Lifestyle Entrepreneurship: Reconciling Personal Fulfillment with Business Demands

<p dir="ltr">This thesis explores the under-researched domain of lifestyle entrepreneurship, focusing on the intrinsic motivations that drive individuals to create ventures aligned with personal fulfilment, passion, and lifestyle aspirations rather than traditional economic objectives. It challenges conventional entrepreneurship paradigms by proposing a nuanced understanding of how lifestyle entrepreneurs identify with their ventures and navigate the tensions between personal values and business demands. The research is presented through three interconnected papers, each contributing uniquely to the existing body of knowledge. The first paper conducts a comprehensive review of lifestyle entrepreneurship literature, offering a structured framework and a unified conceptual foundation for future studies, addressing the existing gaps and offering directions for more cohesive research. It also categorises this form of entrepreneurship into three distinct types: expression-driven, activity-driven, and location-driven. The second paper delves into exploring how lifestyle entrepreneurs identify with their ventures. It reveals the ambivalent nature of their identification, characterised by their identification with lifestyle and their disidentification with business. It suggests that conditional identification is associated with paradoxical, rather than transactional, engagement with the venture and that the conditionality of this identification is informed by the daily experience of what it means to be a lifestyle entrepreneur. The third paper investigates how lifestyle entrepreneurs navigate their identities, particularly how they manage the tensions arising from merging leisure (lifestyle) and work (business) domains. It provides insights into the complex identity dynamics at play, suggesting that for lifestyle entrepreneurs, anchoring their identity in lifestyle is more crucial than developing an entrepreneurial identity centred around business growth, financial success, and adherence to market-driven values. The venture itself depends on an entrepreneur’s ability to maintain their lifestyle identity because it is an expression of their lifestyle values, passions, and desired way of life rather than a vehicle for economic gain. Overall, the thesis contributes to the broader fields of entrepreneurship and organisational theory by offering a more comprehensive view of entrepreneurship, emphasising the importance of personal values, identity, and the paradoxical nature of entrepreneurial engagement in this context. This work broadens the understanding of entrepreneurial identity and offers practical implications for supporting lifestyle entrepreneurs in navigating the unique challenges they face.</p>