Should I Stay, or Should I Go? Job satisfaction as a moderating factor between outcome expectations and entrepreneurial intention among academics

Richard Blaese,Schneider Noemi,Liebig Brigitte

doi:10.1007/s11365-021-00744-8

Abstract

Both psychological and entrepreneurship research have highlighted the pivotal role of job satisfaction in the process of entrepreneurial career decisions. In support of this, mounting evidence point to inter-relationships between entrepreneurial intention, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Prior research operationalized entrepreneurial careers as an escape from poor work environments; thus, there is a lack of understanding regarding how job-satisfaction can trigger entrepreneurship within and related to the environment of universities. This study, draws on Social Cognitive Career Theory and the concept of entrepreneurial intention, to address whether the role of job satisfaction is a moderating factor between outcome expectations and entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, we examine to what extent (I) entrepreneurial intention and (II) spin-off intention are determined by certain outcome expectations and perceived behavioral control. To address these questions this study examined academic researchers in specialized and non-technical fields and builds on a survey of 593 academic researchers at Swiss Universities of Applied Science. The results showed that outcome expectations are a significant predictor for entrepreneurial intentions, in general, and spin-off intentions, in particular. A multi-group analysis corroborated that job satisfaction operates as a motivational factor in entrepreneurial transition and interactions with entrepreneurial outcome expectations. In conclusion, the concept of job satisfaction and Social Cognitive Career Theory were powerful constructs to better the understand the process of entrepreneurial career decisions by academic researchers.

Highlights

Academic entrepreneurship is widely recognized for its contribution to economic, regional, and innovation development (Audretsch, 2014; Block et al, 2017; Fini et al, 2018; Guerrero et al, 2015; Shane, 2004; Stuetzer et al, 2018)
We argue that entrepreneurial academics with a high level of job satisfaction show a greater propensity to commercialize their research by developing spin-offs that align with the aims of Entrepreneurial Universities (Etzkowitz, 2017)
In line with the theoretical expectations, Entrepreneurial intention (EI) and Spin‐off intention (SPIN) are correlated with perceived behavioral control (rEnt/Perceived behavioral control (PBC) = 0.43, p < 0.001 and rSpin/BC = 0.35, p < 0.001) (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Academic entrepreneurship is widely recognized for its contribution to economic, regional, and innovation development (Audretsch, 2014; Block et al, 2017; Fini et al, 2018; Guerrero et al, 2015; Shane, 2004; Stuetzer et al, 2018). Universities seek to develop policies and instruments that encourage entrepreneurial careers of their academic researchers and support spin-offs to commercialize research as a specific form of academic entrepreneurship. The literature on academic entrepreneurship has focused primarily on exogenous factors such as socio-organizational conditions affecting entrepreneurial decision-making (Feola et al, 2017; Huyghe & Knockaert, 2015; Kirby et al, 2011; Miranda et al, 2017), empirical research identifying endogenous, motivational factors such as job-satisfaction for entrepreneurial careers of academics are remain limited

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Conclusion