Who is willing to become a spin-out founder? Differences in the impact of an individual's career and experience between employee entrepreneurship and turnover

Abstract

This study explores employee mobility from the perspectives of entrepreneurship and job switching, using a sample of 9345 individuals aged 18–69 years who hold full-time jobs in Japan, obtained from a questionnaire survey. We identify how individual-specific characteristics influence an individual’s intention to start a business and change jobs, by estimating the average marginal effects based on a bivariate probit model. Our results reveal that varied work experience influences job change intention rather than entrepreneurial intention. We also find that innovation experience and award-winning experience are positively associated with both entrepreneurial and job change intentions. Moreover, the impact of gender and parents’ start-up experience differs between entrepreneurial and job change intentions, while risk tolerance is positively associated with both of these intentions. We contribute to the literature by highlighting the similarities and differences between employee entrepreneurship and turnover.