Entrepreneurship and Independent Professionals: Why do Professionals not meet with Stereotypes of Entrepreneurship?

The study discusses myths of entrepreneurship by looking at the overlapping areas of entrepreneurship, self-employment and professions. The study argues that professions are part of the category of self-employment. Additionally, the study presents empirical findings drawn from a unique empirical data set from Finland: a survey (N=733) including freelance journalists, translators, interpreters and artists at the blurred boundaries between waged work and entrepreneurship. Findings reveal that the professions are clearly different and the manifestations of entrepreneurship vary, reflecting the work and the labour market situation within the profession. The life and work situations of those in the liberal professions cannot be interpreted in simple black and white schemes or as winners and looser. Instead, many different socio-economic situations can be found ‘in between’, which are driven by different social logics. For entrepreneurship researchers the study opens up new avenues by taking us beyond the push-pull-dichotomy, which over-simplifies the decision to enter self-employment. The term entrepreneurship is often used in an undifferentiated way, and it therefore easily generates myths and stereotypes, which are challenged by the study. A narrower and more realistic view shows that there are diverse agents under the flag of entrepreneurship, who are usually not regarded as core entrepreneurs although they exist in everyday life.