The performative (de)legitimation of entrepreneurial identity through business support

Nowak, Vicky ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6611-2169 (2021) The performative (de)legitimation of entrepreneurial identity through business support. In: 37th EGOS Colloquium, 08 July 2021 - 10 July 2021, Virtual. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper examines how the view of entrepreneurs as innovating, high growth risk-takers conflicts with how everyday entrepreneurs construct their identity. An ethnographic case study of a business incubator/accelerator in left-behind city, examines how traditional views of heroic entrepreneurship influences legitimation of their entrepreneurial identity, revealing how support both empowers and disempowers. This sheds light on how policy interventions guided by the positive view of entrepreneurship misses the self-employed and micro-businesses in those places most in need of the inclusive growth small business can bring.