UNDERSTANDING AND CONVEYING ENTREPRENEURIAL IDEAS JEAN CLARKE LEEDS UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL
AIMS OF THE LECTURE • To understand entrepreneurship as an activity • To suggest an important part of entrepreneurship is understanding and conveying entrepreneurial ideas or meanings to others • To put forward a range of approaches examining the importance of engaging others through language in the entrepreneurial venture. • To illustrate this approach through recent research on the concept of “entrepreneurial maturity” • To examine what this means for the development of entrepreneurs
UNDERSTANDING AND CONVEYING MEANINGS • Previous unit - entrepreneurship as process rather than “special” ability • Entrepreneurial activities emphasised – finding resources, planning effectively, using network, managing risk etc…. • These activities involve effective decision-making and convincing others of the legitimacy of business • How do entrepreneurs make decisions and convince others in highly uncertain conditions? • Need to examine how entrepreneurs make sense of these environments and convey these meanings to others.
MAKING DECISIONS IN AMBIGUOUS CONTEXTS • Ambiguity, adaptation and improvisation characteristic of the entrepreneurial process. • Entrepreneurs don’t have pre-determined goals, they generate goals as they interact with external environment which restricts their action. • Goals conceived through understanding what is possible for entrepreneur to achieve, using experience and social networks (Sarasvathy, 2003). • Goals remain fluid and changing, reflecting the entrepreneurial position where change is constant and meanings continually adjusted. • Entrepreneurs take action based on the meanings they can “make” from this context.
CONVEYING IDEAS IN AMBIGUOUS CONTEXTS • Entrepreneurs exist in contexts where past histories might constrain but don’t predict future events. • Entrepreneurs work on the edge of what they do not know (Hill & Levanhagen, 1995). • Must be able to convince others of the legitimacy of their venture e.g. bank managers, venture capitalists and gain support of employees. • How can they convince others when they are often unsure of the form, shape and utility of the business venture themselves? • Must examine how entrepreneurs “give” meaning to others in context in order to engage them in an uncertain venture.
LINGUISTIC AND IMAGINATIVE DIMENSIONS • One recent attempt at enhancing our understandings is Sarasvathy’s (2003; 2004) work on “effectuation” • Entrepreneurs are “designers” of firms, who see “possibilities” rather than opportunities and work to embed their ideas in the world around them. • This is a process of engaging others in new meanings, requiring some level of imaginative action. • Entrepreneurs connect with others, create new realities and enable action through language & images • A number of examples exist in the entrepreneurship literature, which aim to account for linguistic aspects of the entrepreneurship process.
ENTREPRENEURIAL IDENTITY • Cohen & Musson (2000) studied construction of identity of GPs and female entrepreneurs. • Enterprise discourse entered into both the GPs and the female entrepreneurs talk allowing them to make sense of their activities. • Majority of female entrepreneurs did not identify with the term entrepreneur, relating it to exploitative entrepreneurs of the 1980s and Thatcher’s Britain. • Fournier and Lightfoot (1997) studied how people make sense of being a family business owner. • Entrepreneurs use discursive strategies to combine family and business, creating coherent and contextualised accounts of action.
