I wish I had a paid job or a business: a moderated effect of entrepreneurial potential on career choice regret

PurposeDespite the merit of extant studies on career decision regrets, they are not well integrated, are developed at different speeds and differ in focus. Specifically, they do not address an important question about the levels and antecedents of regret arising from choosing entrepreneurship instead of paid employment and vice versa. The authors adopted the regret regulation theory as foundation to examining the moderated effect of entrepreneurial potential (EP) on career choice regret (CCR) among employees and entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed 721 employees and 724 entrepreneurs from a developing country and applied partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses.FindingsEmployees regretted their career choice three times more when compared with entrepreneurs. However, the authors failed to conclude that the latter had three times better living conditions when compared with the former. EP negatively influenced the regret of being an entrepreneur in lieu of an employee while it positively influenced the regret of being an employee in lieu of an entrepreneur. The perceived opportunity cost of being a higher EP employee was three times greater when compared with that of being a lower EP entrepreneur. The effect of EP on CCR was mitigated or amplified by duration in the career, former career status, decision justifiability, and perceived environment's supportiveness.Research limitations/implicationsThe design was cross-sectional, thus, the findings cannot be interpreted in the strict sense of causality.Originality/valueThe authors rely on an important yet often overlooked context of the choice between entrepreneurship and paid employment to test, clarify, and extend the regret regulation theory. The findings have novel human resource management and entrepreneurship policy implications.