Motivações para a carreira empreendedora segundo o modelo de carreira caleidoscópica

Abstract

This study was conducted within the Group of Studies in Career Development of the field of Social Psychology, in the Psychology Faculty of Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul. The research’s main objective was to investigate the female entrepreneurial career in order to understand its motivations under a contemporary career model: the Kaleidoscopic Career Model. Brazil is among the top 10 countries with the highest rates of entrepreneurship in the world, with almost equivalent rates between men and women - the difference is less than 2. Although female entrepreneurship growth has been 16% in the last 10 years compared to male’s 7%, this activity is still strongly associated with male careers. In this context, the specificities of female entrepreneurship may be overshadowed, just as there is a difference between the motivations that lead women and men to open their own businesses. Therefore, the general objective of this research was to verify if there are differences between men and women regarding their motivations for entrepreneurship, according to the parameters of the Kaleidoscopic Career, theoretical model developed based on female career trajectories. To achieve this goal, a narrative review of the literature on the model was carried out, which analyzed 16 articles available in national and international scientific databases on the Kaleidoscopic Career Model, and its relation with female career trajectories. Afterwards, the first empirical study that composes this dissertation has adapted this instrument to Brazilian context within a sample of 272 Brazilian professionals. For the validation, confirmatory factorial analysis has been used, with maximum likelihood estimation method. The final version of the scale presented 19 items, distributed in the predicted factors, with precision values of: Balance (α=.78), Challenge (α=.76) and Authenticity (α=.65). Using this adapted scale, the second empirical study aimed to verify if there is difference between women’s and men’s motivation for opening their own businesses. In addition to the Kaleidoscopic Career Parameter Scale adapted to Brazilian context, a sociodemographic survey and entrepreneurial trajectory and business characteristics questionnaire were used with the respondents. The sample was composed by 416 professionals, in which 54.6% were women and 48.6% were entrepreneurs. Although professionals with their own business had significantly higher averages (M = 3.86) compared to non-entrepreneurs in Challenge parameter [M = 3.53; F (416,1) = 15.15; p <0.001, η² = 0,4], there was no significant difference between the parameters according to respondent’s sex. Corroborating this result, the main reasons for opening a company - identification of business opportunity, desire for autonomy and work according to personal values - were the most frequently answers among male and female entrepreneurs. By contributing to demystify the idea that the motivations for female entrepreneurship are essentially different from the masculine, we expect results to contribute for a greater awareness and promotion of female entrepreneurship.