Abstract
Is backlash emerging against the entrepreneurial spirit? This provocative double volume raises this question, provides data and theory to support the question, and suggests a new vein of research in entrepreneurship. These books are a useful read for junior and senior scholars of entrepreneurship. The two volumes stem from a conference with two goals: (1) to encourage scholarship on how entrepreneurship affects societal outcomes and (2) to build a research community focused on questioning the taken-for-granted assumption that entrepreneurship is valorous and good in all forms for society.
The authors define entrepreneurialism as a set of values—a discourse that legitimates neoliberalism—in which actors narrowly frame agency within an economic universe devoid of sociological and societal views. Entrepreneurialism is a contemporary re-constitution of neo-liberalism. The chapters seed the path for scholars to examine the reverse of the causal relationships studied in prior entrepreneurship research. There is a variety of theory building and data-interpretive chapters using mixed methods, with six of the 14 articles using computational discourse analysis.
Over the last 30 years, the teaching and practice of entrepreneurship have become rationalized, for example as the ubiquity of the lean startup method shows. During this time, universities and governments have made significant investments in promoting entrepreneurship. Many university development officers and technology transfer offices in the U.S. count on entrepreneurship as a source of revenue. This timely set of volumes questions whether this fostering of an entrepreneurship culture is always good for society.
Institutionalized entrepreneurship, or what the authors term “entrepreneurialism,” is an important topic that we need to know more about. What is wrong with attaining bragging rights by standing in the shadow of the dominant cultural myth in which students travel the circuit of famous business plan contests but may never actually start a company? Surprisingly, there is little research on the consequences of entrepreneurship as a cultural ethos. For exceptions see Thornton and Klyver (2018), who showed the loose coupling and symbolic management of entrepreneurial intentions that do not result in the starting of companies; and Kwon and Sorenson, (2021), who showed that the coveted model of economic development in Silicon Valley over the last 40 years has resulted in hollowing out the middle class and producing a society in which people live at either end of the income distribution. Thus, this double volume is important because it can help scholars to reflect on and examine the consequences of entrepreneurialism for societies. Is entrepreneurialism reproducing the Third World rather than resulting in progress in building a vibrant middle class and lifting people from poverty?
The chapters in the two volumes are a call for readers to focus on the power and capacities of entrepreneurship to influence societal outcomes, and therefore to gain knowledge of the best societal targets for entrepreneurial endeavors. The topic of entrepreneurialism is divided into the areas of 1) ideology and 2) entrepreneurship and societal outcomes. In volume 81, Eberhart, Aldrich, and Eisenhardt write that “starting a company has transformed from a commercial endeavor into a broad set of entrepreneurial ideologies that informs how we organize work, educate ourselves, and perceive social interactions” (p. 3). The two volumes develop three key sets of theoretical elements: 1) micro to macro constructed ideology or neoliberalism, 2) actor-driven in situ processes or leadership, and 3) consequences for society, both positive and negative.
For each of these three conceptual elements, there are chapters that provide many insights. For example, in volume 81, Eberhart, Barley, and Nelson use evidence from Google N-grams to argue that neoliberal ideological discourse legitimates the gig economy but, in effect, disadvantages workers’ rights and benefits. Bromley, Meyer, and Jia integrate myth and ceremony (Meyer and Rowan, 1977) with World Society theory (Meyer, 2010) to argue, from an analysis of Harvard Business Review abstracts and Google N-grams, that the neoliberal cultural hype supporting entrepreneurship is harmful to society. The hype in effect decouples the reality of rare successes, high failure rates, and decline in founding of firms from the growth of business- and engineering-school programs that teach (if not promote) entrepreneurship knowledge and skills. Vogel suggests that neoliberals bestow accolades and valor on entrepreneurs, but neoliberal ideology has unintentionally impaired entrepreneurs. He pieces together an argument by reviewing literature on neoliberal reforms, such as lower taxes, lower social spending, less regulation, financial liberalization, and weaker antitrust enforcement, which Vogel suggests has the unintended consequence of hurting startups and favoring incumbent firms. According to him, government is needed to level the playing field for startups and incumbents. Last, the well-written, informative chapter by Palmer and Weiss is a must-read. It will no doubt open a new variant of entrepreneurship research on corruption and misconduct.
