This paper contributes to a recent movement to reframe entrepreneurship theory into a more critical and reflexive mode. It builds on the processual notion of entrepreneuring-as-emancipation to theorize a balanced conception of agency and active constraint rooted in the notion of power rituals. We develop a micro-sociological analysis of power rituals that conceives power reproduction and entrenchment as a 'practice-based' activity that focuses on what power holders and subordinates concretely do, think and feel. This makes emotion a key dimension of entrepreneurial agency and redefines constraining barriers to agency in terms of a social process of 'barring'. This novel approach is illustrated using an autobiographical account of a social entrepreneurship project. On the basis of this analysis, a number of insights are provided into the ways in which the power-as-practice approach can inform wider debates in organization studies where the notions of agency and constraint are linked to issues of power and resistance.

Joseph Schumpeter's work has long been regarded as a seminal contribution to entrepreneurship theory. However, relatively little attention has been given to exploring the sociological implications of his insights. This article examines Schumpeter's early writings on the entrepreneur and focuses on the apparent contradiction between his understanding of the inhibitory effect of social control and the entrepreneur's strength of will. This tension is resolved by recourse to contemporary social theory of interaction and emotion. A synthesis of these works produces two hypothetical modes of entrepreneurial action. These are elaborated and their implications for the understanding of entrepreneurship discussed.

This article offers an alternative to the dominant individualistic theories of entrepreneurship. It develops Scheff’s notion of the deference-emotion system to propose a theory of entrepreneurial conduct that emphasizes social interaction and emotion. This theory proposes that the emotions of pride and shame, produced by the giving and withholding of deference, can motivate action that resists the innovation-inhibiting effect of social sanctions. By suggesting a social basis for the generation and reproduction of entrepreneurial conduct, it is able to explain the frequently volatile and inconsistent nature of this conduct, an important dimension of entrepreneurial behaviour that, whilst recognized empirically, normally escapes theoretical attention. The article advocates making social situations rather than individuals the analytical starting point for fresh and potentially valuable insights into the nature of entrepreneurial behaviour.

Unlike most other areas of social science, emotion has been a neglected concept within entrepreneurship research. Where it has appeared, it has usually been a marginal or subsidiary concern, subordinated to the more rational aspects of information processing and decision-making. This paper draws upon ideas from social exchange, interaction ritual and discourse theory to propose a model that integrates the processes of social interaction, emotion and cognition. The model supports a set of conjectural propositions about the role of emotions in shaping entrepreneurial behaviour and suggests a number of new opportunities for research in this area.

This paper examines the role of negative emotions in the social processes of entrepreneurship. Drawing on a study of Russian entrepreneurs, we develop a model of the emotional effects of social interactions between entrepreneurs and state officials. We found that negative emotions were elicited by these interactions and, in turn, fueled three forms of shame-related corrective appeasement behavior (reactive, anticipatory, and sporadic), which served to corrode entrepreneurial motivation and direct attention and energy away from business growth and development.