The role of work-to-venture role conflict on hybrid entrepreneurs’ transition into entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial effort is a process-related phenomenon, where individuals or teams organize and launch a venture to capitalize on identified opportunities. Using role theory as a guide, this study develops a new, theory-based construct associated with hybrid entrepreneurship, which we term as work-to-venture conflict (WVC). WVC reflects how the hybrid entrepreneurship process can create conflict between wage employment and venture-launch roles over time. Using a repeated-measures data collection over 26 weeks using a sample of hybrid entrepreneurs, this study uses growth modeling to test the dynamic nature of WVC and its relationships to wage-related outcomes. We find support for our hypothesized relationships that (a) an increase in startup effort over time for hybrid entrepreneurs is related to increased work-to-venture role conflict, which results in (b) a decrease in job satisfaction and increase in turnover intentions regarding their wage employment. Theoretical contributions and practical considerations associated with these findings are provided.