Att vara egenföretagare är en anställningsform som blir allt vanligare och genom att skapa en förståelse för varför denna anställningsform växer ökar även kunskapen om egenföretagarnas drivkraft och trivsel. Motivation har en nära koppling till arbetstillfredsställelse och är en viktig del i egenföretagarnas vardag.  Studiens syfte var att skapa en förståelse om vad som påverkar egenföretagarnas arbetstillfredsställelse och även att ta reda på betydelsefulla motivationsfaktorer. Denna kvalitativa undersökning är baserad på intervjuer av 15 egenföretagare. Resultatet visade att en god arbetsmiljö, utmaningar och självständighet har en positiv påverkan på arbetstillfredsställelsen medan en hög arbetsbelastning påverkade arbetstillfredsställelsen negativt. Variation och skapande i arbetet, erkännande och utveckling visade sig vara bland de starkaste motivationsfaktorerna för att egenföretagare skulle fortsätta driva sitt företag.

<p>There is a known fact that prosperity of new ventures will benefit the economy as a wholein a positive manner and therefore the economy should strive to create more new ventures.</p><p>Steiner (2007) shows in his article that, one way out of unemployment is to venture intoself-employment. Whilst men venturing into self-employment have been quite stable overthe years, female entrepreneurs have drastically increased. Further, female entrepreneurshipis a way out from poverty, which goes towards equality for a nation (Eftimoski, 2006;Minniti, 2003). There exist an importance to study the in depth factors that correlates withthe female decision making process of venturing into self-employment. The authorsidentified a lack of research focusing on differences in motivation between unemployedwomen and employed women who started their own businesses.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to find and compare the motivational factors for unemployedand employed women to take the decision of venturing into self-employment. The authorswant to understand the significance of previous studies and developed theories in applianceto previously unemployed and employed females venturing into self-employment withinJonkoping municipality, Sweden. Around this area, there is a great reputation of strongentrepreneurial spirit (Wigren, 2003).</p><p>This qualitative study did not aim to generalize the results to a whole population, but ratherto understand the researched individual’s choices when taking the step into self-employment.Since this thesis wishes to find out incentives and motivations for thedecision of females going into self-employment, in-depth interviews with 10 self-employedwomen has been conducted to deeper the understanding of these events. A multiple casestudy was used in order to find common motivational factors for women to enter self-employment.</p><p>The main results of this thesis showed that there were differences in motivational factorsfor unemployed and employed women when deciding to become self-employed. The mostvisible motivational factor for the unemployed females to enter self-employment was theactual unemployment. However for the employed women, the biggest motivational factorswere disagreement with management and not being able to develop, in combination with abusiness opportunity. There were also no signs of monetary reward, impacting upon thefemale’s decision to venture into self-employment.</p>

Στην παρούσα εργασία διερευνήσαμε τους παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν την αυτό-απασχόληση των μεταναστών στην Ελλάδα. Τα στοιχεία που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν προέρχονται από την Έρευνα Εργατικού Δυναμικού για το 2ο τρίμηνο του έτους 2007. Για τον προσδιορισμό των παραγόντων που επηρεάζουν τις δυνατότητες αυτό-απασχόλησης των μεταναστών χρησιμοποιήθηκαν οικονομετρικά υποδείγματα δυαδικής επιλογής. Σύμφωνα με τα αποτελέσματα οι μετανάστες στην Ελλάδα συστηματικά καταγράφουν χαμηλότερες πιθανότητες αυτό-απασχόλησης σε σχέση με του γηγενείς. Το εύρημα αυτό δεν φαίνεται να συμβαδίζει με την διεθνή εμπειρική ένδειξη αφού στη πλειονότητα των οικονομικά ανεπτυγμένων χωρών η αυτό-απασχόληση των μεταναστών υπερτερεί των γηγενών. Στη συνέχεια εκτιμήσαμε τους παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν την πιθανότητα αυτό-απασχόλησης για τους μετανάστες και τους γηγενείς, ξεχωριστά χρησιμοποιώντας μια ευρεία δέσμη ατομικών παραγωγικών χαρακτηριστικών καθώς και χαρακτηριστικών που σχετίζονται με την διάρθρωση της οικονομικής δραστηριότητας. Μεταξύ άλλων βρέθηκε ότι οι γυναίκες εμφανίζονται με χαμηλότερα ποσοστά αυτό-απασχόλησης τόσο στο δείγμα των μεταναστών όσο και στο δείγμα των γηγενών. Χρησιμοποιώντας στοιχεία για τα έτη διαμονής στην Ελλάδα βρέθηκε να επιβεβαιώνεται η υπόθεση της αφομοίωσης των μεταναστών στην χώρα υποδοχής. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, οι μετανάστες που ζουν στην Ελλάδα πάνω από έντεκα χρόνια έχουν αυξημένες πιθανότητες αυτό-απασχόλησης σε σχέση με αυτούς που ζουν στην Ελλάδα λιγότερο από πέντε χρόνια. Τέλος, βρέθηκε ότι τα ποσοστά αυτό-απασχόλησης στις χώρες προέλευσης των μεταναστών σχετίζονται αρνητικά με τα ποσοστά αυτό-απασχόλησης των μεταναστών στην Ελλάδα. / -

