We consider how entrepreneurship and employment differentially shape opportunities for social mobility across people and contexts. Specifically focusing on changes in an individual’s social status, or vertical mobility, we propose three metaphors for studying entrepreneurship: (1) production (i.e., increased status); (2) preservation (i.e., maintained status); and (3) consumption (i.e., decreased status). Each metaphor features theoretical mechanisms that account for how founding an organization can facilitate inter-occupational transitions and, thus, enable status mobility. We offer a proposed research agenda for studying entrepreneurship’s role in social mobility processes, including mechanism-specific propositions at the individual and population levels of analysis as well as guidance on sampling and measurement.

我们考虑创业和就业如何不同地塑造跨人群和跨环境的社会流动机会。特别关注个人社会地位或垂直流动性的变化，我们提出了三个研究创业的隐喻：（1）生产（即地位提高）； (2) 保存（即保持状态）； (3) 消费（即状态下降）。每个隐喻都具有理论机制，解释了组织的建立如何促进职业间的转变，从而实现地位的流动。我们提出了研究创业在社会流动过程中的作用的拟议研究议程，包括个人和人口层面分析的特定机制命题以及抽样和测量指南。