Does Autonomy Exert Magical Power On The Low-paid Entrepreneur's Job Well-being?

Abstract

Are entrepreneurs always happier than employees even when they earned less than employees? Does autonomy exert magical power on the low-paid entrepreneurs' job well-being as well? In this paper, we explore the relationship between job autonomy and job well- being, also test whether the income will constrain this relationship. We investigate this study by applying the interplay between Self-determination theory and Maslow's Hierarchy. Also use a large dataset (n=8046) from Understanding Society, the British largest household panel survey. The methods in this paper innovatively involve the Match approach to update the dataset and use CFA to do multiple-group analysis and SEM to test the model. The results suggest that entrepreneurs experience higher job well- being than employees at any levels of income status due to the larger extent of job autonomy. And the income can only constrain the relationship between job autonomy and job well-being in employee group rather than entrepreneurs group. Therefore, job a...