Skirtumas tarp „darbo sau“ ir „darbo kitam“ egzistavo jau nuo seniausių laikų, tačiau teisiškai reikšmingu jis tapo sudėtingėjant visuomeniniams santykiams. Prigimtiniai darbo skirtumai nulėmė dviejų skirtingų darbo organizavimo formų – priklausomo ir savarankiško darbo – atsiradimą ir atitinkamai nulėmė skirtingų teisinių taisyklių suformulavimą. Priklausomą darbą reguliuoja Lietuvos Respublikos darbo teisė, savarankišką darbą – Lietuvos Respublikos civilinė teisė. Darbo ir civilinės teisės ryšiai jau buvo ne kartą analizuoti Lietuvos mokslininkų darbuose, kuriuose suformuluota tradicinė Lietuvos darbo teisės teorija, išskirti tradiciniai darbo santykių požymiai, suformuluotas darbo santykių apibrėžimas. Disertacijoje pateiktas tyrimas skiriasi nuo visų iki šiol buvusių: jame analizuojama ne tik darbo teisės taisyklės, taikomos darbo santykiams, tačiau darbo ir civilinės teisės sąveika reguliuojant darbo santykius. Pirma, jame analizuojamos pamatinė darbo teisės sąvoka – darbo santykiai, išskiriami visada būdingi ir paprastai būdingi jos požymiai. Antra, šiame moksliniame tyrime siekiama suformuluoti bendrus principus, kuriais remiantis identifikuojami priklausomo darbo ir savarankiško darbo atvejai. Trečia, šiame moksliniame tyrime pirmą kartą Lietuvos teisėje lyginamos dvi skirtingos teisės šakos teisinio reguliavimo dalyko ir metodo atžvilgiu. Šis lyginimas iš esmės padės išgryninti darbo ir civilinės teisės panašumus ir skirtumus, reguliavimo dalyko ir metodo esmę. / Differences between “working for yourself” and “working for another person” have existed since ages but they have become more and more important when social relations became more sophisticated. Both dependent and independent work coexisted, and only their popularity varied through years. Labour Law was created to regulate dependent work, Civil Law regulates self-employment. Various aspects of interactions between Labour and Civil Law have been analysed in Lithuanian legal doctrine and the traditional Labour Law theory have been formulated. This paper originally takes into account both legal systems – Labour and Civil Law – and analyses their interactions. This analysis identifies main characteristics of labour relations, formulates conclusive criteria to differentiate dependent work and self-employment, purifies the essence of Labour Law method, analyses possibilities to perform work under employment or civil contract, suggests legal rules, which reconcile methods of Labour and Civil Law.

Summary of doctoral dissertation introduces the object, purpose and tasks, the novelty, actuality and originality of the dissertation. As well as this, the methodology, sources and the structure of the dissertation are given. Main conclusions and results of the research are being presented. Finally, the list of scientific publications and personal details about the author of the dissertation are given. / Disertacijos santraukoje apibrėžiami darbo objektas, tikslai ir uždaviniai, taip pat mokslinio darbo naujumas, originalumas ir aktualumas. Kartu pateikiami pagrindiniai darbe naudoti metodai ir šaltiniai. Pristatomos pagrindinės ir svarbiausios moksliniame tyrime pasiektos išvados ir ginamieji teiginiai. Galiausiai pateikiama bendra informacija apie disertacijos autorę ir jos mokslinių publikacijų disertacijos tema sąrašas.

The literature review on immigrant’s self-employment activities has limited the debate around the leading factors to this type of activity. Much research on the subject has tried to answer the question ‘what are the determinant characteristics to become self-employed?’ In addressing that question researchers have focused on the relative value of the block mobility thesis and the ethnic enclave theory. This focus created a research gap; researchers have ignored how self-employment may be used by immigrants as an alternative or complementary strategy for accessing a new labour market. Using the Longitudinal Immigration Database, this research explores, using survival regression analysis, the extent to which immigrants adopt different labour market strategies following their admission to Canada. More specifically, it examines their rate of access to labour market activities, the length of time they stay in specific type of labour market activities and the determinant factors for such events. The findings of this research demonstrate that 27 per cent of the economic immigrants, who were admitted to Canada between 1990 and 2008, are likely to rely on paid and self-employment activities simultaneously over time. This finding reinforces the need to analyse self-employment activity as a concurrent activity to paid employment. The regression analysis results on the concurrent activities imply that immigrants admitted under the self-employed category are more inclined, than the other economic immigrants, to rely on the two types of activities when integrating into the Canadian labour market. The findings of this thesis indicated that the traditional theories on self-employment activities are inadequate to explain concurrent self-employment activities and paid employment activities. There is a need to develop contemporary theories around this new concept of concurrent labour market activities that would take into consideration self-employment and employment theories as well as immigrants’ adaptive integration capacity.

