Employees’ Entrepreneurial Dreams and Turnover Intention to Start-Up: The Moderating Role of Job Embeddedness

Many people have entrepreneurial dreams in mind, yet existing research has neglected to focus on this phenomenon. This paper introduces the concept of entrepreneurial dreams, constructs a model of the relationship between entrepreneurial dreams and turnover intention to start-up, based on identity theory and prospect theory, and empirically analyses the mechanism of the effect of entrepreneurial dreams on turnover intention to start-up. Through the analysis of data from two multi-provincial and multi-wave employee studies (Study 1 N = 198, Study 2 N = 227), the findings show that: (1) employees’ entrepreneurial dreams positively influence turnover intention to start-up; (2) employees’ entrepreneurial dreams can stimulate employees’ sense of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thus positively influencing turnover intention to start-up; (3) job embeddedness plays a moderating role in the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and turnover intention to start-up, specifically, the higher the degree of job embeddedness, the weaker the effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on turnover intention to start-up; (4) job embeddedness moderates the indirect effect of entrepreneurial dreams on turnover intention to start-up through entrepreneurial self-efficacy, specifically, the higher the degree of job embeddedness, the weaker the indirect effect of entrepreneurial dreams on turnover intention to start-up through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This study reveals the mediating role of employees’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the moderating role of job embeddedness in the influence of entrepreneurial dreams on employees’ turnover intention to start-up, which provides theoretical and practical references for relevant organizations.