The intention to quit entrepreneurship in tourism SMEs: the effect of work addiction

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is one of the fundamental tools in the generation of economic activity and labor in the tourism industry, with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) playing a relevant role in the sector. Academic studies on entrepreneurship have focused more on the keys to entrepreneurial success, rather than on the factors leading to its abandonment. In the tourism sector, the lack of research on this matter is even more significant. In response to this gap in literature, this article aims to be a first approach to the study of work addiction as an antecedent of entrepreneurial abandonment. The main contribution of this study confirms the relationship between the different constructs that relate work addiction to entrepreneurship withdrawal. Thus, hypotheses relating driveness and lack of work enjoyment to the intention to quit entrepreneurship are supported. The hypothesis relating work involvement with the intention to quit is not supported, however. A number of important implications derive from this study. Among them, our results demonstrate that the relationship between workaholism and the intention to quit entrepreneurship in the tourist SME sector is supported, and that work enjoyment can act as a mediator strengthening the effect of the driveness to work on the intention to quit.