Is becoming self-employed a panacea for job satisfaction? Longitudinal evidence from work to self-employment transitions

Using British longitudinal data, we investigate whether individuals enjoy a permanent boost in their job satisfaction by becoming self-employed. We track individuals before and after transitions from work to self-employment and record changes in their job and domain satisfaction scores. We find that job satisfaction follows a rising trajectory immediately upon transition into self-employment and a declining trajectory in subsequent years, as expectations fail to materialize and the novelty of the new venture wanes down. Thus, our findings confirm that job satisfaction gains are not necessarily permanent, suggesting that self-employment is not always a panacea for job satisfaction.

Final Accepted version: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Georgellis, Y. and Yusuf, A. (2016), Is Becoming Self-Employed a Panacea for Job Satisfaction? Longitudinal Evidence from Work to Self-Employment Transitions. Journal of Small Business Management, 54: 53–76. doi:10.1111/jsbm.12292, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jsbm.12292. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving

Special Issue: Entrepreneurship from Orientation to Innovation
October 2016, Volume 54, Issue Supplement S1. The copyright line for this article was changed on April 24, 2017 after original online publication