Lifestyle Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Motivations play a critical role in setting up new organizations. Traditionally, the reasons to start a new business are mainly economic in nature. More recently, some researchers argue that some people, designated lifestyle entrepreneurs, decide to create new businesses on the grounds of personal fulfilment. This chapter aims to identify the most important motivations of lifestyle entrepreneurs and their relation with the factors that this type of entrepreneurs use to measure the success of their businesses. In order to achieve these objectives a qualitative methodology was adopted, based on the case study approach. The analysis of the cases suggests that this type of entrepreneurs are, first of all, motivated by a desire to live in a certain way and they measure their success according to the achievement of their goal, without neglecting the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of their businesses.