The crafting of an (un)enterprising community: Context and the social practice of talk

Abstract

Context is often treated as a separate externality, most frequently as the where of entrepreneurship. Yet, context is a complex, multi-faceted notion that is not static. This paper examines a 'deprived' UK community to identify how (dis)connections between context and enterprise are produced within accounts of a particular locality. We used a discursive psychological approach to discourse analysis to examine how the community depicted itself as a context for enterprise. Our analysis identified three discursive repertoires mobilised by a range of voices in the community, which combined to portray an unenterprising community and create a conceptual deadlock for enterprise.We suggest it is too deterministic to assume context is fixed and controls the potential for entrepreneurial development. Instead, we should consider the social practices, including talk, that help construct the contexts in which entrepreneurship is expected to occur.

Growing a small firm; experiences and managing difficult processes

“…In examining practices and processes of growth management, we answered appeals for new perspectives on firm growth (Parry 2010;Wright and Stigliani 2013;Leitch et al 2010;Achtenghagen et al 2010), moving from asking 'how much' a firm grows to asking the more fundamental question of 'how' a firm grows (McKelvie and Wiklund 2010). Considering growth a social construction (Downing 2005), and guided by our research question -How do respondents make sense of firm growth?we explored practices through studying talk (Parkinson et al 2016) and found different sensegiving and sensemaking narratives (Jones et al 2010;Hill and Levenhagen 1995).…”

“…Building on this notion of social constructing, Parkinson et al (2016) point out how practices are established through talk, which Watson (2013) describes as discursive practices. The narratives that people use may offer sense making of growth, yet also describe how these perceptions of growth are enacted, sense giving (Toledano and Anderson 2017).…”

“…The repertoire concept has been used to identify recurring patterns in entrepreneurial narratives. Steyaert and Dey (2010) use repertoires to study narratives of social entrepreneurship, Parkinson et al (2016) apply repertoires to understand the role of context, Braches and Elliott (2017) identify different repertoires in studying the gendered careers of German women, whilst Parry (2010) discuss barriers to growth in artisanal firms with the help of the repertoire concept.…”

Understanding entrepreneurship at the base of the pyramid in developing countries : insights from small-scale vegetable farmers in Benin

“…This situation is described by Uzzi (1997) as "over-embeddedness". Understanding entrepreneurial milieu is therefore important for examining the dynamics of the entrepreneurial process (Parkinson et al, 2016;Johan and Alistair, 2017;Korsgaard et al, 2015) and requires to delineate the boundaries for a deeper examination. In the next section, we briefly describe the specifics of BoP contexts in order to gain insights into contextual embeddedness of locally initiated entrepreneurial activities.…”

Empirical Study on Sustainable Opportunities Recognition. A Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Joinery Industry Analysis Using Augmented Sustainable Development Process Model

“…Clearly, embeddedness is significant for SMEs [122,134], requiring deeper examination of the dynamics between them and their contexts. Indeed, few studies have empirically investigated this relationship [78,123], as it is challenging to operationalize the concept of embeddedness [115].…”