Table of Contents

Contents: Foreword Introduction 1. The Prosaics of Entrepreneurship 2. A Moment in Time 3. Driven Entrepreneurs: A Case Study of Taxi Owners in Caracas 4. ‘Going Against the Grain. . .’ Construction of Entrepreneurial Identity through Narratives 5. Storytelling to be Real: Narrative, Legitimacy Building and Venturing 6. The Devil is in the E-Tale: Forms and Structures in the Entrepreneurial Narratives 7. Crime and Assumptions in Entrepreneurship 8. The Dramas of Consulting and Counselling the Entrepreneur 9. Masculine Entrepreneurship – The Gnosjö Discourse in a Feminist Perspective 10. Quilting a Feminist Map to Guide the Study of Women Entrepreneurs 11. Towards Genealogic Storytelling in Entrepreneurship Readings 12. Reading the Storybook of Life: Telling the Right Story versus Telling the Story Rightly 13. The Edge Defines the (W)hole: Saying what Entrepreneurship is (Not) 14. Relational Constructionism and Entrepreneurship: Some Key Notes References Index

About the Author

Edited by Daniel Hjorth, Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration and Professor of Entrepreneurship and Organisation, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Chris Steyaert, Doctor in Psychology and Professor in Organizational Psychology, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

Reviews

"'In their edited book Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship, Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert provide a fascinating glimpse into a perspective on entrepreneurship that will be enlightening for many readers. Entrepreneurship authors typically talk about theory, methods, and data as if a straight forward linear process united them all, and making sense of entrepreneurship was simply a matter of knowing how to interpret one's "findings". By contrast, the authors in this volume propose narrative and discursive approaches in which the contributing authors emphasize rich description, reflexive conceptualization, and interpretations offered as part of the story itself. They draw upon an international set of cases, including Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Venezuela, and North America. The cases themselves make for fascinating reading, quite apart from what we learn about the difficulties of imposing a particular interpretation on a given story. For example, taxi drivers in Caracas, management consultants in Denmark, and women entrepreneurs in northern Norway all make for fascinating narratives from which to understand the entrepreneurial process. Unlike many edited books which have no "plot", the editors have included opening and closing sections that link the chapters, offer alternative readings of them, and propose new and expansive ways of thinking about entrepreneurship.' - Howard Aldrich, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US 'Daniel Hjorth and Chris Steyaert set out to advance the study of entrepreneurship by refocusing the lens of discovery from economics, management and marketing to other paradigmatic stances in social sciences and humanities like anthropology and literary studies. The result is a provocative collection of chapters that inspire the reader to consider and explore new ideas and research practice that incorporate both the context and place of entrepreneurship. From the perceptive insights of the editors to the rigorous and provocative discourse of the chapters and thoughtful responses in the conclusion emerges a story, in the best of storytelling tradition, about how a "linguistic turn" can rouse new insights. The editors ask, "how do these texts move you?" - they entice, provoke, challenge, stimulate and guide. Their implications should be far reaching and required reading for any student of the entrepreneurial phenomenon. The editors take us, indeed, to "unexplored destinations".' - Nancy M. Carter, University of St. Thomas, US"