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Little research attention has focused on social work entrepreneurship despite its prevalence among social workers in the United States. We employed a phenomenological approach to better understand entrepreneurship among 15 nascent social work entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial motivations varied by startup type and included desires for greater income, autonomy, and creativity. Self-doubt about business acumen was a barrier for most. Startup resilience strategies included partializing problems, being resourceful, and seeking informal business advice and planning from colleagues. Findings suggest that social workers could benefit from entrepreneurial education to increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy and exposure to social enterprise forms.
Upshaw et al. (Thu,) studied this question.