Non-Pecuniary Motivations for Self-employment: Data from a MOOC on Social Entrepreneurship

The current research examined autonomy and achievement motivations in a sample of 1496 participants registered to a U.K.-based Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on social entrepreneurship. A series of linear regression analyses revealed a significant effect of age and country on individual motivations across three separate sub-studies, which strengthens the replicability of this finding. The R values were as high as 70% for the effect of the country on achievement motivation, while age had a moderate degree of influence (approx. 30%) on pull motivations of achievement and autonomy. A way to gain greater clarity might be to conduct longitudinal studies examining motivations matched to specific entrepreneurial tasks.