Lectures Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Context
Lecture 1:
Caroline Essers
Why study entrepreneurship? And what is it?
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurially driven innovation in products and services is the crucial
engine driving economic (and social) change in societies.
Entrepreneurship: a mechanism by which society converts technological information/resources in
products and services.
Through which temporal and spatial inefficiencies in an economy are discovered and mitigated.
So, entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand: interrelated!
Intrapreneurship: when
entrepreneurship occurs in
existing organizations.
The influence of the
environment and so-called
ecosystems/opportunity
structures are very important.
Entrepreneurial opportunities
Those situations in which new goods, services, raw materials and organizing methods can be
introduced and sold at greater than their cost of production at another time, in another form or in
another location.
These actually are objective, but recognition of these opportunities is a subjective process. An
individual can only earn profit if he/she recognizes opportunities.
But why do some recognize opportunities and others don’t?
2 aspects:
1. Information corridors: possession of prior information necessary to identify an opportunity.
2. Cognitive properties: vision of a good product or service and commercial opportunities; risk-
taking and prompt action.
,Old/traditional ‘trait school’
McClelland’s key traits: (an entrepreneur has typical characteristics): pro-activity, assertiveness, strong
‘internal locus of control; wish for independence, high need for achievement, risk taking, innovative; a
specific type.
A somewhat bold, individual hero
But if these traits are biological, what’s the use of interventions?
Or can things be learned to some extent?
Criticism trait approach
• Not dynamic enough
• Role of learning and preparing not enough included
• Traits can change, and also many different traits by different authors
• How do we define innovative?
• Very few entrepreneurs possess all of the traits above
• It ignores culture, ethnicity, gender and eco-systems
• Underlines assumptions like capitalism and the protestant work ethics.
It is impossible that entrepreneurship can be explained solely by reference to a characteristic of certain
people independent of the situations in which they find themselves.
,What is role-taking?
• Institutionalized sets of social expectations, fixed ideas of ideal types
• Roles can be taken/chosen, but often learned through: sex role and ethnic role socialization:
messages/rewards, gender role stereotyping
• Mead’s (anthropologist) role-taking: via socialization taught to play different roles within
different sort of groups
• Continuous intertwinement of the (perception of who you are, based on socialization ideas
and the me (response to others, the creative image you depict to them = the self, or identity
of a person
Identity theory
Not one personal self, but multiple selves.
Who am I, who are we, who are they?
Important to know, (also for the assignment), the entrepreneurial identity construction
Identity socially constructed: dynamic, socially and contextually constructed, discursive
Why is this important? → it is important for being secure about one self, to be able to promote this,
knowing what you want to do; be able to focus!
It is also important for credibility and legitimacy as entrepreneur
To overcome professionally; impression management
Impression management: a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence
the perceptions of others about a person, object, or event by regulating and controlling information in
social interaction.
How do entrepreneurs (un)consciously construct and deploy their identities at the intersection of
diverse identity categories within their direct and wider social and business context? → part of the
group assignment
, Tool for this: intersectionality
Kimberle Crenshaw
Results of Caroline Essers’ research:
Then we were put into breakout rooms to think of a non-traditional entrepreneur and think of the
advantages and disadvantages of their identity.
Lecture 1:
Caroline Essers
Why study entrepreneurship? And what is it?
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurially driven innovation in products and services is the crucial
engine driving economic (and social) change in societies.
Entrepreneurship: a mechanism by which society converts technological information/resources in
products and services.
Through which temporal and spatial inefficiencies in an economy are discovered and mitigated.
So, entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand: interrelated!
Intrapreneurship: when
entrepreneurship occurs in
existing organizations.
The influence of the
environment and so-called
ecosystems/opportunity
structures are very important.
Entrepreneurial opportunities
Those situations in which new goods, services, raw materials and organizing methods can be
introduced and sold at greater than their cost of production at another time, in another form or in
another location.
These actually are objective, but recognition of these opportunities is a subjective process. An
individual can only earn profit if he/she recognizes opportunities.
But why do some recognize opportunities and others don’t?
2 aspects:
1. Information corridors: possession of prior information necessary to identify an opportunity.
2. Cognitive properties: vision of a good product or service and commercial opportunities; risk-
taking and prompt action.
,Old/traditional ‘trait school’
McClelland’s key traits: (an entrepreneur has typical characteristics): pro-activity, assertiveness, strong
‘internal locus of control; wish for independence, high need for achievement, risk taking, innovative; a
specific type.
A somewhat bold, individual hero
But if these traits are biological, what’s the use of interventions?
Or can things be learned to some extent?
Criticism trait approach
• Not dynamic enough
• Role of learning and preparing not enough included
• Traits can change, and also many different traits by different authors
• How do we define innovative?
• Very few entrepreneurs possess all of the traits above
• It ignores culture, ethnicity, gender and eco-systems
• Underlines assumptions like capitalism and the protestant work ethics.
It is impossible that entrepreneurship can be explained solely by reference to a characteristic of certain
people independent of the situations in which they find themselves.
,What is role-taking?
• Institutionalized sets of social expectations, fixed ideas of ideal types
• Roles can be taken/chosen, but often learned through: sex role and ethnic role socialization:
messages/rewards, gender role stereotyping
• Mead’s (anthropologist) role-taking: via socialization taught to play different roles within
different sort of groups
• Continuous intertwinement of the (perception of who you are, based on socialization ideas
and the me (response to others, the creative image you depict to them = the self, or identity
of a person
Identity theory
Not one personal self, but multiple selves.
Who am I, who are we, who are they?
Important to know, (also for the assignment), the entrepreneurial identity construction
Identity socially constructed: dynamic, socially and contextually constructed, discursive
Why is this important? → it is important for being secure about one self, to be able to promote this,
knowing what you want to do; be able to focus!
It is also important for credibility and legitimacy as entrepreneur
To overcome professionally; impression management
Impression management: a conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence
the perceptions of others about a person, object, or event by regulating and controlling information in
social interaction.
How do entrepreneurs (un)consciously construct and deploy their identities at the intersection of
diverse identity categories within their direct and wider social and business context? → part of the
group assignment
, Tool for this: intersectionality
Kimberle Crenshaw
Results of Caroline Essers’ research:
Then we were put into breakout rooms to think of a non-traditional entrepreneur and think of the
advantages and disadvantages of their identity.
