Browsing by Author "Jansen, Paul"

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    Autonomy as a start-up motive
    (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2006) Van Gelderen, Marco; Jansen, Paul
    Autonomy is a primary motive for a large majority of small business starters. However, as an explanation of why people want their own (autonomous) business it is largely circular. Therefore we focus on an explanation of the autonomy motive itself. Specifically, it is questioned why small business starters want autonomy. In answering this question a two level distinction is made. The motivation for autonomy can be an end in itself. The small business starter is then motivated by the decisional freedoms and responsibilities with regard to the what, how, and when aspects of work. Autonomy can also be instrumental for the fulfillment of still other motives. We suggest that this is the case for three motives in particular: resistance towards bosses or rules, self-congruence/self-endorsement, and power/ control. Our framework is confirmed studying a sample of 167 nascent entrepreneurs motivated by autonomy.
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    Learning opportunities and learning behaviours of small business starters: Relations with goal achievement, skill development and satisfaction
    (Springer, 2005) Van Gelderen, Marco; Van der Sluis, Lidewey; Jansen, Paul
    Learning is a vital issue for small business starters, contributing to short term and long term business performance, as well as to personal development. This study investigates when and how small business starters learn. It specifies the situations that offer learning opportunities, as well as the learning behaviours that small business starters can employ in order to learn from these opportunities. In a cross-sectional, quantitative study of recently started small business founders, learning opportunities and learning behaviours are related to three outcome measures: a performance outcome (goal achievement), a personal growth outcome (skill development), and an affective evaluation outcome (satisfaction). The results show the importance of learning opportunities and learning behaviours in influencing these outcome variables, albeit not always in the directions we hypothesized.