Employees’ transition to an entrepreneurial career has been explained by two major driving forces: push and pull factors. The push-pull dichotomy, however, has been the center of debate on whether the classification is incomplete and ambiguous. Until this debate is resolved, the dynamic and fluid nature of the influencing factors and their relationships remains unclear. The purpose of this research is to discuss the legitimacy of the push-pull dichotomy in explaining the motivations and processes of employees’ transition to an entrepreneurial career. To achieve this, a cognitive mapping approach to synthesize the factors from the extant empirical studies was employed. Analysis of 26 articles revealed that categories of push and pull factors in prior research are neither mutually exclusive nor clearly separate. Our dynamic model of employees’ transition to an entrepreneurial career illustrates the reciprocal, compounding, and counter-effective influence of factors. This research sheds light on the dynamic interrelationship among factors affecting employees’ transition to an entrepreneurial career.

员工向企业家职业过渡的两个主要推动因素：推动和拉动因素。然而，推挽式二分法一直是关于分类是否不完整和模棱两可的争论的中心。在解决这场辩论之前，影响因素及其关系的动态和流动性质仍然不清楚。这项研究的目的是讨论推挽式二分法在解释员工向企业家职业过渡的动机和过程中的合法性。为了实现这一目标，采用了一种认知映射方法来综合现有经验研究中的因素。对26篇文章的分析表明，先前研究中的推拉因子类别既不互斥也不明显。我们的员工向企业家职业过渡的动态模型说明了因素的相互影响，复合影响和反作用影响。这项研究揭示了影响员工向企业家职业过渡的因素之间的动态相互关系。