No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
A bureaucrat’s journey from technocrat to entrepreneur through the creation of adhocracies
Abstract
How we understand entrepreneurship is a function of the stories we tell. This article uses insights from process theory to explore the ways in which an entrepreneur can employ a story to mobilize others to shed conflicting viewpoints to converge with the abstract. In this story, regulation as a reification of past procedures did not fully account for organizational realities of mailroom inspections conducted by the military post office, so an appeal to foundational values was adopted to alter the shared vision of future potentiality and overcome bureaucratic barriers through the creation of adhocracies. As a result of overcoming interorganizational boundaries, a technocrat became an entrepreneur by changing the view of stakeholders from a fixed audience to active co-authors during the spawning of adhocracies. The creation of adhocracies in this story is explored through an autoethnographic layered account, which is a storytelling approach that mirrors the co-construction of the narratives found within this paper’s vignettes. The understanding of entrepreneurship provided in this paper challenges commonly held assumptions of entrepreneurship, in addition to corporate, organizational and public service entrepreneurship, as well as the methods and writing styles to explore these concepts.
... Her message was to grow power-with, avoid power-over, and support endogenous empowerment by gaining capacity for power. Follett suggests the situation itself is the 'invisible leader' and through scientific co-study and joint-projects of inquiry, it is possible to create common purpose (Pelly, 2016a(Pelly, , 2017, which is the foundation of Ensemble Leadership (Rosile et al., 2015). "Follett's views are in concert with feminist approaches to the ethical resolution of conflict, which focus on dialectical communication between participants to reach an integrative solution that attends to the needs of all" (Monin & Bathurst, 2008: online). ...
... The weak ontology incorporates all that exists to show connectivity between points and serve as a common vector for integration or concrescence. Integration and concrescence represent choices around the convergence of one or more sets of values (Pelly, 2016a(Pelly, , 2017 in which individuals sense their ontology to understand reality. As depicted in Stout's differentiated relational ontology, the embodiment of process theory and Follett's process ontology (Stout and Staton, 2011;Stout, 2012), there is an assumption of a shared metaphysical source, albeit not a shared interpretation. ...
... Alternatively, rigorous forms of monotheism also illustrate the undifferentiated individual ontology (Stout, 2012), where individuals are encouraged to adhere to certain beliefs and those who do not are cast aside. Parallel examples of these behaviors can be identified in government organizations, (Pelly, 2016a) as well as in corporations such as General Electric (Slater, 2003). ...
This paper uses observations from empirical articles and personal experiences of the authors to explore issues associated with the rise of neoliberalism and academic capitalism in the contemporary public university. It frames these issues as stemming from conflicting ontologies between academicians who adhere to the differentiated individual ontology and university administrators who favor the undifferentiated individual ontology. To overcome the disconnect, a differentiated relational ontology that adheres to principles of Mary Parker Follett and Alfred North Whitehead is proposed. The driving force behind this ontology can be highlighted through a communicated crisis, and a specific application of Follett’s differentiated relational ontology is Ensemble Learning Theory (ELT). A potential limitation of this study is generalizability, because the focus is centered on North American public universities and anecdotes are used to characterize a broader educational problem. This evolution is pertinent to academicians and administrators because the ontological impasse experienced in North American public universities threatens their existence as institutions, and has a broader and potentially negative impact on the quality of educational focus and output.
... The textual analysis followed four processes to evaluate the specific problem addressed by our investigation (Weiss, 1994). Narrative research focuses on peoples' texts in place of a priori theories (Gartner, 2010;Weick, 2012;Whiteman and Cooper, 2011), and it can uncover the models used to talk about entrepreneurship (Gartner, 2007;Bazin and Naccache, 2016) After the methodology section, our ethnographic narrative proceeds in the structure of a layered account (Pelly, 2016(Pelly, , 2017a. In this format, the narrative is told in a series of interweaving vignettes. ...
... He explains the discrepancies between strategy and tactics can result in a type of playfulness and creativity that fosters innovation. Pelly (2016Pelly ( , 2017a indicates that heterotopias are the result of underlying entrepreneurial processes, including the co-construction of entrepreneurial narratives. Johannission and Olaison (2007) and Peredo and Chrisman (2006) describe heterotopias that foster entrepreneurship owing to exogenous circumstances. ...
... One of the key tenets of the relational process ontology is that objects coalesce for an infinitesimally small moment to achieve a goal and conduct a transaction or a spontaneous interaction. After this moment, the temporary organizing fades and will never reform in an identical configuration (Pelly, 2016). ...
The heterotopia is frequently portrayed as a third space in organization studies, characterized by its flexibility and receptivity to innovation. Rural entrepreneurship, embodied in the heterotopic space of Community Based Enterprises (CBE’s), is a key concept in emerging economies. Understanding the CBE’s economic and social dynamics is vital for the genesis of entrepreneurship in these spaces, for regional development, and for national economies. This paper deep dives into the group dynamics of Villa Ahumada (VA), a well-known subspace located close to the Mexico-USA border, which, despite its market potential, has not been able to support the collectivization required of a CBE.
Under a case study design, four deep interviews were conducted, which explore the stories of entrepreneurship in VA, and analyze the rich narrative accounts of the participants. Narratives offer opportunities for extending the current conceptualizations of entrepreneurship and its processes.
This paper opens a conversation about the negative aspects of heterotopias, especially with regards to entrepreneurship. Much literature has been devoted to the power of rural communities, and peasant villages as fertile places for entrepreneurship. They emphasize the role of entrepreneurial culture and governmental support as almost guarantors of entrepreneurial success. This narrative provides one reason for entrepreneurial failure: the deviant heterotopia. Despite government policy that favored collective entrepreneurial efforts, and despite a vibrant underground entrepreneurship culture combined with a valuable brand, entrepreneurship in VA was dead before it started.
