Identity work of Dutch dropshipping entrepreneurs An in-depth analysis of the identity work of dropshipping entrepreneurs within the sharing economy

As evidence shows, new digital affordances are changing the way we communicate with our social environment. At the same time, the developments in this area create new opportunities for entrepreneurs by extending and innovating already established business models within the e-commerce industry. Considering the enormous impact of the e-commerce boom, dropshipping has become one of these new phenomena. It is a form of entrepreneurship that has lowered the barriers to start successful entrepreneurial journeys and therefore gained a growing interest globally and increasingly within the Netherlands. While this business model is rather new and under-researched in general, no academic attention has been given to identity work around dropshipping entrepreneurs. In other words, there is a paucity of studies addressing who the entrepreneurs behind the scenes are, their entrepreneurial identities and their entrepreneurial identity work. Furthermore, with online Dropship communities on the rise, tribal marketing might help conceptualize and practically support new ways of value-creation of dropshipping entrepreneurs and facilitate new processes and practices of identity work. In this research Dutch dropshipping entrepreneurs have been interviewed based on their experiences with their membership of one or more Dropship communities which have been labelled as E-tribes in order to examine its role in the entrepreneurs’ identity formation. As the relation between identity work and dropshipping has not been made before, this thesis aims to offer a contextualized understanding of young adults’ entrepreneurial identity formation and identity work within the e-commerce industry. The research question in this Master thesis has been formulated as: “How do Dutch dropshipping entrepreneurs develop their entrepreneurial identity through identity work in their start-up communities?” In order to answer this research question, an in-depth literature review was complemented with qualitative empirical research in the field.. To gather empirical data, dropshipping entrepreneurs were selected through both snowball- as well as purposive sampling techniques. The emphasis was on the exploration and interpretations of experiences and perceptions of a like-minded group of individuals, allowing for an in-depth understanding of the topic under study. Through a thematic analysis of interview data with Dutch dropshipping entrepreneurs, I discovered four themes which summarize different aspects of entrepreneurial identity work. These themes have been labelled as; The Self as a marketing tool, entrepreneurial identity struggles, a collective identity and the entrepreneurial spirit. These results imply that Dropship communities have a great impact on the identity formation of its entrepreneurs, which smartly make use of current technological affordances. Furthermore, it appears that the discourse around the “sharing economy” is a profound base of all developments. Ultimately, the research shows that it creates impactful pillars that support the entrepreneurs’ identity formation through sensitizing them to unique opportunities for building social capital, networking, self-development, entrepreneurial identity formation and the shared creation of a collective identity