Transitory hybrid entrepreneurship: A path to full-time entrepreneurship

Résumé

The economic success of a country is often correlated to its capacity to produce national champions capable of pulling up the entire economic fabric. For Bruyat (1993) and Fayolle (2004), "business creation has become the object of a social demand that comes from different actors: citizens, governments, different financial organizations, and business creators. Entrepreneurship is therefore a strategic lever for the economic development of a country. Bohas and al. (2018) explain that a new wave of entrepreneurs is emerging in Western countries, made up of full-time entrepreneurs, hybrid entrepreneurs and freelancers.

These individuals, also called "hybrid entrepreneurs," have entrepreneurial activity, which is considered by (Viljamaa and Varamäki, 2017) to be at an early stage of the entrepreneurial process. Hybrid entrepreneurs may decide to leave their jobs to focus primarily on their entrepreneurial ventures "transitional hybrid entrepreneurs" or keep the status quo "persistent hybrid entrepreneurs". In this sense, Viljamaa and Varamäki (2015) and Thorgren and al. (2016) are the first to outline the contours of persistent hybrid entrepreneurship and add that transitional hybrid entrepreneurship as a pathway to full-time entrepreneurship has not been sufficiently studied in the literature.

In our research, we are particularly interested in hybrid entrepreneurship. This form of entrepreneurship consists of two stages. The first is the transition from wage employment to hybrid entrepreneurship and the second is the choice between persistent and transitory hybrid entrepreneurship. Folta and al. (2010) state that it is generally considered a way to obtain additional income. In addition, it is a way to obtain non-monetary benefits such as autonomy and personal fulfillment, which may not be available in the main wage job. In addition, it provides a chance for individuals to experience self-employment and assess whether they can adapt to the full-time self-employment environment (Folta and al., 2010). In this way, individuals can reduce the costs of change and transition without having to leave salaried employment while starting small (Folta and al., 2010; Raffiee and Feng, 2014; Thorgren and al., 2014). 

Therefore, we will take a close look at the second phase of hybrid entrepreneurship, specifically transitory hybrid entrepreneurship. We will try to demonstrate the main differences between persistent and transitory hybrid entrepreneurs; answering the following question: what are the explanatory factors of transitory hybrid entrepreneurship? To do this, we will rely on the theory of planned behavior developed by Ajzen (1991). We expect that entrepreneurial attitude and perceived behavioral control contribute more than subjective norms to the explanation of transitory hybrid entrepreneurship.

Keywords: hybrid entrepreneurship, Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), transitory hybrid entrepreneurship.

JEL Classification: L26 

Paper type: Theoretical Research