• Korean small business review
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.75-94
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• 2018

This study captures the possibility that entrepreneurs can become an employee in a traditional organization (a company). Acknowledging that the career change from self-employment to salary-employment is not a trivial decision, we investigate how this career path can be made. As an exploratory approach, we take a social psychological perspective; in particular, we posit that entrepreneurial costs can affect the "getting-back" career decision. Given that career changes can be considered as a boundedly-rational choice, we claim that when the entrepreneurs are perceived as being stigmatized, these transaction-related costs will further engage in the "getting-back" career decision. To test these ideas, we sample 254 respondents from the database of Korea Education & Employment Panel (KEEP) and estimate the hazard ratio that an entrepreneur, who used to be an employee, becomes an employee with respect to entrepreneurial costs. With the results, we discuss how career changes (especially getting back to salary-employment) can be made through social evaluations of the entrepreneurs.