Entrepreneurial Storytelling, Future Expectations, and the Paradox of Legitimacy

Abstract

Prior research highlights storytelling as a means for entrepreneurs to establish venture legitimacy and gain stakeholder support. We extend this line of research by examining the role that projective stories play in setting expectations and the dynamics that ensue. Such attention highlights a paradox—the very expectations that are set through projective stories to gain venture legitimacy can also serve as the source of future disappointments. Because of inherent uncertainties that projective stories mask, ventures will likely deviate from their early projections, thereby disappointing stakeholders. This, in turn, can result in a loss of legitimacy. Recognizing that entrepreneurship is an ongoing process, we examine the constraints and possibilities of maintaining or regaining legitimacy through revised storytelling. We conclude the paper with implications for research on entrepreneurial storytelling as an ongoing process.

Place attachment and social legitimacy: Revisiting the sustainable entrepreneurship journey

“…Our findings contribute to literature by uncovering how founding conditions Ð resulting from combinations of place attachment and social conditions Ð influence subsequent entrepreneurial decision making (Shepherd et al 2015) and ways to manage challenges of legitimacy during the course of a venture journey (Garud et al 2014). We suggest that if an entrepreneur is strongly emotionally-driven in founding her/his venture, their disappointment to have lost social legitimacy, in time 0 and place A, can strengthen the entrepreneurÕs motivation to substantially grow with their business in time 1 and place B.…”

Balancing “what matters to me” with “what matters to them”: Exploring the legitimation process of environmental entrepreneurs

“…Our research responds to calls for a more process-oriented approach to understanding (new venture) legitimation (Barley, 2008;Drori and Honig, 2013;Garud et al, 2014;Überbacher, 2014;Voronov et al, 2013). Our process-oriented approach helps explain how entrepreneurs We also explained the importance of the development of perspective taking which allowed our entrepreneurs to accommodate the perspective of their audiences in their legitimation work.…”

“…Entrepreneurial actors can draw on political and story-telling skills (e.g. Garud et al, 2014;Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001;Navis and Glynn, 2011;Ruebottom, 2013), use a variety of different types of arguments (van Wervan et al, 2015) and/ or use visual symbols (e.g. setting, props, dress and expressiveness) (Clarke, 2011) as they actively negotiate legitimacy with their audiences.…”

“…The fact that extant research has been based on an implicit assumption that new venture audiences share similar legitimacy judgments (Überbacher, 2014) is therefore problematic. One recent study (Garud et al, 2014) indicates that to contend with others' disappointment that their venture didn't meet their expectations, entrepreneurs are engaged in an ongoing process of "replotting" their entrepreneurial stories. Similarly, Zott and Huy (2007) spoke of the ability of some entrepreneurs to customize their legitimation activity to audiences but fell short of explaining the process through which suitable customization was realized.…”

The Banality of Organizational Innovations: Embracing the Substance–Process Duality

“…One is relationality. Specifically, the emergence of novelty is modulated by narrative intertextuality (Allen, 2011), which serves as the basis for establishing and maintaining legitimacy (Garud, Schildt, & Lant, 2014;Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). To garner organizational support, intrapreneurs (a term used by Pinchot, 1991, to allude to entrepreneurs within corporations) offer innovation-narratives that resonate with multiple stakeholders.…”