| 1. |
- Berglund, Karin, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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To play or not to play: that is the question : entrepreneuring as gendered play
- 2015
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Management. - : Elsevier BV. - 0956-5221 .- 1873-3387. ; 31:2, s. 206-218
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How can play be used to unravel the discourse of the gendered hero entrepreneur and instead describe mundane entrepreneuring? Further, how can the doing of gendered social orders be problematized when entrepreneuring is equated with play? In this article we answer these questions by engaging with the French social theorist Caillois’ (1961) conceptualization of play as being at the heart of all higher culture. Two ethnographic cases act as our vehicle in analysing play as entrepreneuring. From a rich description of these cases we find that it is not a question of playing or not playing, but about how to play. All four forms of play described by Caillois are present, which illustrates the variation of entrepreneuring and the richness of activities conducted in the ‘doing of entrepreneurship’. Further, both ways of playing discussed by Caillois are found. Whilst these two ways are interrelated on a continuum in the theory of play, they have been separated in entrepreneurship discourse, where they underpin the tendency to differentiate between the hero entrepreneur and ordinary people. Finally, we engage in a more interpretive and reflective discussion on entrepreneuring as performative acts through which social orders can be not only reproduced but also transformed.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Redmalm, David, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Möbius Management : The Internal Dynamics of Business Ethics Programmes
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study draws on the theoretical framework of Giorgio Agamben to conceptualize the dynamic that business ethics programmes create within companies—an area of study that is underexplored in organization and management research. We suggest that the “ethical” corporation can be regarded as a machine that dissolves the boundaries of the firm and conflates the goals and values of management, employees and the corporation—a process we call Möbius Management. Using ethnographic methods, we have studied the American-Hungarian IT company Prezi’s engagement in the Budapest Pride Parade, in a Roma settlement, and in a mission to help Syrian refugees. These different situations can be regarded as what Agamben calls “zones of indistinction”: places where seemingly contradictory values and categories are merged, and where the value of life is momentarily challenged. Entering these zones, employees’ personal engagement is encouraged and developed, which in turn strengthens bonds between employees and sustains an atmosphere of openness at the office. To make the interventions into company events that are also individually rewarding, management and employees downplay the political specificity of the situations in favor of emotional aspects and general references to humanist universalism. In this way, corporations with social visions can themselves also be regarded as “zones of indistinction” where idealism and economic gain, as well as individual and employee identities, are merged. In conclusion, the contrast between Prezi and the present political situation in Hungary, characterized by a rhetoric of inside and outside, accentuates the process and effect of Möbius management.
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| 4. |
- Ahl, Helene, 1958-, et al.
(författare)
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From feminism to FemInc.ism : On the uneasy relationship between feminism, entrepreneurship and the Nordic welfare state
- 2016
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Ingår i: The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1554-7191 .- 1555-1938. ; 12:2, s. 369-392
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Feminism in the Nordic countries was primarily formulated in terms of ‘state feminism’. The women’s movement cooperated with feminist government officials and politicians, resulting in societies that can be considered to be the most gender-equal societies in the world. Historically, the state provided for a large publicly-financed welfare sector which made it possible for many women to combine work and family through the state’s implementation of family-friendly policies, while simultaneously providing employment opportunities for many women. However, since the financial crisis of the 1990s, there has been a political change influenced by neo-liberal thought, in which politicians have handed over the welfare state’s responsibilities to the market, and, instead, the politicians have encouraged entrepreneurship, not least among women. Further to this development, there has been a change in emphasis from entrepreneurship (understood as starting and running a business) to entrepreneurialism which, in addition to a belief in the efficacy of market forces, also contains a social dimension where individuals are supposed to be flexible and exercise choice. In this article, we ask whether this entails a change in the feminist project in the Nordic countries, and if so, what the likely consequences are for this project, both in practice and in research. In order to answer this question, we reviewed existing Nordic research on women’s entrepreneurship and examined how this body of work conceptualizes entrepreneurship, gender, the state, and equality. We also considered whether any trends could be identified. We relate our findings to recent changes in government policy and conclude that the current discourse on entrepreneurship challenges, and possibly weakens, state feminism, but we also conclude that this discourse may also provide space for new forms of feminist action, in market terms. We coin the term FemInc.ism to denote feminist action through enterprise and we discuss a number of important challenges that research on this phenomenon is faced with.
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| 5. |
- Berglund, Karin, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Conceptualising feminist resistance in the postfeminist terrain
- 2023
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Ingår i: Gender in Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1754-2413 .- 1754-2421. ; 38:2, s. 183-199
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: In this paper, women entrepreneurs are seen as leaders and women leaders as entrepreneurial, making both groups an easy target of postfeminist expectations, governed by calls to embody the entrepreneurial self. Acknowledging that the entrepreneurial self has its roots in the universal, rational and autonomous subject, which was shaped in a male form during the Enlightenment, the purpose of this study is to conceptualise feminist resistance as a process through which the autonomous subject can be de-stabilised. Design/methodology/approach: Empirically, this study draws on an extensive research project on women's rural entrepreneurship that includes 32 in-depth interviews with women entrepreneurs in rural Sweden. This study interpreted expressions of resistance from the women by using an analytical framework the authors developed based on Jonna Bornemark's philosophical treatise. Findings: Feminist resistance unfolds as an interactive and iterative learning process where the subject recognises their voice, strengthens their voice and beliefs in a relational process and finally sees themselves as a fully fledged actor who finds ways to overcome obstacles that get in their way. Conceptualising resistance as a learning process stands in sharp contrast to the idea of resistance as enacted by the autonomous self. Research limitations/implications: This study helps researchers to understand that what they may have seen as a sign of weakness among women, is instead a sign of strength: it is a first step in learning resistance that may help women create a life different from that prescribed by the postfeminist discourse. In this way, researchers can avoid reproducing women as "weak and inadequate". Originality/value: Through the re-writing of feminist resistance, the masculine entrepreneurship discourse including the notion of the autonomous self is challenged, and a counternarrative to the postfeminist entrepreneurial woman is developed. Theorising resistance as a learning practice enables a more transforming research agenda, making it possible to see women as resisting postfeminist expectations of endless competition with themselves and others.
