Narratives of Enterprise: Crafting Entrepreneurial Self-Identity in a Small Firm

Abstract

Narratives of Enterprise is a must read book for anyone interested in the intersection of self-identity and the character of the entrepreneur. Simon Down’s timely ethnographic study takes a philosophically reflective and empirically detailed look at the way in which enterprising people use narrative resources to construct their identity as entrepreneurs, drawing on a wide range of intellectual sources, from naturalistic philosophy of mind (Dan Dennett) to sociology (Anthony Giddens). Written with a strong, at time almost literary narrative style, the book succeeds in making the often complex and inaccessible theories on self-identity easy to understand, and convincing in relation to other notions of individual agency. Neither super-heros nor villains, the entrepreneurs in Narratives of Enterprise emerge as normal people who seek to make sense of the world via their enterprising activity. The book will be of great interest in a range of debates current in enterprise and organisation studies, providing a much needed and sophisticated empirical benchmark. Endorsement quotes: ‘Engagingly written, this sparkling account of the ebbs and flow of workaday ‘entrepreneurship’ injects real life into a field that is too often cluttered by arid enumerators and profilers of irrelevancies. There is space for the accomplished storyteller to provide everyday entrepreneurs with their place in the sun. In this stimulating book, Simon Down marks out this territory in an exemplary fashion’ Prof. Monder Ram, Leicester Business School, DeMontford University, UK ‘Writing about small firms all too often bores us with rather abstract survey-based data, irritates us with anecdotal snippets or frustrates us un-theorised and over-detailed descriptions. Simon Down not only avoids these problems, he delights us with a rich, detailed and entertaining account of life in a small firm. Above all, though, his account is informative and revealing, especially about the entrepreneurial aspects of small firm life and what this means for the people involved.’ Prof. Tony Watson, Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham University.

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