Rural entrepreneurship should be a multidimensional phenomenon focusing upon entrepreneurship, context, group dynamics, and social capital; but, it has not been interpreted from the perspective of a heterotopia or paratopia.
... Yet, they also faced ambiguity in terms of their authority, mandate, and tasks. While military personnel is known to prefer straightforward regulations and orders (see Pelly, 2016), Military Police management fostered equivocality in our case (see Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2003;Denis et al., 2011;Ebbers & Wijnberg, 2017). ...
... Frontex), which were pragmatically resolved by leaving operational elements ambiguous 13 and thus allowing for diverse interpretations. Indeed, while operational activities often deviate from bureaucratic realities (Pelly, 2016), crises are known to be particularly likely to evoke strategic ambiguity (Eisenberg, 1984;Ulmer and Sellnow, 2000) and pluralistic settings with dispersed power may even further induce strategic ambiguity (Denis et al., 1996(Denis et al., , 2011. ...
... To present the effects of strategic ambiguity and the different coping mechanisms, we decided to make use of vignettes, in the form of two accounts (or moral stories) of former BST members (see Whittle & Mueller, 2012). The choice for this approach was motivated by our objective to offer in-depth insight into both the personal experiences of BST members and the way these experiences were shaped by their specific contexts (see Pelly, 2016). Consequently, it seemed preferable to provide 'thick descriptions' of several accounts rather than separate, decontextualized presentations of a number of patterns (see Geertz, 1973;Ponterotto, 2006). ...
There is widespread agreement that lower level organizational members face moral challenges because their personal values conflict with organizational directions. Yet we argue that intentional strategic ambiguity, too, may lead to moral challenges, particularly among organizational members operating in high-stake situations. Drawing on interviews with border guards deployed during the European migration crisis, we use vignettes to present two coping strategies. First, members may disengage from moral challenges and redefine their work as a clear-cut duty. Second, they may embrace moral disorientation and conflicts, and follow felt moral obligations. Both may lead to “moral injury.” Moral injury refers to psychological suffering that is engendered by performing, failing to prevent, or falling victim to actions that conflict with one’s moral belief system. We make three theoretical contributions by (a) identifying the roots of moral challenges in strategic decision-making, (b) signaling different coping mechanisms, and (c) challenging pragmatic perspectives on strategic ambiguity.
... Autoethnography is composed of three foundational elements -"auto" or self, "ethno" or culture, and "graphy" or study. This type of methodology is built upon an individual being uniquely qualified to describe his or her experiences (Pelly, 2016;Rambo, 2005) that they may be extrapolated to broader social, cultural, or theoretical phenomena (Ellis et al, 2011). This writing style differs from more conventional Cartesian-Newtonian styles of writing that prioritize objectivity (Pelly, 2017a). ...
This article indagates the story of three generations of Latino entrepreneurs –grandmother, mother, and son—with family businesses that flank both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Across generations the "Tamara-Land" effect exists. To disambiguate, the narratives of these family businesses changed across generations, morphing from stories of effectuation to ones of causation. The grandmother living in Mexico embodied effectuation by "falling into" her entrepreneurial opportunities. Her story is one of necessity entrepreneurship because other opportunities were unavailable to her. The daughter in the story exhibits a mix of planning and improvisation. Although the daughter had a latent desire to pursue entrepreneurship, it became a viable option to earn a livelihood that reflected her intellectual interests. In the final series of vignettes, we find the grandson pursuing entrepreneurship in order to achieve his dream. Across generations, the entrepreneurs shift from characters in a grand narrative to becoming authors of their own story. This paper will be of interest to researchers of family business, particularly in Latin American and Latino Entrepreneurship, students of entrepreneurship, and scholars of storytelling.
... 105) with relevant academic conversations. Notable recent examples of this approach in organization studies include R. Pelly's (2016Pelly's ( , 2017 Like Liu and Pelly, I aim to use theory "to integrate the real into the abstract" (Pelly, 2016, p. 494) and provide a conceptual bridge between personal experience and the broader phenomena. I argue that this is commensurate with an abductive approach to theory building, understood as a "conceptual leap" (Klag & Langley, 2013) or a "conjectural mode of inquiry through which we engender and entertain hunches, explanatory propositions, ideas and theoretical elements" (Locke et al., 2010, p. 908). ...
Female role models are increasingly used in enterprise support to encourage women to open businesses. Although varied in detail, their public narratives generally follow a limited number of plots where hard work overcomes all obstacles and leads to emotionally fulfilling, rewarding careers while societally enabled resource accumulation and financial returns are rarely mentioned. This autoethnographic inquiry critically examines one such publicly disseminated role model narrative, the author’s own, and contrasts it with an alternative, unspoken story. Using a narrative approach, performative lens, and insights from the role model literature, it offers a theoretically informed analysis of these contrasting accounts exploring how the relationship between individual agency and social context is occluded in role model narratives. It theorizes a performative paradox where, in order to meet the politically charged imperative to “inspire and empower” disadvantaged aspirants, role models simultaneously perform shared social identity and deny its impact. Implications for enterprise support are discussed.
... Such difficulties originate from an abundance of romanticized discourses related to the 'hero entrepreneur', in which entrepreneurs are consistently depicted in mythical terms, as relentless creatures on a never-ending quest for innovation (Ahl 2006;Bruni et al. 2004;Chasserio et al. 2014;Verduijn and Essers 2013;Tedmanson et al. 2012;Jones and Spicer 2009), wealth creation and change making (Jones and Spicer 2005;Nicholson and Anderson 2005;Rindova, Barry and Ketchen 2009). Taken together, such pervasive discourses continuously shape a collective imaginary of the 'true' entrepreneur as a masculine risk-taker, rather than rule follower (Spicer 2012), who is aggressive and competitive, but at the same time an eloquent networker who knows how to win the hearts and minds of potential stakeholders through charm and heroic storytelling about startup periods (Marlow and McAdam 2012;Ozkazanc-Pan 2014;Pelly 2016;Randerson 2016). Importantly, he is seen as an individual agent, rather than part of a group (Drakopoulou Dodd and Anderson 2007). ...
