Traversing the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur

Abstract

While considerable critical energy has been devoted to unmasking the figure of the heroic entrepreneur, the idea that entrepreneurs are unique individuals with special abilities continues to be widespread in scholarly research, social media and popular culture. The purpose of this paper is to traverse the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur by offering a reading of Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing My Virginity. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical approach of this paper is informed by Slavoj Žižek's concept of fantasy and his critical analytical strategy of 'traversing the fantasy'. Žižek offers a theoretical framework that allows us to understand how narratives of famous entrepreneurs create paradoxical fantasies that produce desire. Findings: By offering a reading of Richard Branson's autobiography, Losing My Virginity, this paper serves to illustrate how the fantasy of the heroic entrepreneur creates the injunction to overcome oneself and become true to oneself, but also how this figure is ridden with contradictions and impossibilities. Branson's book will eventually be shown to be a religious narrative, where the entrepreneur is responsible for redeeming the crises not only of the economy, but of being as such. 2 Originality/value: Rather than striving towards a processual approach that lays emphasis on the collective effort involved in entrepreneurship, this paper critically engages directly with the heroic entrepreneur by exploring how this figure is a fantasy that structures desire. This paper shows how critical entrepreneurship studies could benefit from an approach that analyses how the cultural representation of business celebrates the heroic entrepreneur as a source of value creation. We further argue that it is the contradictions and impossibilities embodied in the figure of the heroic entrepreneur that carry its far-reaching appeal.

Entrepreneurial activities in a developing country: an institutional theory perspective

“…This adds to contributions setting out to understanding the complexities of everyday entrepreneurial life (Bruni et al, 2004;Steyaert, 2007), including also such experiences and events that might be considered too micro, or too mundane for most analyses (Engstrom, 2012;Steyaert, 2004). As well, and in line with this, our study answers to calls made to broaden the contexts in which entrepreneurial initiatives are studied (Baker and Welter, 2017), including also contexts in which conditions are constrained, so as to counter "fantasies" of the "heroic entrepreneur" ( Johnsen and Sørensen, 2017), as well as "one size fits all" approaches (Annink et al, 2016;Eijdenberg, 2016). Our micro approach importantly enhances our 427 Entrepreneurial activities in a developing country understanding of how entrepreneurs cope in a constrained context, such as Tanzania, and how they find opportunities in local institutional occurrences.…”

The Individual-Care Nexus: A Theory of Entrepreneurial Care for Sustainable Entrepreneurship

“…Lastly, we want to point out that many entrepreneurs are capable storytellers and shape societal discourses and narratives [100,101]. Thus, we invite sustainable entrepreneurs and researchers to use a vocabulary of care, nuancing contemporary discourses and narratives, rather than adhering to the dominant rationalized, masculinized, and heroic representations [44,60,61]. We further urge researchers and to accede to alternative theorizations and discourses to be able to better understand and promote sustainable entrepreneurship in a changing business landscape.…”

“…They are 'highly concerned', feel 'personal obligations', take on 'high responsibility', are 'open-minded', and 'seek positive change' [8]. Sustainable entrepreneurs are often construed as eco-heroes [7,56], reinforcing heroic and overly positive representations of entrepreneurs and their practices in discourse and narratives [60,61]. Despite the fact that sustainable entrepreneurship researchers acknowledge that sustainable entrepreneurship is an emotional endeavor [62], as sustainable entrepreneurs tend to express high degrees of 'green emotion and commitment' [63,64], the role of emotions and affect for sustainable entrepreneurship practice is heavily understudied.…”

Materialism, social stratification, and ethics: evidence from SME owners in China

“…Coherent with ethics research (Craft, 2013), substantial evidence in the field of entrepreneurship suggests that individual psychological and cognitive characteristics (Warren and Smith, 2015;Fischer et al, 2017) along with specific operations and financing situation (Johnsen and Sørensen, 2017;Pollack and Bosse, 2014) are responsible for entrepreneurs' decision-making for engaging into deviance.…”