创业失败经历何以成为求职“敲门砖”?印象管理视角的理论构建

How can entrepreneurial failure experience serve as an open sesame for subsequent job-seeking?An impression management perspective

创业失败是常态,但创业者在创业失败后再次创业的少,回归职场的多。求职也是创业者从失败中恢复的重要转折,还能一定程度避免整个社会创业资源的浪费。本研究关注创业失败者求职这一现象频发但理论关注不够的问题,基于印象管理理论挖掘创业者管理失败的社会动机,构建以“创业失败事件→印象管理策略→随后求职结果”为主线的理论模型。具体包括:(1)挖掘创业失败印象管理策略的独特内涵和结构,将其分为获得性策略和防御性策略两类;(2)探讨创业失败事件性质对印象管理策略的影响;(3)基于信号理论从创业者(信号发送者)和雇主(信号接收者)双重视角讨论印象管理策略的能力信号传递效应及对随后求职结果的影响。本研究打开了从“创业失败”向“求职成功”转换的黑箱。

Numerous entrepreneurial firms fail.Most entrepreneurs who experience entrepreneurial failure quit entrepreneurship and return to the labor market in search of a paid job.Job-seeking not only is a turning point in an entrepreneur’s own recovery from entrepreneurial failure but also potentially avoids wastage of society’s entrepreneurial resources.However,although it is a common phenomenon,theoretical research on job-seeking among entrepreneurs who have failed has been limited.Grounded in impression management theory,this study explored entrepreneurs’social motivations to manage failure and constructed an integrated framework to examine how they use impression management strategies in their subsequent job-seeking.The study focused on three issues:(1)tracing the unique definition and structure of entrepreneurs’impression management strategies after entrepreneurial failure,in which two core dimensions of impression management strategies—assertive and defensive strategies—were proposed;(2)revealing how the nature of an entrepreneurial failure event affects subsequent impression management strategies;and(3)unraveling the mechanism by which impression management strategies influence job-seeking outcomes using signaling theory.This study clarifies the hitherto opaque process leading from entrepreneurial failure to success in job-seeking among entrepreneurs.