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Entrepreneurialism as Discourse: Toward a Critical Research Agenda

Koray Caliskan (The New School, USA)
Michael Lounsbury (University of Alberta, Canada)

Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives

ISBN: 978-1-80382-658-5, eISBN: 978-1-80382-657-8

Publication date: 22 September 2022

Abstract

This paper contributes to a growing literature that examines entrepreneurship with a critical perspective, arguing for a research agenda that makes entrepreneurialism as discourse visible. We define the discourse of entrepreneurialism as a style of thinking and economic intervention that invites actors to pursue their interests by drawing on a limited notion of agency that locates itself in an imaginary economic universe independent of institutions, broad social contexts, and identity considerations. Associated with the global rise of neoliberalism, entrepreneurialism provides actors with tools and competences to imagine organizations in narrow, instrumental terms and with an idealized notion of agency. We argue that seeing entrepreneurial capacity in such a limited way makes it impossible to fully understand entrepreneurship as a phenomenon. Highlighting the adverse consequences of entrepreneurialism, we map areas of inquiry that can contribute to the emergence of a more effective and comprehensive critical research agenda concerning entrepreneurialism.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Robert Eberhart, Zeynep Gambetti, and Luis Marin for their help.

Citation

Caliskan, K. and Lounsbury, M. (2022), "Entrepreneurialism as Discourse: Toward a Critical Research Agenda", Eberhart, R.N., Lounsbury, M. and Aldrich, H.E. (Ed.) Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 81), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 43-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20220000081003

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022 Koray Caliskan and Michael Lounsbury