One-person enterprises and the phenomenon of hybrid self-employment: evidence from an empirical study

The complex interaction of technological development and socio-demographic change has 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 already represent more than 50 percent of all Austrian companies. Based on a representative sample of 626 one-person enterprises in the Bundesland Carinthia, we found out that these micro enterprises are mainly driven by motives like self-realisation or working without hierarchies. However, their emergence is also partly due to a lack of opportunities in the (dependent) labour market. Additionally, we found evidence for the phenomenon of hybrid self-employment, meaning that a significant part of the one-person enterprises (nearly 20 percent) is additionally engaged in dependent work. The primary aim of this paper was to identify factors influencing these hybrid forms of employment status between dependent work and self-employment. Based on a binary Logit model, we found evidence that the hybrid employment status is mainly determined by age, the educational level, the situation in which the one-person enterprise was founded, the duration of the enterprise as well as the motives for being self-employed.