Ilke Inceoglu: University of Surrey, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2018, vol. 32, issue 2, 292-311

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.

Keywords: job engagement; job satisfaction; person–job fit; preferences; professional workers; self-employment; values; work orientations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:32:y:2018:i:2:p:292-311

DOI: 10.1177/0950017017717684

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