Drawing on in-depth interviews, this study investigates how entrepreneurs with disabilities (EWDs) position themselves, in their identity work, vis-à-vis dominant, normative representations of the entrepreneur that tend to exclude them. Addressing the current neglect in how EWDs deal with such discursive barriers, we document four identity positions which they deploy, in various combinations, to construct an identity as an entrepreneur. Our findings show that outward positions, by which EWDs compare their own self with (non)-entrepreneurial (able-bodied) others and emphasize similarity and uniqueness, reproduce normative representations of the entrepreneur. Inward positions, by which EWDs engage in inner conversations contrasting their current self with older, aspirational or impossible selves, on the contrary lead to the destabilization of normative representations. This study speaks back to wider debates in entrepreneurship studies, including the plea to consider 'ordinary' entrepreneurs, the difference between 'being' an entrepreneur and 'doing' entrepreneurship, and the value in difference.
... Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011;Rambo, 2005). In our chapter, we have focused specifically on organizational autoethnographies to illustrate resistance to a range of organizational phenomena, to bureaucracies (Pelly, 2016(Pelly, , 2017, bullying managers (Sobre-Denton, 2012;Vickers, 2007), discrimination (Lee, 2018); organizational policies and rules (Jonrad, 2018), emotional labor and dirty work (Alexander Clarke, 2014;Denker, 2017;O'Boyle, 2014;Pinney, 2005;Rivera & Tracy, 2014), gendered cultures (Ford & Harding, 2010;Hunniecutt, 2007;Riad, 2007), and academic conventions (Anderson, 2006;Engstrom, 2012;G Raineri, 2013;Rambo, 2007;Wall, 2006). These studies show that autoethnography is particularly important in studying, understanding, and theorizing about organizational resistance, bringing out issues and problems that would otherwise have remained untold or hidden in our traditional means of researching organizational life. ...
... Table 1 summarizes those that successfully, after (at least) two rounds of review and revision, negotiated this process. The selected papers in this Special Issue expose unusual cases, try out original and/or untested perspectives, and pose new questions: unwrapping the nature of firm level entrepreneurship (Randerson 2016); exploring new ways to study social changes in societies (Montesano Montessori 2016); reflecting on entrepreneurship 'in crisis' through the occupy enterprise movement in Argentina (Dey 2016); retelling the story of entrepreneurship through a study of a uS Military post office in Korea (Pelly 2016); and recasting the roles and beliefs of entrepreneurship education in the Western world through a sense of 'cult' (Farny et al. 2016). ...
... In exploring the concepts of entrepreneurship, Pelly and Duncan (2016) have shown a link between adhocracies and culture, thus demonstrated through their example of altering a shared vision and overcoming organisational barriers the ability for institutes to enact performance change. Similarly, the link between academic institutes' effectiveness and cultures has been substantiated in several studies. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for universities to develop an entrepreneurial culture and assess higher education practitioners’ opinions of the culture of the university they are working in.
Design/methodology/approach
The research provides empirical data collected through a survey instrument originally used for a PhD research study; however, this paper focuses on the question set related to culture, which was based on the organisational culture model presented by Quinn in 1988.
Findings
The findings indicate that a number of respondents reported from a heterogeneous population of higher education institutes predominantly responded they were working within a hierarchy cultural type with many reporting a market cultural type. While respondents from a homogeneous group from a single university reported in the main they were working in a market-driven cultural type with the next main category being a clan culture.
Research limitations/implications
The study population reported in the main that there is predominantly a market culture in UK universities. However, this research has focussed entirely on respondents working within the UK HE sector, thus, has ignored potential differences that could be present within the global HE emerging markets.
Originality/value
The paper strengthens understanding of the critical importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in universities. Students, scholars, HE policy makers and HE practitioners can gather a range of insights pointed at university culture and rest assured in the main they are market focussed.
... Such difficulties originate from an abundance of romanticized discourses related to the 'hero entrepreneur', in which entrepreneurs are consistently depicted in mythical terms, as relentless creatures on a never-ending quest for innovation (Ahl 2006;Bruni, Gherardi, and Poggio 2004;Chasserio, Pailot, and Poroli 2014;Verduijn and Essers 2013;Tedmanson et al. 2012;Jones and Spicer 2009), wealth creation and change making (Jones and Spicer 2005;Nicholson and Anderson 2005;Rindova, Barry, and Ketchen 2009). Taken together, such pervasive discourses continuously shape a collective imaginary of the 'true' entrepreneur as a masculine risk-taker, rather than rule follower (Spicer 2012), who is aggressive and competitive, but at the same time an eloquent networker who knows how to win the hearts and minds of potential stakeholders through charm and heroic storytelling about start-up periods (Marlow and McAdam 2012;Ozkazanc-Pan 2014;Pelly 2016;Randerson 2016). Importantly, he is seen as an individual agent, rather than part of a group (Drakopoulou Dodd and Anderson 2007). ...
... Table 1 summarizes those that successfully, after (at least) two rounds of review and revision, negotiated this process. The selected papers in this Special Issue expose unusual cases, try out original and/or untested perspectives, and pose new questions: unwrapping the nature of firm level entrepreneurship (Randerson 2016); exploring new ways to study social changes in societies (Montesano Montessori 2016); reflecting on entrepreneurship 'in crisis' through the occupy enterprise movement in Argentina (Dey 2016); retelling the story of entrepreneurship through a study of a uS Military post office in Korea (Pelly 2016); and recasting the roles and beliefs of entrepreneurship education in the Western world through a sense of 'cult' (Farny et al. 2016). ...
