The Importance of Being in Control of Business: Work Satisfaction of Employers, Own-account Workers and Employees

Arbeitspapier

Self-employed workers can be own-account workers who control their own work or employers who not only are their own boss but also direct others (their employees). We expect both types of self-employed, i.e., own-account workers and employers, to enjoy more independence in determining their work content (type of work) and more flexibility in shaping their work context (e.g., working conditions) compared to paid employees and hence to be more satisfied with their work. Furthermore, we suspect that employers (who can delegate work to their employees and can help them to develop and grow) enjoy even higher levels of work satisfaction compared to both own-account workers (who are their own boss but do not give direction to others) and (non-supervisory) paid employees (who have to obey orders from others within organizational hierarchies). While prior studies typically broadly compare the work satisfaction of self-employed and paid employees, we distinguish employers from own-account workers within the group of self-employed using data from the ECHP for 14 European countries. Our findings indeed show that employers are significantly more satisfied with their work than both own-account workers and paid employees. Additionally, while employers as well as own-account workers enjoy greater procedural utility than (non-supervisory) paid employees stemming from the content and the context of their work, there also seems to be an additional work satisfaction premium for employers.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper ; No. 15-047/VII

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy ; Entrepreneurship ; Economywide Country Studies: Europe
• Thema: entrepreneurship ; self-employment ; employers ; own-account workers ; work satisfaction

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Hessels, Jolanda ; Millán, José María ; Román, Concepción
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Tinbergen Institute
• (wo): Amsterdam and Rotterdam
• (wann): 2015

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/111723
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:43 MEZ