Volume 82 focuses more directly on causal relationships between entrepreneurship and societal outcomes. The chapter by Hartmann, Spicer, and Krabbe asks the interesting question of why the quality of entrepreneurship might be declining. By creatively drawing on Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption, the authors link the symbolic management of entrepreneurship to status, identity, and the consumption of the products of the Entrepreneurship-Industrial Complex, i.e., Shark Tank, pitch contests, and university curricula. The chapter illustrates both positive and negative outcomes of this link. I would not hesitate to recommend this chapter as essential reading to entrepreneurship students and scholars at all levels. The chapter by Ozkazanc-Pan discusses the dark side of social capital to explain the lack of inclusion in entrepreneurial ecosystems. Haugh and Doherty’s chapter on how social entrepreneurship impacts the common good examines ten successful social entrepreneurship enterprises in the U.K. Finally, Sorokin, Froumin, and Chernenko explore in formerly Soviet countries the role of education systems in legitimating entrepreneurship-related myths, principles, and social hierarchies, suggesting that higher education is the wellspring of global entrepreneurship culture.
Article 1 in volume 82 articulates how the two volumes’ design fits “reversing the arrow” as a metaphor for future theory building in entrepreneurship research. The use of metaphors in these volumes is often helpful to simplify complex thoughts and ideas. The metaphor for neoliberalism and entrepreneurialism is “the archery field”; the high-tech, social, and everyday entrepreneurs are the “archers,” the discursive processes and material practices are the “bows and arrows,” and the societal outcomes are the “targets.” But in my view, the notion of archers’ arrows and Robinhood, the skilled archer and legendary heroic outlaw rebelling against tyranny and stealing from the rich to give to the poor, obscures rather than simplifies. This metaphor makes the volumes reflect the humanities more than the fields of strategy and management, in which the bulk of entrepreneurship is researched and taught (see Eisenhardt’s chapter opening). Moreover, it is a well-known premise in sociology that when a phenomenon becomes highly rationalized and institutionalized, it becomes subject to symbolic management, corruption, and unintended consequences. There is much theory and empirical evidence to support this premise, and it needs to be used to achieve the redirection called for in these volumes. I would argue more for the merits of aligning with the principles of conventional social science theory construction and empirical research focused on established concepts and mechanisms. The more that researchers build on definitions commonly used in the existing entrepreneurship literature, for example on the type of entrepreneurship, i.e., rare high-tech versus the highly viable and majority lifestyle and family businesses (Aldrich and Ruef, 2018), the more successful the call will be to redirect researchers’ focus from changing the “level of analysis” and the “independent versus dependent variables” toward a focus on society in entrepreneurship research. Note that this call is consistent with the purpose movement in the field of strategy.
While these chapters are a good start, as Aldrich notes they unapologetically take an ideological rather than social science spin on the reverse-arrow question. Admittedly, the chapters are meant to be provocative, and they more than succeed in this goal. So, what is missing that may be grist for future research? One topic is the role of corporate entrepreneurship—underrecognized but important because of the amount of money available and corporations’ ability to use hierarchy to provide governance without the constraints of government (Pahnke, Katilla, and Eisenhardt, 2015). Moreover, ideology may produce unintended consequences, but it does not explain unintended consequences. What other factors might (see Merton, 1936)?
I highly recommend this comprehensive double volume as essential reading for the next generation of entrepreneurship scholars. It is crucial to examine the outcomes of our taken-for-granted, highly rationalized practices of entrepreneurship and the conditions in which these practices are beneficial or detrimental for society.
