Business Commons^™

Economic Freedom Through Entrepreneurship, Beverley A. Craft

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Entrepreneurship represents a means of increasing personal freedom and designing an attendant lifestyle. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies sole proprietors used to sustain their small business operations beyond five years and attain profitability levels necessary for freedom and autonomy. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews of 10 entrepreneurs who answered open-ended interview questions, granted access to archival documents, and direct observation of their business operations. The conceptual framework was emancipation theory addressing personal freedom through business autonomy. With the modified van Kaam method, the identification of emerging themes involved identifying groupings, clusters, and unrelated antecedents …