In this article, we briefly identify three main challenges/issues that should be taken into consideration in the institutionalization of entrepreneurship research: (1) recognizing the complexity of the phenomenon under study; (2) producing interesting, relevant and useful research results for all stakeholders; and (3) developing a critical posture in research. Following the discussion of these challenges/issues we introduce the five contributions to the Special Issue that, in different ways, problematize and challenge mainstream research and approaches. These articles use ‘dissensus discourses’, apply critical, ideological and paradigmatic stances and in some cases underline the importance of contextual factors.
No writer has captured the reader’s imagination as vividly as the Marquis de Sade. Per his usual ramblings, he espouses evil via excruciatingly detailed sexual exploits; but, in later writings he is vehemently critical of those who engage in corrosive behavior. In Reflections on the Novel, de Sade provides step-by-step instructions to create repelling, enthralling, and memorable fictional narratives, then stratifies “what not to do” in order to avoid situations that may lead to irreparable physical, mental, and emotional damage in real life. In this same pamphlet, he advocates authenticity in writing and ways to empower the budding Sadist. Moreover, he is unique in this discourse because he deviates from previous writings and speaks directly to the audience. This article deconstructs Reflections on the Novel and it provides unique writing tenets as suggested by de Sade. These precepts are revolutionary because they provide new avenues of research in entrepreneurship.
This article analyzes the resources, market and non market and non-financial, which are used by Québec social economy firms. This diversification of resources leads firms to respond to demands from the market and from the persons who are the object of their social missions, and these are sometimes contradictory. Firms often need to be very adaptable to reduce the tensions associated with the various logics (market, administrative and social). The hybridization of resources can be a response to these tensions and social firms can develop strategies in order to remain independent from the various funding sources, particularly the State. Keywords: social firms, social economy, management, governance, hybridization
Arts entrepreneurship is still in its early stages as an emerging field of academic and scholarly inquiry at the intersection of art(s) and entrepreneurship. As such its boundaries and scope are still being negotiated. In this article, we examine entrepreneurship’s recent treatment of art (and vice versa) to explore and describe the hidden assumptions evident in each parent discipline’s characterization of the “other.” To do so, we identify and review 98 articles in entrepreneurship journals that address the field of art(s), and 165 articles in art journals that address the field of entrepreneurship. We then narratively analyze the breadth of approaches toward art(s) in entrepreneurship scholarship (and vice versa) and their relative frequency. This narrative analysis permits an examination of key peripheries in the overlap between art and entrepreneurship’s implicit conceptualizations of one another, specifically the importance of dissent and liminality. We close by identifying opportunities for further enriching arts entrepreneurship research and practice.
Performance management (PM) has become one of the most important reforms in the public sector in both developed and developing countries. Unfortunately, institutionalizing PM in the sector continues to be a major problem. Although a number of scholars continue to study the PM in the public sector from different theoretical perspectives, there has been paucity of research concerning the process of institutionalization. The few studies that have attempted to look at the process have done so from a “coercive isomorphism” perspective, especially through legislation. The lack of studies to examine the process of institutionalization has therefore created a gap, which needs to be filled. We therefore attempt to contribute to this discussion by exploring the role of institutional entrepreneurs and their impact on the development and institutionalization of PM in developing countries, with a particular focus on Ghana, a country obsessed with PM but was only able to institutionalize one in 2013 under the leadership of its Public Services Commission. How was the leadership of the PSC able to succeed where previous leaders could not? What characteristics did they display, and what strategies did they use to get things done? The research is a qualitative one.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the ideological impasses between educationally minded faculty and neoliberal oriented university administrators. To bridge and benefit from these two perspectives, Follettian integration is introduced. Specifically, the ensemble learning theory (ELT) and entrepreneurship centers are illustrated as Follettian interventions and their reasons for success are discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is theoretical, but provides ethnographic anecdotes of the problems occurring during the rise of neoliberalism and academic capitalism in the public university. The successful use of the ELT and entrepreneurship centers is likewise explored anecdotally.
Findings
This paper illustrates the benefits of utilizing the ELT and entrepreneurship centers in two different university settings.
Research limitations/implications
While the sample sizes of this paper are small, the anecdotal examples provide the basis for reasoning by analogy.
Practical implications
This work illustrates two possible Follettian interventions that serve as a guide to assist university administrators and faculty to find common ground and better serve students and university communities.
Originality/value
The rise of academic capitalism and neoliberalism has devalued education and resulted in poorer educational outcomes and a modern generation with less intellectual capital. This is one of the first papers to utilize Mary Parker Follett’s theories of education and apply them to the impending identity crisis of the public university. The result is a win-win for both neoliberal administrators and faculty in the face of an impending identity crisis for the public university.
A small number of sociologists of sport have opted to produce what have been defined as autoethnographies or narratives of self. These are highly personalized accounts that draw upon the experiences of the author/researcher for the purposes of extending sociological understanding. Such work is located at the boundaries of disciplinary practices and raises questions as to what constitutes proper research. In this paper, I explore this issue by focusing upon the criteria used by various audiences to pass judgment on an autoethnography/ narrative of self that I submitted to, and eventually had published, in a leading journal. The problems of having inappropriate criteria applied to this work are considered, and the charge of self-indulgence as a regulatory mechanism is discussed. Reactions to a more trusting tale are then used to signal various criteria that might be more relevant to passing judgment upon this kind of tale in the future.
