Author(s)

YuChen Chih

Affiliation(s)

J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.

Corresponding Author

YuChen Chih

ABSTRACT

Contemporary entrepreneurship research remains largely anchored in a firm-centric paradigm that equates entrepreneurial action with venture creation and organizational founding. While this approach has enabled cumulative theory building, it increasingly fails to account for a growing range of entrepreneurial activities that unfold at the individual level, including side hustles, hybrid entrepreneurship, and AI-enabled micro-ventures. This paper develops the Individual-Based Multi-Value Configuration Theory (IMVCT), a novel theoretical framework that reconceptualizes entrepreneurship as a dynamic managerial configuration process centered on individuals rather than firms. IMVCT defines entrepreneurship as the continuous allocation and reallocation of time, capabilities, risk exposure, and identity commitment across scalable value-creating activities under uncertainty. Building on this definition, the paper proposes a four-state configuration model that explains entrepreneurial persistence, transition, and escalation without presuming linear progression toward organizational formation. By theorizing digital platforms and artificial intelligence as structural forces that shift experimentation, coordination, and scaling costs, IMVCT extends configuration theory to the individual level and offers a more precise account of entrepreneurial heterogeneity in technology-mediated contexts. The theory contributes to entrepreneurship and management research by reframing firm formation as a contingent outcome rather than a definitional boundary, thereby expanding the conceptual domain of entrepreneurial action.

KEYWORDS

Entrepreneurship theory; Configuration theory; Individual-level entrepreneurship; Digital platforms; Artificial intelligence

CITE THIS PAPER

YuChen Chih. From side hustles to venture creation: an individual-based multi-value configuration theory of entrepreneurship. Social Science and Management. 2026, 3(1): 13-25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/ssm3076.

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