Abstract
At the end of the last century, digital technology emergence enabled millions of people to compete globally by remotely offering their knowledge and skills. In addition, business processes are becoming fragmented into smaller components, so-called short-term projects. These work arrangements are often carried out by so-called independent professionals (contractors), better known as freelancers. A literature review has shown that the research topic of freelancing from an entrepreneurial perspective is relatively new and has its assumptions and gaps. Different stakeholders and institutions connect, mediate and manage the services of the entrepreneurial ecosystem to support entrepreneurs. As freelancers belong to the self-employed entrepreneurial category, they are engaged in business activities and need support from their environment. To contribute to this topic, we have analyzed the relationships between freelancers’ job and career satisfaction, digitalization and entrepreneurial ecosystem factors, with the aim of making policy recommendations. Regarding the entrepreneurial environment, we analyzed the cultural and social norms and government programs that provide support, based on the measurement instrument, developed in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research. We surveyed 200 freelancers (respondents) in Slovenia. Using factor analysis and structural equation modelling, the empirical results suggest that digitalization and cultural and social norms are significant factors that promote the success of new careers as freelancers in terms of job and career satisfaction. The results show that both positively influence job and career satisfaction, while government programs indirectly influence the job and career satisfaction of freelancers. This explains how the entrepreneurial ecosystem, plays a special role in supporting freelancers on their career path.
Highlights
At the end of the 20th century, innovations have become more frequent and their effects increasingly disruptive [1]
The term digital transformation refers to strategic transformations that are aimed at organizational changes implemented through digitalization projects with the aim of enabling significant business improvements, while digitalization represents a comprehensive socio-technical process and implies the integration of different technologies into aspects of daily social life [4]
The standardized path coefficients show that the digitalization factor has a positive and a highly significant (p < 0.01) effect on government programs, cultural and social norms and job and career satisfaction, which confirms hypothesis H1.1, H1.2 and H1.3 In addition, government programs have a negative and not significant (p = 0.46) effect on job and career satisfaction, but they have a positive and significant (p < 0.01) influence on cultural and social norms, which confirms hypothesis H3
Summary
At the end of the 20th century, innovations have become more frequent and their effects increasingly disruptive [1]. The term digital transformation refers to strategic transformations that are aimed at organizational changes implemented through digitalization projects with the aim of enabling significant business improvements, while digitalization represents a comprehensive socio-technical process and implies the integration of different technologies into aspects of daily social life [4]. They influence markets, present challenges to established companies and affect business strategies. According to [32,33], the experiences of self-employed workers are shaped by the entrepreneurial climate of a country, including legal, institutional and cultural factors
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