Prior research highlights storytelling as a means for entrepreneurs to establish venture legitimacy and gain stakeholder support. We extend this line of research by examining the role that projective stories play in setting expectations and the dynamics that ensue. Such attention highlights a paradox-the very expectations that are set through projective stories to gain venture legitimacy can also serve as the source of future disappointments. Because of inherent uncertainties that projective stories mask, ventures will likely deviate from their early projections, thereby disappointing stakeholders. This, in turn, can result in a loss of legitimacy. Recognizing that entrepreneurship is an ongoing process, we examine the constraints and possibilities of maintaining or regaining legitimacy through revised storytelling. We conclude the paper with implications for research on entrepreneurial storytelling as an ongoing process.
This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval; and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
Foresight can be described as the articulation of possible futures. It has a range of applications and is used with different methods, for different objectives and in different settings. Yet, anticipation in science and technology is not limited to foresight, but occurs in many more informal ways. This paper investigates the phenomenon that socio-technical developments are saturated with formal and informal anticipations and discusses the implications of this condition for foresight. The range of foresight studies is reviewed as well as the main results of the sociology of expectations, which studies the informal production and circulation of expectations in science and technology. Finally, three generic lessons from the sociology of expectations are derived, and it is discussed how these support or limit the ambitions of foresight.
The original research contribution of this article is in its advocacy of autoethnographic vignettes as a means of enhancing the representational richness and reflexivity of qualitative research. A personal story of career change is used to illustrate how research accounts enriched by the addition of autoethnographic detail can provide glimpses into what Van Maanen called “the ethnographer’s own taken-for-granted understandings of the social world under scrutiny.” Although the overall aim is to respond to Dyer and Wilkins’s exhortation to scholars that they should “try to tell good stories,” the article also has general methodological implications for qualitative researchers seeking to enhance the reflexivity of their work, particularly those pursuing autoethnographic or autobiographical studies.
Through the use of a layered account format, the author sketches, through a juxtapositioning of vignettes and impressions, an autoethnographic portrait of her grandmother. Derrida’s concepts such as the “mystic writing pad,” “differance,” and “sous rature” serve as frames through which to gaze at the emergent nature of identity formation across time. Various aspects of the author’s grandmother’s character, positive, negative, and shades of gray, are illustrated through descriptions of drawing. Through reflexivity, she will show how some of the impressions her grandmother left with her manifest in her. Derrida’s concepts, the layered account format, and drawing, serve individually as viewfinders that offer snapshots of her grandmother and her but, taken together, build up traces and impressions that merge and blend into an illustration of identity as a process and thus an autoethnographic portrait.
This article represents one effort to systematize the use of terminology in the field of corporate entrepreneurship. To do this we first review some of the existing definitions and illustrate how they are contradictory. This review is conducted to provide a grounding from which a framework of definitions can be developed that covers the field of corporate entrepreneurship. In developing this framework we go from a general to a specific point of view in order to clarify the existing boundaries of the field, reconcile the various terms used to describe the phenomena of interest, and illustrate the territory they cover. Each of the definitions we will propose are broad, by intention. We are of the opinion that broad definitions of concepts are preferable to narrow definitions at this stage in the field's development for several reasons. First, broad definitions are less likely to exclude as-yet-unspecified problems, issues, or organizations that are potentially important or interesting. Therefore, starting broad makes it less likely that the definitions will become outmoded and in need of revision as new issues are discovered. Furthermore, broad definitions are more amenable, and more resilient, to the discovery and classification of unique populations and subpopulations of firms and events since they avoid premature or arbitrary decisions about the variables that delineate one group from another. Broad definitions make it possible for the natures of different organizations and events to emerge through empirical research and theories of differences. Finally, broad definitions are more likely to be acceptable to most scholars since most will find a place for the topic or sites of research that are of interest to them. In sum, broad definitions better reflect the early stage of development of the field, avoid the need for excessive retrenchment as new knowledge becomes available, and provide considerable latitude for a theoretical and empirical process to emerge that will eventually permit the unique parts of the whole to be classified, defined, and understood in relation to that whole. After we have presented our framework of definitions pertaining to corporate entrepreneurship, we then proceed to discuss some of the critical constructs by which internal corporate venturing efforts might be classified to illustrate the possibilities of the approach taken. We focus on internal corporate venturing because it is the sub-area that has been perhaps the most thoroughly studied thus far and is, therefore, the most amenable to further classificatory efforts. EXISTING DEFINITIONS Entrepreneurship
This article argues the personal/professional/political emancipatory potential of autoethnographic performance as a method of inquiry. Autoethnographic performance is the convergence of the “autobiographic impulse” and the “ethnographic moment” represented through movement and critical self-reflexive discourse in performance, articulating the intersections of peoples and culture through the innersanctions of the always migratory identity. The article offers evaluative standards for the autoethnographic performance methodology, calling on the body as a site of scholarly awareness and corporeal literacy. Autoethnographic performance makes us acutely conscious of how we “ Iwitness” our own reality constructions. Interpreting culture through the self-reflections and cultural refractions of identity is a defining feature of autoethnographic performance.
The author seeks to develop an ethnography that includes researchers’ vulnerable selves, emotions, bodies, and spirits; produces evocative stories that create the effect of reality; celebrates concrete experience and intimate detail; examines how human experience is endowed with meaning; is concerned with moral, ethical, and political consequences; encourages compassion and empathy; helps us know how to live and cope; features multiple voices and repositions readers and “subjects” as coparticipants in dialogue; seeks a fusion between social science and literature in which, as Gregory Bateson says, “you are partly blown by the winds of reality and partly an artist creating a composite out of the inner and outer events”; and connects the practices of social science with the living of life. In short, her goal is to extend ethnography to include the heart, the autobiographical, and the artistic text. This article provides a conversation with a student researching breast cancer that introduces issues in heartful autoethnography.
