PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to extend the repertoire of narrative resources relevant in the creation and maintenance of entrepreneurial identity, and to explore the implications for understanding entrepreneurial behaviour.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical research is based on a two and a half year ethnographic study of a small UK industrial firm.FindingsThe study describes how clichés used by aspirant entrepreneurs are significant elements in creating entrepreneurial self‐identity. In contrast to entrepreneurial metaphors, the study of which has highlighted and revealed the extraordinary components of an entrepreneurial narrative identity, examination of the clichés provide us with a means by which to understand the everyday and ordinary elements of identity construction in entrepreneurs.Research limitations/implicationsFurther qualitative research in other entrepreneurial settings will be required, exploring the generality of cliché use amongst entrepreneurs.Practical implicationsApplying the implications of our findings for pedagogic and business support uses is not explored and will need further development; we do however suggest that narrative approaches that make sense of entrepreneurship as an achievable aim may have some practical use.Originality/valueThe application of cliché as a distinctive linguistic feature of entrepreneurial self‐identity construction is highly original and reflects analogous work on entrepreneurial metaphors. Because of its ethnographic data, the paper develops empirically and conceptually rich insights into entrepreneurship.

Previous research on age and entrepreneurship assumed homogeneity and downplayed age-related differences in the motives and aims underlying enterprising behaviour. We argue that the heterogeneity of entrepreneurship influences how the level of entrepreneurial activity varies with age. Using a sample of 2566 respondents from 27European countries we show that entrepreneurial activity increases almost linearly with age for individuals who prefer to only employ themselves (self-employers), whereas it increases up to a critical threshold age (late 40s) and decreases thereafter for those who aspire to hire workers (owner-managers). Age has a considerably smaller effect on entrepreneurial behaviour for those who do not prefer self-employment but are pushed into it by lack of alternative employment opportunities (reluctant entrepreneurs). Our results question the conventional wisdom that entrepreneurial activity declines with age and suggest that effective 2 responses to demographic changes require policy makers to pay close attention to the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial preferences.

Generational relations and entrepreneurialism in organizations are attracting increasing attention from organizational scholars. This article bridges these areas of interest, by examining how entrepreneurial identity is shaped by generational encounters within a small organization context. In so doing, it contributes to ongoing challenges to the scientistic orthodoxy regarding the formation of entrepreneurial persons. Evidence from an ethnographic study of two joint ownermanagers in the port fendering industry is presented. Wenger’s ‘community of practice’ framework is used to show that generational encounters, through their influence on self-identity, are an important social context of the decision to embark on an entrepreneurial career. By emphasizing micro-socially situated aspects of identity formation, this article provides an interactionist complement to recent accounts of entrepreneurs and identities as being (re)produced by discourses that have hegemonic effects.

This article examines how frontline managers establish managerial identities. It combines narrational and Goffmanesque conceptions of managerial identity work in a longitudinal study of one first-line supervisor at a restructured Australian industrial plant. We argue that, singly, neither self-narration nor dramaturgical performance accounts for the practical discursive work that constructs managerial 'identity'. We demonstrate that frontline manager identity work is an iterative process in which self-narration and dramaturgical performance are almost seamlessly interwoven. The supervisor uses these different identity work stratagems simultaneously, and they are processually co-dependent. We conclude, therefore, that organizational scholars who study how persons construct managerial identities should take Goffman's dramaturgical perspective more seriously. It is an indispensible complement to the analysis of identity narratives, because successful performances undergird managers' attempts to craft stable narrative identities. K E Y WO R D Sdramaturgy Erving Goffman identity work interaction narratives organizational change

This article addresses the empirical relationship between masculinity, hegemony and entrepreneurial identity as a largely neglected debate; this omission is addressed by outlining how 10 enterprising men who own and run small businesses perform, in the Goffmanesque sense, a style of ‘entrepreneurial masculinity’ in front of each other during their leisure lives when they meet as a local entrepreneurial fraternity in a semi-rural pub. By so doing, we expand upon prevailing ideas about how male actors perform entrepreneurial identity and develop ethnographic accounts of how gender, entrepreneurship and identity projection culturally intersect.