摘要：Th e formation and growth of new firms is a complex process and many factors related to this procedure can only be recognised by comprehensive investigation at the microlevel of the firm and the firm founder. Start-up motives are considered of high importance in this process. Th ere is a lack of literature exploring self-employment motivations in countries moving from a planned to a market economy, so-called transition economies. In order to fill this gap, the aim of this paper is to investigate the main start-up motives of Polish microentrepreneurs. According to the study results, the most important start-up motives among Polish microentrepreneurs are: desire for independence, unemployment or redundancy risk, and financial incentive. The paper concludes with implications for the public policy and further research issues.
关键词：self-employment; entrepreneurship; business start-up motives; push and pull motives; transitional economy