We argue that creating novel ventures consists of inductive analogical or metaphorical reasoning, which generates a platform for the creation and commercialization of novel ventures and facilitates the comprehension and justification of a venture. We argue that such inductive reasoning is shaped by two determinants (the applicability of prior entrepreneurial experience and the motivation to resolve uncertainty and acquire legitimacy) that interrelate to predict and explain patterns of analogical and metaphorical reasoning by which novice and experienced entrepreneurs construct meaning for themselves as well as others in the early stages of creating a venture.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to review and organise the autoethnography literature: to explore the obstacles of and opportunities for autoethnography in organisation research; to support PhD students and supervisors who have chosen this methodological route to more clearly define their autoethnographic positions and choices; and to propose new research directions for organisational autoethnography.
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors critically summarise autoethnography as a contemporary approach to organisational ethnography by looking back, looking at the present, and looking to the future. The authors briefly consider the historical and disciplinary development – and vehement critique – of autoethnography, trace its shifting epistemological positions and introduce three emergent “possibilities” of organisation autoethnography.
Findings
– The authors highlight how autoethnography can tell stories otherwise silenced; exploring the mundane, ignored and distorted in current academic life, past and other work experiences, working with others through collaborative or co‐produced autoethnography in exciting new organisational contexts.
Originality/value
– This paper is one of the first attempts to review autoethnography as a contemporary approach to organisation autoethnography.
There has been increasing interest in collaborations, partnerships and networks as they have emerged as interorganizational innovations to address the integrated nature of complex policy problems. Understanding the variation in how these innovations work, as well as what they do, is an important step in allowing managers to understand better the implications and applications of these arrangements. This article provides a descriptive and functional analysis of the diverse types of interorganizational innovations with an eye toward achieving a more universal typology of the variations that exist. The article details the various applications for which these different variants can be used and the contextual factors that affect them. The typology and functional analysis is useful for decision makers to assess the types of interorganizational innovations they might want to adopt in a given situation.
Although authors generally agree on the nature of entrepreneurial activities within existing firms, differences in the terminology used to describe those activities have created confusion. This article discusses existing definitions in the field of corporate entrepreneurship, reconciles these definitions, and provides criteria for classifying and understanding the activities associated with corporate venturing.
Derrida argues for an interpretation of signs that is not encumberd by an attempt to find their singular, static meaning. He, instead, examines the notion of play in interpretation. He argues that this approach is necessary because no new pronouncements are necessary that have not already been used in some form in history. Not only is this the only way to approach interpretation to create new conditions of existence, but language includes the very conditions of its own criticism in two prominent ways. First, one may question the history of the term being examined. Second, the critic can treat old concepts as tools that can be used or discarded at the whim of the critic. In this second sense, ideas are valued by their effectiveness, not their accuracy. To explore this issue further, Derrida examines Levi-Strauss' idea of bricolage. Derrida argues that every discourse is actually a bricoleur.
This paper suggests that entrepreneurship is the process of “emergence.” An organizational behavior perspective on entrepreneurship would focus on the process of organizational emergence. The usefulness of the emergence metaphor is explored through an exploration of two questions that are the focus of much of the research in organizational behavior: “What do persons in organizations do?” (we will explore this question by looking at research and theory on the behaviors of managers), and “Why do they do what they do?” (ditto for motivation). The paper concludes with some implications for using the idea of emergence as a way to connect theories and methodologies from organizational behavior to entrepreneurship.
This book is the first in a series of volumes which explore perspectives on process theories, an emerging approach to the study of organizations that focuses on (understanding) activities, interactions, and change as essential properties of organizations rather than structures and state - an approach which prioritizes activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over continuity, and expression over determination. Process and sensemaking may be seen as mutually interlocking phenomena and, as such, are cornerstones in process thinking, This book brings together contributions from an international group of scholars energized by process organization studies. The chapters offer perspectives from different disciplines, insights from diverse theoretical traditions and contexts, and parallels made with a range of cultural forms, including art, poetry, and cookery. The chapters exhibit a clear emphasis on a process ontology, process theorizing, and narrative thinking. Recurrent themes emerge that distinguish process theorizing from the more logico-scientific, variance-oriented research that dominates organization studies today.
This article synthesizes the large but diverse literature on organizational legitimacy, highlighting similarities and disparities among the leading strategic and institutional approaches. The analysis identifies three primary forms of legitimacy: pragmatic, based on audience self-interest; moral, based on normative approval: and cognitive, based on comprehensibility and taken-for-grantedness. The article then examines strategies for gaining, maintaining, and repairing legitimacy of each type, suggesting both the promises and the pitfalls of such instrumental manipulations.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
How will the role of the federal executive change as part of the federal government's efforts to "reinvent" itself? Vice President Al Gore, Jr., assesses how that role will change and explains his vision of the role of a federal executive in the future. This article is adapted from remarks made at the first lecture of the Marver H. Bernstein Symposium on Government Reform at Georgetown University in March 1994.
How widespread is bureaucratic entrepreneurship? The analysis of bureaucratic entrepreneurship has relied on case studies of a few outstanding individuals, whose emergence is not easily explained except by chance. In contrast, Paul Teske and Mark Schneider argue that bureaucratic entrepreneurship in local government is more widespread than implied by these case studies and that it can be systematically understood in terms of the incentives entrepreneurs face. More specifically, we argue that entrepreneurial city managers, the highest level bureaucrats in local communities, emerge when local citizens demand or local conditions require change and when local politicians do not provide innovative policies to meet these demands. Teske and Schneider test this hypothesis using multinomial logit analysis of data from nearly 1,000 communities to explain why city managers in some communities act as entrepreneurs and others do not.
