Entrepreneurship research principally focuses on business growth. This focus valorizes the masculine and marginalizes other interpretations. Consequently, entrepreneurship is restricted to a phenomenon that is rare in the diverse business world. The leadership literature proposes that entrepreneurship may not be as masculine as we assume anyway. Our understanding of entrepreneurship needs development at the conceptual level. We argue that performativity, as described in feminist theory, can contribute to how we interpret entrepreneurship and that this might inform both the entrepreneurship and leadership literatures to afford us better understanding of what we might mean by “entrepreneurial leadership.”

This is a repository copy of Gender, authentic leadership and identity: analysis of women leaders' autobiographies.

This article presents a theory of venturing using a critical realist approach. Venturing is presented as an outcome of reflexive engagement between individuals and circumstances, where opportunity is perceived in relation to some idiosyncratically defined value. Traditionally, venturing has been considered as necessarily involving financial value orientation. Removing the primacy of financial ambitions affords better explanation of real-life business activity. Venturing is presented also as temporally informed and informing through a lifetime, and thus it influences ongoing work choices, including further venturing. The benefits to theory and practice are outlined, including informing support of disparate venturing and of entrepreneurship as a specific type.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions and perspectives of students with regards to self-determined learning in an entrepreneurship education (EE) context and its potential contribution to employability. Design/methodology/approach This research used a mixed-methods approach with a sample of 25 students currently attending a UK higher education institute. The students had access to participation in EE modules but self-determined learning-informed modules or programmes were not currently offered. Students were invited to attend focus groups and as a result of emergent themes, a business school-wide survey was developed. Findings This research makes two tentative contributions to the EE field. First, the findings of this student cohort are similar to those found throughout the UK and the EU with regard to the perception of the value of a degree by students; its contribution to the hidden curriculum; and the importance of practical experience. The research also adds to the field by considering the value of a self-determined learning approach to developing the capabilities and competencies of graduates. This approach to learning in a context of EE was in general well received by potential students, particularly the applied aspect of the programme. However, there is a perception of risk about this approach to learning and students are concerned about the value of a programme like this to employers in general. Originality/value The study contributes to discussions on the value of EE on perceived employability and in particular self-determined learning through entrepreneurship activity.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. IntroductionIt has become established that longitudinal research of human experiences is difficult to undertake (Saunders et al., 2007). Both quantitative and qualitative investigations are challenging and the main problem consistently is attrition (e.g. Ployhart and Vandenberg, 2010). Quantitative samples start off, necessarily, large in scale. Attrition still occurs but the greater the size of the original sample, the less likely attrition will render comparison impossible. Qualitative and mixed methods studies, on the other hand, tend not to have a scale of population that can tolerate attrition to any great extent. Despite this, the value of longitudinal approaches in qualitative social studies is considerable as they may afford a quality of understanding that cannot be achieved by reliance on measurement alone, or on analyses of recollections (McLeod and Thomson, 2009). This is as true in business research as elsewhere.The current paper reports the attempts of the authors to conduct longitudinal mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) research in the entrepreneurship discipline. Specifically, despite the known difficulties associated with longitudinal studies, the authors considered that longitudinal research of entrepreneurship, starting with entrepreneurship education at university, could be facilitated by thorough preparation at the initial stages of the research. The social media revolution observed over the last few years through almost ubiquitous online social networking sites was an unanticipated bonus in this endeavour, and a robust, large, longitudinal follow-up study of entrepreneurship education appeared entirely feasible. The authors thus applied for and obtained external funding to conduct this longitudinal study. Unfortunately though, a robust follow-up survey was not the ultimate outcome. The current paper reports the research experience with a view to informing in terms of the pitfalls, and contingencies utilised to mitigate them, to avoid project failure.The paper starts with a review of longitudinal research in the social sciences and the challenges for both ...