Living the Dream? Assessing the “Entrepreneurship as Emancipation” Perspective in a Developed Region

Abstract

This paper seeks to stimulate additional research on the entrepreneurship–as–emancipation perspective. We extend extant work by specifying the practices within developed regions from which entrepreneurs arguably pursue liberation and then developing hypotheses pertaining to the incidence, determinants, and outcomes associated with departure from such norms. Our survey findings offer evidence to question not only the prevalence with which entrepreneurs in such contexts deviate from the status quo, but also the characteristics of those who enact greater departure. On average, women are not more likely to do so; moreover, they tend to be less satisfied overall when they do deviate highly.