Not all Entrepreneurship Is Created Equal: Theorising Entrepreneurial Disadvantage through Social Positionality

Abstract

The phenomenon of entrepreneurship has historically been viewed as an agential and meritocratic activity, wherein actors can creatively mobilise resources to overcome disadvantaged social positions. However, recent literature highlights entrepreneurship's socially embedded, processual nature, suggesting that enduring positions in social hierarchies may be more relevant to opportunity pursuit than previously envisioned. This conceptual paper proposes and builds upon the notions of intersectionality and positionality to more fully theorise disadvantage in entrepreneurial activity. Underpinned by philosophical realism, it makes an ontological argument about the nature of entrepreneurial advantage and disadvantage, offering a reconceptualisation of its relationship to agency and resources. The paper thus illuminates significant structural aspects of entrepreneurship that are currently undertheorised, and without which the picture of entrepreneurial disadvantage is incomplete.

Bios, mythoi and women entrepreneurs: A Wynterian analysis of the intersectional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed women and women-owned businesses

“…The result is that the entrepreneurial domain, overly influenced by the mythoi of 'the entrepreneur', has historically not attended to the impact of bios on entrepreneurial activity, uncritically adopting an abstract Western conceptualisation that ignored the impact of context, let alone historical inequality and disadvantage (Imas et al, 2012;Lippmann et al, 2005;Martinez Dy, 2020;Welter, 2011). Entrepreneurship is undertaken not by abstract or generic -that is to say, implicitly White and male (Mills, 1997;Wynter, 1999) -actors, but by differently embodied individuals and groups; such embodiment has impacts at all stages of their pursuit of opportunities.…”

Disadvantage Entrepreneurship: Decoding a New Area of Research

“…Moreover, not all disadvantaged entrepreneurs are equally disadvantaged; thus, it is important to understand the sources and consequences of disadvantage. The theoretical framework of social positioning as suggested by Martinez Dy (2020) enables to conceptualize entrepreneurial advantage and disadvantage more systematically. Positionality concerns agency, structure and culture and accounts for the unequal distribution of material, cultural and economic resources (Anthias, 2001) which are crucial for entrepreneurial undertakings.…”

“…discuss the liability of foreignness of immigrant entrepreneurs and present a typology, ‘otherness’ concerns the migration status of entrepreneurs. Following the authors, they are adjusting habitus to current contexts in an interplay of agency and structure and culture (Martinez Dy, 2020). The types of immigrant entrepreneurs presented in the article (the ethnic entrepreneur, the transnational intermediary, the transcultural entrepreneur and the knowledge‐based entrepreneur) exemplify different entrepreneurial agencies in different cultures.…”

“…For Miller and Breton‐Miller (2017) immigrant entrepreneurs have to face socio‐cultural challenges. These challenges are an expression of domains of inequalities and hierarchies mainly in terms of gender, race and ethnicity and social class which are at the heart of hierarchies (Martinez Dy,2020). The article by Ekaterina Murzacheva, Sreevas Sahasranamam and Jonathan Levie, ‘ Double disadvantage: Gender, spatially concentrated deprivation and nascent entrepreneurial activity ’, utilized intersectionality theory and accounts for positionality of women entrepreneurs in deprived locations.…”

Absent or Overlooked Promoting diversity among entrepreneurs with public support needs

“…age, gender, race, minority ethnicity, etc. (Knight, 2016;Martinez Dy, 2020). This tendency leads to a perception of under-represented groups as being largely homogeneous, with the consequence that the impact of within-group differences, created by intersecting socio-demographic categories, on entrepreneurial activity remains largely underexplored.…”