What Makes Entrepreneurship Worth Doing? A Review and Research Agenda on Entrepreneurial Meaningfulness

Sean M. Dwyer () and Boris Nikolaev ()
Additional contact information
Sean M. Dwyer: The University of Oklahoma, Price College of Business
Boris Nikolaev: Colorado State University, College of Business

A chapter in Work Meaning and Motivation, 2026, pp 81-113 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract What makes entrepreneurship worth doing? While research on meaningful work has gained significant attention over the years, only recently has research begun to thoroughly examine this topic in the context of self-employment. Self-employment is a complex context for studying meaningful work, considering the positive and negative aspects of this type of work. On the positive side, the self-directed nature of self-employment, the primary focus of this chapter, offers autonomy and control over work that enables fulfilling aspirations, expressing one’s identity, and aligning personal values in work in ways that may be less feasible in employed work. On the other side, self-employment often entails long working hours, significant stress, and heightened responsibilities. This chapter provides a review of theoretical perspectives, methods, measurements, findings, and debates in the meaningful work literature to establish a theoretical foundation for research on meaningful work in the context of self-employment. We introduce the concept of entrepreneurial meaningfulness, which we define as the subjective global judgment that one’s work as an entrepreneur is personally significant and has positive valence. Entrepreneurial meaningfulness is shaped by work characteristics distinct to self-employment—ownership control, ownership responsibility, and ownership risk—as well as those found in traditional work contexts. We theorize that entrepreneurial meaningfulness will have a significant influence on important entrepreneurial outcomes, such as entrepreneurial persistence, well-being, and performance. We outline a research agenda to advance research on this important yet under-examined concept, which holds promise for broadening our understanding of what makes entrepreneurship worth doing.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial meaningfulness; Meaningful work; Job characteristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:esichp:978-3-032-23826-9_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032238269

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-23826-9_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().