Anchors of Sustained Entrepreneurial Careers

Other conference contribution, 2023

Principal Topic
Edgar Schein’s eight career anchors have had remarkable general prescriptive value for almost 50 years. Over time, careers have become more boundaryless, self-directed and aimed at more entrepreneurial outcomes. However, start-up creation continues to be the premised desirable end-goal of an entrepreneurial career. This limited view of applied entrepreneurial competence fails to capture the multitude of ways in which individuals sustain entrepreneurial activity (new value creation). The study aims to unpack and explore a spectrum of entrepreneurial careers, and associated career anchors, where being entrepreneurial is defined as engaging in new value creation as part of one’s work.

Method
The study applies adapted career anchors to a target sample of graduates from a master-level venture creation program with 15 to 25 years of career history. 55 interviews accompanied with longitudinal data allowed independent coding of career anchors and sustained entrepreneurial activity. Analysis conjoined independent coding to determine paired career anchors grounding a variety of sustained entrepreneurial careers. Selection was based upon search for variety of career, rather than representativeness of the population.

Results and Implications
41 of the 55 interviewed graduates were seen to have entrepreneurial careers. 36 of the sustained entrepreneurial careers are seen to ground in more than one career anchor (and of the whole sample only 11 were found to have one career anchor). Entrepreneurial careers were mainly associated with four of the career anchors: Creativity, General management, Entrepreneurship and Pure challenge. All but three of the entrepreneurial careers included a career anchor of Entrepreneurship or Creativity. Schein’s original Entrepreneurial creativity anchor only associates to 18 of the entrepreneurial careers, which illustrates the limitation of singular career anchor with exclusive focus on firm founding. Three of the entrepreneurial careers were associated with the pairing General management and Pure challenge. The majority of entrepreneurial careers illustrated through the study are not about creating a business of your own.  These findings expand Schein’s career anchor theory, broadening the spectrum of sustained entrepreneurial careers and providing insight beyond entrepreneurship as simply firm formation.