Differences between self-employed and entrepreneurs in representations of their professional activity

Background. The number of self-employed (people who work “for themselves”) is growing in Russia, while there are various forms of self-employment, depending on the specifics of their professional activities. The question of whether the self-employed people’s activity can be considered entrepreneurial is important both for empirical research and for practitioners developing various support measures for this population group. Objectives. The study had its purpose to identify the differences between self-employed people (project creators, freelancers, contract self-employed) and entrepreneurs in the representations of their professional activity. Study participants. 46 entrepreneurs (mean age = 42 years, SD = 8, 66% — women) and 150 self-employed individuals (mean age = 38 years, SD = 10, 75% — women), engaged in activities primarily in Moscow and the Moscow region. Methods. Data collection was carried out through online survey. The study implemented the Methodology for Researching Professional Identity (Schneider, 2007); methods of comparative and frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and one-way analysis of variance. Results. Analysis of the self-employed people’s activity allows for classifying this group of population based on the nature of their activities: project creators, freelancers, contract self-employed individuals. A comparative analysis of the data obtained from representatives of these groups, as well as entrepreneurs, demonstrated that in the representations of their professional activities, project creators and freelancers have the semantic cores of “competence” and “independence”, while contract self-employed do not have the core of “independence”. In terms of professional ambitions (the “entrepreneurial” factor), contract self-employed individuals differ from entrepreneurs (MD = –0.810, p < 0.001), project creators (MD = –0.890, p = 0.004), and freelancers (MD = –0.635, p = 0.003). Conclusions. Project creators' representations of professional activity most closely resemble those of entrepreneurs, and their activities are most similar to entrepreneurial work. Freelancers' representations also share similarities with those of entrepreneurs, but freelancing only partially reflects entrepreneurship. Contract self-employed individuals' representations significantly differ from those of entrepreneurs, and their activity cannot be classified as entrepreneurial.