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From unemployment to entrepreneurship:

a study on the effectiveness of support policies

[support materials]

References:

 

FeSaFoHa07

 

HaFeFeSaJo15

 

SaFe98

 

SaFeCho1

 

VoFeSa10

 

 

International consultants (CV):

 

CV Skorikov

 

CV Palios

 

Abstract

The need to consider the importance of employment in structuring individual’s and group’s identities is now reinforced by structural nature of high rates of unemployment characterizing contemporary capitalistic economic systems: Portugal reveals an estimated unemployment rate of 13,1% in the fourth quarter of 2014, representing a significant share of the Portuguese society [In15].
This obliges to rethink the current ways of dealing with and fighting unemployment, calling for the scientific community contributions’ for innovative approaches and policies to promote employment. Because entrepreneurship has assumed a central role in promoting employment and self-employment [Hy10], we consider particularly important an approach that clarifies transition processes in the field of entrepreneurship.
If transiting to unemployment is already an experience complex and multifaceted [Du98], the transition from unemployment to entrepreneurship has an increased potential for complexity on account of its sequential relationship. Thus, from the standpoint of the effectiveness of public policy, the focus on promoting entrepreneurship to reduce unemployment in Portugal and in Europe prompts us to question the practice of career counseling and management in this area and impels us to pursuit a systematic attempt to understand and interpret the way such transition processes are related and influence the success of an entrepreneurial (life) project. Such proposal acquires greater scientific relevance if we consider the necessity of values congruence [BlKeGiVo08] inherent in the pursuit for an entrepreneurial path. The success of an entrepreneurial venture significantly depends on the value congruence underlying the relation between the venture and its creator. Nevertheless, the transition to unemployment preceding the entrepreneurial venture tends to trigger a spiral of loss of identity based on questioning of personal, familiar and social values. Ultimately, the unemployment condition places the individual in an emotional and motivational vulnerability [FeFrCoSa10], which influence in the transition to entrepreneurship has not been studied yet and deserves greater attention, especially if we intend to evaluate the effectiveness of entrepreneurship support programs. Beyond the sense of opportunity, and the ability to innovate and to manage the available resources [Sw09], other variables influence the success of entrepreneurship, such as personal goals, personal agency beliefs and emotions [Fo92], as contextually and systemically integrated in the theoretical model of understanding which conceptually supports this project (cf. [SaFeVo11] & Attachment 1, 2 and 3). The study of these factors (which are, at least, compromised by the unemployment condition) and of how support programs influence them, is our objective as part of an attempt to propose an integrated support policy, capable of improving the activity of career counselors and its effectiveness in medium / long term. To achieve these objectives, we intend to develop a qualitative methodology, using preferably narrative-oriented-interviews [HiCe08] and reflexive-focus-group-interviews [VaScSi96]. In the first case, our aim is to analyze unemployed-entrepreneurs’ discourses about their entrepreneurial experiences after the transition to unemployment. This method of data collection will provide crucial reflexive narratives, through which we expect to scrutinize the psychosocial factors influencing the double transition (to unemployment and from unemployment to
entrepreneurship). Through these narratives we also intend to capture the intersubjective [WiPo08] relations between the unemployed-entrepreneurs and the career counselors working on the entrepreneurship support programs and its influence on the motivational patterns of nascent entrepreneurs. On the other hand, focus-group interviews with career counselors working on these support programs will elucidate us about their formal practices of support, the limits beaconing their available formal responses and the acknowledgment of needed improvements to their formal practices.
Through this qualitative research, we will identify the crucial multidimensional factors influencing the venture’s success and operationalize a set of practices and responses to enhance them through an integrated support policy model, which should be tested in the second year of the project with career counselors interviewed in the first year, having as basis the operationalization of the referred model (Attachment 1, 2 and 3).

 

Attachments:

1. Model

 

2. Model - legend

 

3. Working paper - model

 

 

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