Because it fails to incorporate the task ofimagination within its domain, economics has yet to develop a useful theory ofentrepreneurship.Equally unsuccessful is entrepreneurship research, whichhas allowed the quest to define entrepreneurial success to interfere withefforts to construct a coherent theory.A philosophically pragmaticapproach allows for the introduction of new meanings and uses for threeconcepts in entrepreneurial economics. First, the tidiness of the success/failure dichotomy is replaced with thenotion that the entrepreneurial process is a continual stream of successes andfailures.Such a notion implies that entrepreneurship is primarily amatter of failure management.Second, the "natural" connectionbetween the entrepreneur and the firm is dissolved, along with the concept ofthe "successful entrepreneur."Third, a contingent notion ofaspirations that places imagination at the center of economics isintroduced.Finally, the story of AES, a young entrepreneurial venture, ispresented using both the standard and the proposed entrepreneurial economicsvocabulary.The two versions illustrate that an economics withoutentrepreneurship will remain an economics incapable ofimagination.(SAA)
This study examines the relationship between corporate entrepreneurship intensity and five specific strategic management practices in a sample of 169 U.S. manufacturing firms. The five strategic management practices include: scanning intensity, planning flexibility, planning horizon, locus of planning, and control attributes. The results of the study indicated a positive relationship between corporate entrepreneurship intensity and scanning intensity, planning flexibility, locus of planning, and strategic controls. The fine-grained nature of these results may be of practical use to firms that are trying to become more entrepreneurial and may help researchers better understand the subtleties of the interface between strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The role of entrepreneurship in the public services remains controversial. In this article we present an initial framework for understanding public entrepreneurship based on a typology of entrepreneurship and an initial classification of relevant public service processes and outcomes. Each aspect is illustrated by case study evidence taken from the West Midlands Ambulance Service, and is integrated into the theoretical literature on entrepreneurship. When applied to this case, the framework helps to differentiate two types of entrepreneurial action. The first type is conducted away from the core service and is governed by commercial considerations, the second is linked to the core statutory service and is governed by bureaucratic obedience. We argue a feature of public management is the requirement to operate across differing 'orderings of life' where contradictory rules apply. The acceptability of entrepreneurship depends on whether managers can recognize and distinguish between the rules governing these spheres.
This book presents a novel and comprehensive process theory of organization applicable to 'a world on the move', where connectedness prevails over size, flow prevails over stability, and temporality prevails over spatiality.
The process theory developed in the book draws upon process thinking in a number of areas, including process philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology, and science and technology studies. Salient ideas from these schools are carefully woven into a process theory of organization, which makes the book not only a thought provoking theoretical contribution, but also a much needed glimpse into the challenges faced by organizers. Taking a distinctly temporal view of organizational life the author shows how actors operate in an on-going present in which they draw upon their past and project their past as ambitions for the future. This on-going work in which technologies, concepts, and social actors take part is crucial for the making of any type of organizational formation. A key construct of the book is that of events, which provide force, movement, and continuity to organizational life.
The book is suitable for scholars and advanced level students in organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology. It contains a number of practical examples to illustrate the theoretical framework.
Readership: Academics, researchers, and graduate students in organization studies, management studies, technology studies, and sociology
Using a study of the relationship between bureaucratic work environments and individual rates of entrepreneurship, I revisit a fundamental premise of sociological approaches to entrepreneurship, namely, that the social context shapes the likelihood of entrepreneurial activity, above and beyond any effects of individual characteristics. Establishing such contextual effects empirically is complicated by the possibility that unobserved individual traits influence both the contexts in which people are observed and their likelihood of becoming entrepreneurs. This paper presents the first systematic study of the effects of bureaucracy on entrepreneurship that accounts for such unobserved sorting processes. Analyses of data on labor market attachments and transitions to entrepreneurship in Denmark between 1990 and 1997 show that people who work for large and old firms are less likely to become entrepreneurs, net of a host of observable individual characteristics. Moreover, there is strong evidence to suggest that this negative effect of bureaucracy does not spuriously reflect self-selection by nascent entrepreneurs into different types of firms. An important implication of this finding is that the structure of organizational populations affects the supply of nascent entrepreneurs, as well as the availability of entrepreneurial opportunities.
This study examines change initiated from the center of mature organizational fields. As such, it addresses the paradox of embedded agency — that is, the paradox of how actors enact changes to the context by which they, as actors, are shaped. The change examined is the introduction of a new organizational form. Combining network location theory and dialectical theory, we identify four dynamics that form a process model of elite institutional entrepreneurship.
I find myself in agreement with most of the points of Crosby's position that there are new things and new events in the world. Like him, I hold that determinists are mistaken, and I believe that time flows one way only. I appreciate Crosby's amendment of Whitehead's category of the ultimate from creativity to creativity/destructiveness or, translating Spinoza's term, nature naturing. And finally I applaud his clever, and I think successful, argument that the production of novelty, rather than being incompatible with causal action, is, indeed, a requirement for any such process. Most of the meat of philosophy, however, lies not in agreements but in their contraries. While I do have significant disagreements with Crosby, I want to state at the beginning that these deal with issues in Philosophy that I find among the most perplexing, and so I hope I can expound them with at least a modicum of clarity.
The major, underlying concern I have with Crosby's argument centers not on the concept of novelty nor on whether such occurs, but on the concept of causality. It is in relation to causality that Crosby attempts to prove his case on the existence of novelty. He maintains that not only is novelty not opposed to causality, but novelty itself is a necessary condition for causality to exist at all. Very importantly, I believe he proves his point. However, if causality is a totally confused notion, then, in my opinion, proving that novelty is necessary for causality to exist proves much less than Crosby intends. If I am correct, Crosby's argument is vitiated to a good extent because of its connection with causality at all.