ENTREPRENEURIAL NARRATIVE • Others have examined stories that entrepreneurs use to make sense of the life-business-narratives (e.g., O’Connor (2002) entrepreneurship as a series of stories • She found entrepreneurs used a range of intertwining and changing narratives to: • justify their goals in founding the business, • persuade others of its legitimacy • to control and make sense of the ambiguity inherent in the environment. • She identifies six basic narrative types • founding, visionary, marketing, strategy, historical and convention, • Narratives variously applied depending on situation
ENTREPRENEURIAL DILEMMAS • Steyaert (1997) conceptualises entrepreneurial process as embedded in a paradigm of “becoming” • Creators of new realities walking on the boundary between existing situations and actualising implicit possibilities into new contexts (Steyaert, 1997). • Conceptualises entrepreneurship in a problematic vocabulary • Focuses on dilemmas within the entrepreneurial environment, • Argues we should understand how entrepreneurs’ talk about and negotiate action through situations that are inherently dilemmatic
ENTREPRENEURS AS TEXTS • Pitt (1998) explored the personal theories of action of two entrepreneurs, treating their conversational narratives as quasi texts • These texts are seen to contain implicit, personal theories of managerial action • Entrepreneurs draw on literary concepts, and model their personal theories as multi-element scripts that evolve and change • These changes offer insights to researchers aiming to understand how entrepreneurs negotiate meaning in uncertain contexts. • Experientially grounded texts permit some degree of systematic access to entrepreneurs theories of action
ENTREPRENEURIAL METAPHORS • Hill and Levanhagen (1995) highlight metaphor • Metaphors essential to communicate abstract concepts and in situations where new and innovative approaches are needed. • Dodd (2002) also found entrepreneurs reached for a range of metaphors, around dynamic and difficult human activities to give meaning to their lives. • Included war, passion, journey, and other activities where the outcome was often unknown and potentially dangerous. • Entrepreneurs used these metaphors to make sense of their actions and activities and express this meaning to others around them.
MEDIA METAPHORS FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP • Nicholson and Anderson (2005) describe entrepreneurship metaphors presented in a British broadsheet newspaper. • They propose the sense-making role of figurative language is important because of the problems in defining and describing entrepreneurial phenomena. • Myth and metaphor in newspapers helps define the entrepreneurship in the world around us • Images of male entrepreneurs as wolfish charmers, supernatural gurus, successful skyrockets or community saviours and corrupters. • These myths and metaphors change over time depending on social context
GROUP TASK • Think of some metaphors that are used about entrepreneurs in the media e.g. gladiator, hero etc. • Do you think metaphors are a useful way of making sense of entrepreneurial activities • Make a list of entrepreneurial metaphors with others in your group • What are the similarities/differences between them?
ENTREPRENEURIAL MATURITY Clarke, Gold, Holt, Thorpe, (2007) • "What is Enlightenment?”, IMMANUEL KANT, 1784 • Immaturity and Maturity – Different Life Views • Immaturity - inability use own understanding • Maturity - defy rules, formulas and ‘guardians’ • Public use of critical reason (autonomy) • Unprejudiced thought–new ideas not just what others have done • Enlarged thought–take account of other’s views • Consistent thought–tolerance for ambiguity • Spread ideas, be own guardians, urge others to think for themselves.
ENTREPRENEURIAL MATURITYClarke, Gold, Holt, Thorpe, (2007) • Building on linguistic understandings we argue that goals are conceptualised by entrepreneurs in imaginative and metaphorical form • Investigate the “images” entrepreneurs use to convey their business goals • Explicitly investigating how entrepreneurs envisage their business goals in the form of a verbal image • Use of a postcard methodology • Builds on previous metaphorical studies in the entrepreneurship domain
FINDINGS • Most prevalent image throughout analysis was of a landscape, some examples are outlined below. • Unprejudiced thought – “suns” or “flaming suns” life-giving entity, creation, independence. • Enlarged thought – “Angel of the North” the open arms of the angel suggest the acceptance of multiple perspectives consulting others and blending different activities and attitudes. • Consistent thought – “working the land on a small holding in Ravello on the Amalfi coast in Italy” content even when future is uncertain. • These images express imaginatively entrepreneurs’ goals and ambitions for their business
GROUP TASK • What do these images mean for you? • Are they useful to understand entrepreneurship? • What do you think they suggest about the entrepreneurs’ goals and ambitions for the business? • Discuss these ideas with your group.
EDUCATING ENTREPRENEURS • If entrepreneurship is a process of meaning-making what does this mean for entrepreneurship education • Entrepreneurs should be aware of their language and how this can impact on success or failure of venture • Entrepreneurship not a “special” ability but having effective interpersonal skills and being able to engage others in the venture. • Some theoretical input outlined in previous sections, the other units will be more practical, however, we can now approach them with the understanding that entrepreneurship skills may be developed in a range of individuals.
