5. Discussion and conclusion
To advance research on multiple job holding and the role of self-employment (Wu et al., 2009), we demonstrate that multiple job holding with second jobs that deliver higher average earnings than the main job is not unpredictable, but can be explained to some extent by hybrid entrepreneurship. Thereby, our study underlines the relevance of entrepreneurship theories for research on multiple job holding. Current studies might benefit from considering second-job self-employment as important, but distinct form of multiple job holding (e.g. Lalé, 2016). Several opportunities for future research emerge from our study. While earnings of full-time entrepreneurs are well studied in entrepreneurship research, relatively little is known about hybrid entrepreneurs' earnings. Our study provides a first exploratory analysis in this direction, suggesting that many hybrids earn on average more from self-employment than from their main paid employment. This contrasts with the general notion that entrepreneurs earn less than in comparable paid employment (Åstebro and Chen, 2014; Daly, 2015; Hamilton, 2000) and, thereby, opens up further research opportunities on the specifics of hybrid entrepreneurs vis-á-vis full-time entrepreneurs as well as the sources of differences in earnings in self-employment vis-á-vis paid employment.
