A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that being a self-employed supervisor is correlated with more work meaningfulness and autonomy compared with being a salaried supervisor working for an employer.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 993, 2021
Being your own boss and bossing others: The moderating effect of managing others on work meaning and autonomy for the self-employed and employees – Download PDF
by Nikolova, Milena & Nikolaev, Boris & Boudreaux, Christopher
GLO Fellows Milena Nikolova, Boris Nikolaev & Christopher Boudreaux
Author Abstract: We examine the moderating role of being a supervisor for meaning and autonomy of self-employed and employed workers. We rely on regression analysis applied after entropy balancing based on a nationally representative dataset of over 80,000 individuals in 30 European countries for 2005, 2010, and 2015. We find that being a self-employed supervisor is correlated with more work meaningfulness and autonomy compared with being a salaried supervisor working for an employer. Wage supervisors and self-employed supervisors experience similar stress levels and have similar earnings, though selfemployed supervisors work longer hours. Moreover, solo entrepreneurs experience slightly less work meaningfulness, but more autonomy compared with self-employed supervisors. This may be explained by the fact that solo entrepreneurs earn less but have less stress and shorter working hours than selfemployed supervisors.
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