2023/02/01 by Christopher I. Rider, Susie Choe, Brenda Jaewon Myung +1 · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences #Social Capital and Networks #Social and Cultural Dynamics
paper · doi:10.1016/j.riob.2023.100192
openalex publication_date 2023/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
We consider how entrepreneurship and employment differentially shape opportunities for social mobility across people and contexts. Specifically focusing on changes in an individual’s social status, or vertical mobility, we propose three metaphors for studying entrepreneurship: (1) production (i.e., increased status); (2) preservation (i.e., maintained status); and (3) consumption (i.e., decreased status). Each metaphor features theoretical mechanisms that account for how founding an organization can facilitate inter-occupational transitions and, thus, enable status mobility. We offer a proposed research agenda for studying entrepreneurship’s role in social mobility processes, including mechanism-specific propositions at the individual and population levels of analysis as well as guidance on sampling and measurement.