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| 6. |
- Alkhaled-Studholme, Sophie, et al.
(författare)
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And now I’m free’ : Women’s empowerment and emancipation through entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia and Sweden
- 2018
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Ingår i: Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0898-5626 .- 1464-5114. ; 30:7-8, s. 877-900
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Critical perspectives have called for the study of women’s entrepreneurship as a route to social change. This ‘social turn’ claims women are empowered and/or emancipated through entrepreneurship with limited problematisation of how these interchangeably used concepts operate. Using an institutional perspective in combination with a narrative approach, we investigate women entrepreneurs’ life stories on their ‘road to freedom’ where entrepreneurial activity enables them to ‘break free’ from particular gendered constraints. Through juxtaposing women’s narratives in the contexts of Saudi Arabia and Sweden, the relationship between empowerment and emancipation is disentangled and (re)conceptualised. The findings distinguish between empowerment narrated as individual practices to achieve freedom for the self within institutional structures and emancipation as narrated as a wish to challenge and change structures of power and reach collative freedom. The yearning for collective emancipation propels women’s stories of entrepreneurship by raising expectations for entrepreneurship as a vehicle for institutional change. Such stories may fascinate and inspire others to engage in entrepreneurial endeavours to become empowered, but whether they reach emancipation remains an empirical question to be answered. The performative dimension of entrepreneurial narratives is, however, their ability to turn emancipation into an (un)reachable object of desire, with a quest for even more individual empowerment and entrepreneurial activity, at the same time excluding other forms of human conduct as conducive for change.
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| 7. |
- Berglund, Karin, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Entrepreneurship Education in Policy and Practice
- 2013
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Ingår i: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing. - 1742-5360 .- 1742-5379. ; 5:1, s. 9-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article pays interest to the intersection between policy and practice when implementing entrepreneurship in the educational system. Taking a point of departure in Mahieu’s (2006) call for knowledge of the interplay between different policy levels and Backström-Widjeskog’s (2010) conclusion about tensions occurring when teachers are introduced to the concept, the intention is to develop knowledge about conflicts and tensions at the intersection between policy and practice. From analysing policy documents and narratives from entrepreneurship education implementation projects during a time when entrepreneurship education started to be promoted in Sweden three figures of thought are found (economic/humanistic, biological/social, and individual/collective) which are proposed to be involved in creating tensions and conflicts in the intersection between policy and practice. Theoretically, these figures of thought can be seen as a contribution to understanding processes in which the concept of entrepreneurship education has deliberately been moved, by way of policy, to the educational practice. Reflecting on these thought figures may enhance teachers’ translation processes when starting to work with entrepreneurship education in practice.
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| 8. |
- Berglund, Karin, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Ethnographic approaches to entrepreneurship and small business research : What lessons can we learn?
- 2014
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Ingår i: Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Small Business and Entrepreneurship. - Cheltenham : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9780857935052 - 9780857935045 ; , s. 201-227
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Professor Paul Reynolds said in a speech that entrepreneurs quickly learn how to tell the polished stories about their journeys when they are asked by researchers and journalists about what they have done and achieved. The notion of polished stories is also recognized byWilliam Gartner (2007) in a special issue on narrative, reflecting upon the fact that he can name dozens of entrepreneurs, and he has several logico-scientific descriptions, explanations, categories, concepts and hypotheses about entrepreneurs, but he cannot say much about their stories. Consequently, it has been argued that the field of entrepreneurship studies needs new concepts if it is to take seriously the ambition to understand entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring (e.g. Hjorth et al., 2003; Johannisson, 2011; Steyaert, 2007; Gartner, 2007; Huse and Landström, 1997). In this chapter we will show how entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be researched through the ethnographic method, focusing on understanding the social context of a certain phenomenon or person. Specifically, four ethnographic studies are introduced, which will be discussed as themes: context; the role of the researcher; the research process; and lessons learned.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
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Revitalizing entrepreneurship education : Adopting a critical approach in the classroom
- 2018
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- This edited book, Revitalizing Entrepreneurship Education, aims to provide a compilation of how insights from Social Sciences more generally have, via Critical Entrepreneurship Studies(CES), entered our classrooms. There is nowadays a range of approaches in the academic landscape in which entrepreneurship is dressed up in new ‘outfits’. With these ‘alternative’ entrepreneurships follows the construction of a moral entrepreneurship/entrepreneur, that is to be brought more in line to (understandings of) societal developments. Bringing this awareness into the classroom calls for the revitalization of some of EE’s extant approaches. It calls for developing new, fresh and challenging approaches.The authors in this volume work with issues such as reflexivity, gender, the entrepreneurial self, responsibility, awareness, creativity and vulnerability to move both themselves and students. The individual chapters in the book offer inspirational examples of adopting other pedagogical approaches, and of how they (continuously) revitalize their educational endeavours. We hope the contributions in this book will reach Entrepreneurship Educators all around the world and that they can help to ignite a spark, and to bring something new to their interactions with students; the decision-makers of all our futures.
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