To see how this plays out, we can look at the simplest statement of this principle, "Everything that exists must have a cause." But note that this tries to make causality clear by invoking the frustrating and paradoxical notion of "thing." What is a thing, which is supposed to require a cause for its existence? I present a piece of sandstone. Is it a thing? Here is a grain of sand on the surface of the piece. Is it a thing? The sandstone was taken from a ledge. Is the ledge a thing? The ledge is part of a deposit. Is the deposit of sandstone a thing? What happens to the causality principle if we try to eliminate (not an easy thing) this suspect category of thing (or something)?
Maybe it is every event that must have a cause. But this gets us no closer to freedom from metaphysical quicksand. The first definition in my dictionary of event is, "Something that happens"(emphasis mine). And if we consider the notion of event on its own ground, so to speak, we run up against the following questions, among others: How much time is necessary for an event? Is a hiccup an event? A hiccup in the middle of a concert? Was the Chicago Fire an event? The battle of Antietam? The Civil War? The settling of the West? The Industrial Revolution?
I am not concerned here with what is usually regarded as the essential puzzling issue of causality, that is, the nature of the causal relation. I am only struggling, and vainly I fear, with the preliminary issue of what the things are that are said to require causes. And I'm pessimistic that we will get very far in the task of specifying with precision just what these things—or occurrences or processes or fundamental entities or whatever—are.
Perhaps another approach, a different angle, might be utilized. Must it not be that there is a fundamental truth or insight, or at least a strong, legitimate motive for holding that every thing (or event, etc.) must have a cause? This is a position held by virtually everyone at the level of common sense, and by the great majority, even, of skeptically minded philosophers. Rather than trying either to stipulate what the entities involved in causality are or wrestle with the issue of what the causal relationship itself is, let's try to understand why the principle is so widely held—what its appeal is. The...
Within the social sciences narrative approaches have become more popular. In recent years ithas also been suggested that entrepreneurship research would benefit from the use of a narrative approach. Interest in this direction is now emerging. The purpose of this article is to illustrate and reflect upon how narrative approaches can contribute to entrepreneurship research. The article is focused on three areas: (1) The construction of entrepreneurial identities, (2) Entrepreneurial learning, (3) (Re)conceptualizing entrepreneurship. It is argued that a narrativeapproach contributes to the literature by enriching the understanding of what motivates individual entrepreneurs and the way they run their businesses. Storytelling is closely related to entrepreneurial learning and complements other approaches. Furthermore, storytelling and story-making serve as potential metaphors for conceptualizing and reconceptualizing entrepreneurship.
This paper focuses on how one can relate management thinking/practices to entrepreneurial processes in the context of formal organization. In order to do this we develop a number of related ‘spatial concepts’ providing us with the possibility of describing entrepreneurship as a ‘creation and use of space for play/innovation’. Using concepts of space, the managerial and the entrepreneurial dimensions and perspectives on organizing creativity become highly visible in the case studied. This is a field study (within the ethnographic tradition) focusing on an organizational transformation of a former public authority into a competitive limited company. A distinction between managerialism and ‘entrepreneurship as event’ is proposed as conceptually fruitful as well as useful for discussing recommendations to managers for how to handle entrepreneurial processes. A minimal and contextual role for management is suggested when aspiring to support the creations of space for play/invention, for example, for entrepreneurship as forms of organizational creativity.
There is an increasing concern for the notion of ‘embeddedness’ of economic activity; yet the conceptualization of the concept and its operationalization remain underdeveloped. First, embeddedness may concern, on the one hand, the structure of relations that tie economic actors together (structural embeddedness) and, on the other hand, the social strands supplementing economic strands in each relation (substantive embeddedness). In this paper, a network framework is outlined which proposes several layers or ‘orders’ of embeddedness. Focusing on small firms, the point of departure is individual exchange relationships as personal ties combining economic and social concerns. First-order embeddedness concerns the localized business networks created by combining these dyadic relations. Second-order embeddedness is achieved when considering also the memberships of business persons in economic and social local institutions while third-order embeddedness concerns the special cases where these institutions bridge gaps between firms. The network model is operationalized and applied to a small Swedish industrial (furniture) community, its firms and economic/social institutions. The findings generally support the applicability of the model and demonstrate the supplementarity of different layers/orders of embeddedness. Further research challenges are deduced and implications for practitioners are provided.
This article uses the literary form of the embedded narrative to link a particular text to the larger texts in which it is embedded, or the surrounding story situation. The article thus addresses a continuing problem in organizational discourse, which is the need to interpret discourse in relation to its context. It also shows how this construct sheds light on the complexity and dynamics of organizational change. The data are from a year-long ethnographic study of a high-technology research organization in Silicon Valley.
Autoethnography has recently become a popular form of qualitative research. The current discourse on this genre of research refers almost exclusively to “evocative autoethnography” that draws upon postmodern sensibilities and whose advocates distance themselves from realist and analytic ethnographic traditions. The dominance of evocative autoethnography has obscured recognition of the compatibility of autoethnographic research with more traditional ethnographic practices. The author proposes the term analytic autoethnography to refer to research in which the researcher is (1) a full member in the research group or setting, (2) visible as such a member in published texts, and (3) committed to developing theoretical understandings of broader social phenomena. After briefly tracing the history of proto-autoethnographic research among realist ethnographers, the author proposes five key features of analytic autoethnography. He concludes with a consideration of the advantages and limitations of this genre of qualitative research.
This article aims (1) to analytically disaggregate agency into its several component elements (though these are interrelated empirically), (2) to demonstrate the ways in which these agentic dimensions inter-penetrate with forms of structure, and (3) to point out the implications of such a conception of agency for empirical research. The authors conceptualize agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its "iterational" or habitual aspect) but also oriented toward the future (as a "projective" capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a "practical-evaluative" capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment).