Job autonomy and self-employment
Job autonomy has been defined as ‘the extent to which a job provides freedom, independence
and discretion in planning the work and determining how to undertake it’ (Mullins, 2007:203).
In entrepreneurship and management, the explanation of how job autonomy promotes the
workplace wellbeing can be seen in two perspectives.
Firstly, autonomy can be seen as a job character. In the Job Characteristics Model, Hackman
(1980) proposed that autonomy be one of the five ‘core’ job characteristics (skill variety, task
identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback) that affect five work-related outcomes
(motivation, satisfaction, performance, and absenteeism and turnover). It implies that job
autonomy will allow the self-employed to have independence and flexibility to run their
business and thus increase their workplace wellbeing. In entrepreneurship research, empirical
evidence to date has shown that autonomy is one of the most distinguished job characteristics
valued by the self-employed. Schonfeld and Mazzola’s (2015) qualitative research shows that
the longtime self-employed participants expressed more frequently an appreciation for the
autonomy their jobs afforded (n = 10, 23.3%). By autonomy, eight (14.8%) individuals
mentioned that self-employment gave them flexible hours, while nine (16.7%) appreciated
opportunities to not work in an office by working at home or outdoors. Also, Lang (2012) used
the data from European Social Survey 2006 and found that job Autonomy (Allowed to decide
how daily work is organised and Allowed to influence organisation’s police) is the only job trait
that shows statically significance of differences between the self-employed and employee
(compared to other traits like creativity, sense of achievement, willing of taking adventures,
optimistic, positive and depress about myself).
Secondly, autonomy can be seen as a job motivator. The most research adopted this perspective
by applying the core principle of self-determination theory. In this theory, autonomy is one of
three basic psychological motivators (Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness) that can
promote one’s workplace wellbeing (will be explained more specifically in the next part). For
example, in a study conducted in Bulgaria and the United States, Deci et al. (2013) assessed the
satisfaction of employees’ needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness at work and found
direct positive relations in both countries between the degree of need satisfaction and both work
engagement and wellbeing on the job. Baard, Deci, and Ryan (2012) found relations between
satisfaction of these needs and employees’ performance evaluations. In entrepreneurship
research, several empirical papers show that autonomy (also referred to as independence or
freedom) is an important motivator for choosing to be the self-employed (Van Gelderen and
Jansen, 2006). Block and Koellinger (2009) suggested that the process of being a self-employed
provides enjoyment over and above the material success. Thus, the fulfilment of job autonomy
needs can contribute to one’s workplace wellbeing. This study will adopts this perspective and
use SDT theory to verify the significance of the value of job autonomy in workplace wellbeing.
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