Mind, Body, and Soul: A Spiritual Perspective on the Entrepreneurial Imagination

Abstract

We develop a spiritual perspective on the entrepreneurial imagination, addressing imagined futures in this “conversations and controversies” section on entrepreneurial futures. Specifically, we blend heterodox ideas from various yoga traditions, experiential sources of religion, and the work of poet-mystic William Blake. These diverse sources echo related ideas in a coherent way—uniquely embracing both transcendence and immanence, both mind and body. We structure our argument around the latter binary, making connections to spirituality and entrepreneurial imagination in each domain. We begin with the mind, acknowledging imagination as a mental act. Specifically, we explore the conscious, unconscious, and spiritual mind. We then turn to the body, recognizing imagination’s bodily basis. In particular, we investigate the corporeal, sensory, and spiritual body. Before offering some concluding thoughts, we discuss implications for entrepreneurial imagination with a focus on walking meditation (and contemplative practices of walking more generally) as one potentially fruitful way to engage mind-body-spirit and the forward-looking entrepreneurial imagination.

Even-If: Sufficient, Yet Unnecessary Conditions for Worldmaking

“…But an even-if approach to effectual actions and interactions argues for the extraordinary possibilities of ordinary imagination, a facility available to all of us, at all times. William Blake, extensively examined in Chiles, Crawford, and Elias (2021), expresses this inextricable link between the mundane and the profound, the Goodmanian existence of extraordinary possibilities within ordinary reality as follows:…”

Envisioning Entrepreneurial Engagement in North Korea

“…Our analysis was informed by the prospective narrative approach (Beckert & Bronk, 2018;Boje, 2001;Sools et al, 2015), which suggests that narratives are a suitable means or space for individuals to construct forward-looking imaginations of the self in a world that might come to be (Bruner, 1995;Förster, Liberman & Shapira, 2009;Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstfeld, 2005). As such, the prospective entrepreneurial narratives produced by the students in North Korea are externalisations of their future imaginations (Chiles et al, 2021;Dimov, 2020;Garud et al, 2014;Trope & Liberman, 2010), which help reveal how individuals construct their future entrepreneurial self and the imagined state of their future entrepreneurial engagement (Cornelissen & Clarke, 2010;Vaara et al, 2016;Wood et al, 2021) under the institutional constraints of a rigid planned economy (Hisrich & Grachev, 1993;Lu & Tao, 2010). This required a careful narrative approach to examining how the entrepreneurial stories may align with or challenge the dominant institutional discourse because "[w]hat is 'said' in a text always rests upon 'unsaid' assumptions" (Fairclough, 2003: 11).…”

“…Against this backdrop, the study of future imaginations of entrepreneurial engagement is especially relevant in an institutional context where entrepreneurship is highly uncertain and almost unfeasible (Bruton, Ahlstrom & Li, 2010;Webb, Tihanyi, Ireland & Sirmon, 2009). Examining prospective narratives within such contexts can help reveal the source of entrepreneurial engagement under 'extreme' constraints (Chiles, Elias & Crawford, 2021;Clarke, 2008), as it allows us to discover first-hand what (prospective) entrepreneurs perceive as opportunities for entrepreneurial engagement despite the constraints that pertain (Dimov, 2020). Furthermore, particularly in an unfamiliar market context, the envisioning and narrating of prospective entrepreneurial engagement can allow nascent entrepreneurs to gain approval from important stakeholders and thus reduce some of the institutional uncertainties of their venture (Cornelissen & Clarke, 2010;Garud et al, 2014).…”

Impactful Theory: Pathways to Mattering

“…A few recent articles in Organization Theory offer insights about how interventionist theorizing might take shape (Chiles et al, 2021; Sarasvathy, 2021). For instance, Sarasvathy (2021) noted that cause and effect theorizing has limited applicability to the domain of entrepreneurship, where reality is unpredictable, and fundamentally unknowable: “Faced with such uncertainty, hypothesizing and hoping [for] an objective external world to validate or falsify claims is not a useful strategy” (p. 8).…”