Hybrid entrepreneurs: The value of experience

ABSTRACT

Hybrid entrepreneurs—individuals acting simultaneously as entrepreneurs and employees—are often considered to be in a transitional stage toward becoming full-time entrepreneurs. However, they may also exit a venture or remain hybrid entrepreneurs. In this research, we investigate how being a hybrid entrepreneur impacts innovative opportunity recognition through entrepreneurial learning and how the exit experience may influence this mechanism. We use a standard logit approach, a causal mediation analysis, and the multilevel random effect model as a robustness test on a large cross-sectional sample of individuals of different ages and from 90 countries to test our hypothesis. Our findings indicate that, in the context of hybrid entrepreneurship, the exit phase could be part of a recursive stage rather than a final step. This implies that hybrid entrepreneurs can also be considered habitual entrepreneurs, as they may experience exits as an integral and iterative aspect of their entrepreneurial journey. We also found that this habitual entrepreneurship experience mediates the relationship between hybrid entrepreneurs and their potential to recognize opportunities and their innovative behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurial learning
• hybrid entrepreneurs
• opportunity recognition
• innovative entrepreneurial activity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ https://www.gemconsortium.org/data.

² For example, the Academy of Management (AoM) call for papers 2023, define hybrid entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs that hold a paid job.

³ Experiential learning theory challenges the idea that learning occurs in formal environments and replaces it with the notion that learning results from experience, regardless of where it occurs.

⁴ Exploration concerns the pursuit of new knowledge regarding things that might come to be known (Westhead & Wright, 2016) and creates variety in terms of experience through search, discovery, novelty, innovation, and experimentation (Holmqvist, 2004).

⁵ Exploration concerns the pursuit of new knowledge regarding things that might come to be known (Westhead & Wright, 2016) and creates variety in terms of experience through search, discovery, novelty, innovation, and experimentation (Holmqvist, 2004).

⁶ Among these personal costs are long working hours, increased stress, reduced sleep duration, increased work-life conflict, reduced satisfaction and commitment in the first job, and increased work overload (Järvensivu, 2020).

⁷ Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hong, Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

⁸ The GEM survey includes respondents who do not own businesses to study, among other topics, entrepreneurial intentions, entrepreneurial skills, risk aversion, and perceptions of entrepreneurship in their countries; for example, those who are full-time employees, unemployed, or students, who constitute a large percentage in each country.

⁹ We excluded from the main sample employers who reported part-time employment;however, we included them in the robustness tests.

¹⁰ “In the next six months, there will be good opportunities for starting a business in the area where you live.”

¹¹ “Are you, alone or with others, expecting to start a new business, including any type of self-employment, within the next three years?.”

¹² “Right now, are there many, few, or no other businesses offering the same products or services to your potential customers?” 1 = no other competitors; 2 = few competitors; 3 = many competitors (reverse side of original question).

¹³ “Will all, some, or none of your potential customers consider this product or service new and unfamiliar?” 1= all 2 = some 3 = none.

¹⁴ “How long have the technologies or procedures used for this product or service been available?” 1 = Less than a year; 2 = Between one to five years; 3 = Longer than five years.

¹⁵ “Have you, in the past 12 months, sold, shut down, discontinued or quit a business you owned and managed, any form of self-employment, or selling goods or services to anyone?.”

¹⁶ We conducted our analysis in STATA 15 using the medeff routine with 1,000 simulations and statistical significance of p < .001.

¹⁷ According to Baron and Kenny (1986), four conditions must be met for mediation to exist. 1. There is a significant relationship between the independent variable and the mediator. 2. There is a significant relationship between the mediator and the dependent variable. 3. There is a significant relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. 4. In the model with the independent variable and the mediator, also as an independent variable, for the dependent variable, the coefficient estimate of the independent variable found is smaller than that found in (3) or is nonsignificant.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Luksic scholars fund.