Micro-Entrepreneurship: Tendenzen der Präkarisierung auf dem Arbeitsmarkt? Empirische Ergebnisse für Kärnten[Motives for being self-employed as a one-person enterprise Results of an empirical analysis]

The complex interaction of technological development and socio-demographic change accelerated a structural change in the economy resulting in a changing working environment and new forms of employment. In the field of self-employment, an emerging trend towards one-person enterprises can be observed, which represent already more than 50 % of all Austrian companies. The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the rationalities of these microenterprises based on an empirical online survey of one-person enterprises in Carinthia; the focus of the analysis is the motive for being self-employed. We found out that one-person entrepreneurs are mainly driven by motives like self-realization or working without hierarchies. However, there are also one-person entrepreneurs which have been crowded out from the (dependent) labor market and are therefore driven by economic reasons (e.g. self-employment as an alternative to unemployment). This economic-driven group of one-person enterprises is comparatively dissatisfied with their professional situation, is less optimistic regarding their entrepreneurial future and generates lower incomes.