Entrepreneurial Identity And Identity Work

Identities can potentially serve as powerful elements that both drive, and are shaped by, entrepreneurial actions. Entrepreneurial identity is a complex construct with multidisciplinary roots, and therefore there is scope to more fully enrich our theoretical understanding of identity and identity formation, at both individual and organizational levels, and their relationship to entrepreneurial processes, practices and activities. This book highlights two key features of contemporary research on entrepreneurial identity. First, to see it as a dynamic rather than a (relatively) fixed and unchanging feature, shaped by different life episodes. It is increasingly fluid, multilevel and multidimensional, comprising multiple subidentities rather than a univocal (and unchanging) self. As such, it has a profound effect not only on the way we feel, think and behave, but also on what we aim to achieve. Accordingly, it is vital that its dynamics are better understood, particularly in determining how actors behave in an entrepreneurial context. The book’s second focus is on identity work as the process through which entrepreneurial identities are formed and shaped, and the contributors demonstrate how the dynamics of identity formation relate to entrepreneurial outcomes in a range of individual and organizational contexts. This book was originally published as a special issue of Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.

Entrepreneurship is an academic discipline that, despite decades of growth in research and teaching activity lacks a traditionally distinct or common theoretical domain. In this book, editors Thomas N. Duening and Matthew Metzger explore entrepreneurial identity, facets of entrepreneurship education in forming and developing this identity and the development of entrepreneurs in general. Chapters focus primarily on macro-level identity issues (i.e., how do these entrepreneurial archetypes form, persist, and sometimes change) or micro-level identity issues (i.e., how can educators and resource providers identify, communicate, and incentivize identity construction among aspiring entrepreneurs), topics that will be of interest to researchers and students alike.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. The editors map out a vision for research on women and entrepreneurship and using a contextual framework that includes aspiration, behavior and confidence. They delve into issues such as social identity, start-ups, crowdfunding and context to set a new foundation for future research on entrepreneurship and gender.

This open access book investigates the inter-relationship between the mind and a potential opportunity to explore the psychology of entrepreneurship. Building on recent research, this book offers a broad scope investigation of the different aspects of what goes on in the mind of the (potential) entrepreneur as he or she considers the pursuit of a potential opportunity, the creation of a new organization, and/or the selection of an entrepreneurial career. This book focuses on individuals as the level of analysis and explores the impact of the organization and the environment only inasmuch as they impact the individual’s cognitions. Readers will learn why some individuals and managers are able to able to identify and successfully act upon opportunities in uncertain environments while others are not. This book applies a cognitive lens to understand individuals’ knowledge, motivation, attention, identity, and emotions in the entrepreneurial process.

Conceived as the meanings that individuals attach to their selves, a substantial stockpile of theory related to identities accumulated across the arts, social sciences, and humanities over many decades continues to nourish contemporary research on self-identities in organizations. In times which are more reflexive, narcissistic, and fluid, the identities of participants in organizations are increasingly less fixed and less certain, making identity issues both more salient and more interesting. Particular attention has been given to processes of identity construction, often styled 'identity work'. Research has focused on how, why, and when such processes occur, and their implications for organizing and individual, group, and organizational outcomes. This has resulted in a burgeoning stream of research from discursive, dramaturgical, symbolic, socio-cognitive, and psychodynamic perspectives that most often casts individuals' efforts to fabricate identities as intentional, relational, and consequential. Seemingly intractable debates centred on the nature of identities - their relative stability or fluidity, whether they are best regarded as coherent or fractured, positive (or not), and how they are fabricated within relations of power - combined with other conceptual issues continue to invigorate the field. However, these debates have also led to some scepticism regarding the future potential of identities research. Yet as the chapters in this Handbook demonstrate, there are considerable grounds for optimism that identity, as root metaphor, nexus concept, and means to bridge levels of analysis has significant potential to generate multiple compelling streams of theorizing in organization and management studies.

. . . the four books comprising the series would certainly be a valuable addition to any entrepreneurship library. However, each book also stands alone as an individual purchase. Lorraine Warren, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research The book delivers what it promises: a map of the uses of narrative methods in entrepreneurship studies. It is both an interesting contribution to the field and an important methodological handbook for all entrepreneurship researchers who are thinking of adopting qualitative methods in their inquiries. However, it may also be read with advantage by other researchers using ethnography as their main methodological approach to social studies. . . The aim of the book is to show how narratives can enrich entrepreneurship studies, a goal that in my opinion is aptly fulfilled. Monika Kostera, Scandinavian Journal of Management . . . the contributors in this text breathe fresh and imaginative linguistic resources and narrative/discursive frames of reference into the inquiry of entrepreneurial activities. The anecdote, the narrative, the metaphorical, the discursive and the dramaturgical are significant therefore, not only because they bring to the surface voices, emotions, processes and the relationality of (everyday) entrepreneurial activity that have possibly been previously silenced. But also, to paraphrase Steyaert, these approaches highlight the controversial and interactive aspects of the research process. . . The text is welcome because it treats narrative in a serious and scholarly way. Denise Fletcher, International Small Business Journal In their edited book Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship, Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert provide a fascinating glimpse into a perspective on entrepreneurship that will be enlightening for many readers. Entrepreneurship authors typically talk about theory, methods, and data as if a straight-forward linear process united them all, and making sense of entrepreneurship was simply a matter of knowing how to interpret one s findings . By contrast, the authors in this volume propose narrative and discursive approaches in which the contributing authors emphasize rich description, reflexive conceptualization, and interpretations offered as part of the story itself. They draw upon an international set of cases, including Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Venezuela, and North America. The cases themselves make for fascinating reading, quite apart from what we learn about the difficulties of imposing a particular interpretation on a given story. For example, taxi drivers in Caracas, management consultants in Denmark, and women entrepreneurs in northern Norway all make for fascinating narratives from which to understand the entrepreneurial process. Unlike many edited books which have no plot , the editors have included opening and closing sections that link the chapters, offer alternative readings of them, and propose new and expansive ways of thinking about entrepreneurship. Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert set out to advance the study of entrepreneurship by refocusing the lens of discovery from economics, management and marketing to other paradigmatic stances in social sciences and humanities like anthropology and literary studies. The result is a provocative collection of chapters that inspire the reader to consider and explore new ideas and research practice that incorporate both the context and place of entrepreneurship. From the perceptive insights of the editors to the rigorous and provocative discourse of the chapters and thoughtful responses in the conclusion emerges a story, in the best of storytelling tradition, about how a linguistic turn can rouse new insights. The editors ask, how do these texts move you? they entice, provoke, challenge, stimulate and guide. Their implications should be far reaching and required reading for any student of t

Mapping the organizational identity (OI) field -- Critical perspectives on OI -- Integrative models of OI -- How individuals relate to OI -- Sources and processes of OI -- OI and the environment -- Implications of OI

This Element provides an overview of cultural entrepreneurship scholarship and seeks to lay the foundation for a broader and more integrative research agenda at the interface of organization theory and entrepreneurship. Its scholarly agenda includes a range of phenomena from the legitimation of new ventures, to the construction of novel or alternative organizational or collective identities, and, at even more macro levels, to the emergence of new entrepreneurial possibilities and market categories. Michael Lounsbury and Mary Ann Glynn develop novel theoretical arguments and discuss the implications for mainstream entrepreneurship research, focusing on the study of entrepreneurial processes and possibilities.