No description available.

Immigrant small business (ISB) in Sweden has brought much attention to some researchers in the past decade. However, most of ISB researchers in Sweden are dealing with immigrants as a whole group rather than study them separately by regions or countries. It is hard to know the specific characteristics of ISB with different ethnic background. In this paper, I study one ethnic group, Chinese immigrant’s, small business by case study approach, to answer the research questions: reasons of self-employment, factors of influencing start-ups and business growth. According to empirical findings, prosperity achieving, career changing, and migration are the three main reasons of self-employment; network and local language skill are the two key factors influencing Chinese ISB start-ups; good market opportunities, higher industry rivalry, shortage of successor, and lack of development ambition are the four factors influencing business growth. With the empirical findings, I examine the previous influential ISB theories, which include minorities theory, ethnic enclave economy, and mixed embeddedness. I find ethnic enclave and mixed embeddedness theories can explain some of empirical findings, but not all of them, which means Chinese ISB in Sweden has specific characteristics which need further investigation.

Regional income disparity continues to be a source of major concern for Canadian policymakers. This study explores the temporal pattern of income disparity for Canadian provinces, and seeks to identify the role of one particular determinant entrepreneurship in explaining regional economic growth. The neoclassical growth framework is applied to a set of panel data drawn from Canadian provinces. An econometric model is applied to test for convergence and to identify the role of entrepreneurship in determining growth. The estimation results suggest that entrepreneurship plays a significant role in regional development in Canada. A dynamic vector autoregression (VAR) model is employed to predict the long-run effects of entrepreneurial policy changes on regional development. The dynamic estimation results suggest that entrepreneurship has long term stimulative effects on regional development in Canada. These findings, while important from a policymakers perspective, have surprisingly gone unnoticed. / Agricultural and Resource Economics

In Chapter 1 of this thesis we examine two key empirical questions in public economics by exploiting the 2009 Polish tax reforms. First, we estimate the degree of substitution between employment and self-employment tax bases – on the extensive margin. In particular, we quantify the impact of changes in the differential in rates of taxation between the two tax bases on the propensity of taxpayers to declare any positive level of employment or self-employment income. Second, we contribute to the literature on elasticities of taxable income on the intensive margin – the responsiveness of taxable income to changes in marginal tax rates – by providing estimates which are more likely to be robust to changes in year-to-year income dynamics than previous estimates. To identify these effects, we exploit variation in marginal and total tax rates around the 2009 reforms which occurs independently of an individual’s position in the income distribution as a result of joint reporting with a spouse. At the same time, to obtain the extensive-margin responses, we exploit the uniqueness of the 2009 Polish tax reforms, which left the tax schedule un-changed for some types of self-employment while changing the tax schedule for the employed. The baseline estimates of the intensive-margin elasticities are around 0.2-0.3 for the employed and around 0.5-0.7 for the self-employed. The estimates jointly make possible the decomposition of the deadweight losses of the tax reform into intensive and extensive-margin responses, with the contribution of the extensive margin found to be around 7% of the total. In Chapter 2, we examine the optimal non-linear taxation in an environment in which individuals have the option of engaging in either employment or self-employment activity. We build on the estimates from Chapter 1 to calibrate an extension of the classic Mirrleesian model which allows for extensive-margin transitions between employment and self-employment. The results help rationalise the preferential tax treatment of self-employment income versus employment income given in certain tax systems. They also illustrate the ways in which the possibility of extensive-margin transitions between tax bases moderate the incentive to give such preferential treatment. Based on the parameterisation here, the presence of the extensive-margin ap- pears to have a limited impact on the optimal marginal and total tax rates faced by the employed and self-employed. This, together with the earlier decomposition of deadweight losses in Chapter 1 by types of response, points towards a limited role of the extensive margin as a consideration for optimal-tax design, at least as far as the employment and self-employment tax bases are concerned. Chapter 3 turns to a fundamental question in health economics: how do health states change over the life-cycle, and how does the risk of adverse health-shocks change over the life-cycle? Most economic models of individuals’ behaviour over the life-cycle, to the extent to which they incorporate a measure of health risk, assume a simplified unidimensional measure of health. We contribute to this literature by estimating a flexible dynamic factor model of health and health risk over an individual’s life using the rich health data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We find that the many potentially collinear health indicators found in the HRS can broadly be summarized into four underlying factors. Three of these correspond to what may be termed subjective health measures, such as self-reported mobility, while a fourth corresponds to objective measures, including the number of overnight hospital stays, doctor visits and medical spending. The persistence of these underlying factors and the variance of their shocks are estimated as parameters of a vector auto-regressive process. We obtain results about the deterministic evolution of the health factors with age, the level of risk relating to each health measure, as well as heterogeneity by level of education. These are intended as building blocks of an ongoing project concerning the optimal design of disability insurance, given the health risks faced by individuals.