Entrepreneurship as Elixir and Mutagen

Abstract

Metaphors are powerful tools for sensemaking, sensegiving and theory development, but they are often concealed in academic writing. This paper uncovers two metaphors underlying entrepreneurship discourse and research -elixir and mutagen. The elixir metaphor is uncovered by examining critiques of entrepreneurship research and serves as a compact description of problematic aspects entrepreneurship scholars should be mindful of. The mutagen metaphor is uncovered by examining evolutionary frameworks, focusing on the role entrepreneurship plays in them. The paper illustrates how the mutagen metaphor can be used to reframe entrepreneurship and uses the metaphors to interest, inform and provoke.

Imagery of ad-venture: Understanding entrepreneurial identity through metaphor and drawing

“…Metaphors generate valuable insights and can be extremely persuasive, but this persuasiveness can work to limit our understandings, through blinding and blocking our ability to gain another view. By emphasising certain interpretations, metaphor tends to force others into the background (Kemp, 2016;Lundmark and Westelius, 2014). This partiality is inherent to metaphorical understanding -they introduce but also obscure the complex and polyphonous nature of experience (Morgan, 2006;Näslund and Pemer, 2012).…”

Does Reflection Help Students to Develop Entrepreneurial Capabilities?

“…Cope (2003) adopts the positions of learning theorists Mezirow (1990Mezirow ( , 1991, Marsick and Watkins (1990), and Boud, Keogh, and Walker (1985) and argues that reflection should challenge personal norms and assumptions and that such reflection is essential to entrepreneurial learning from experience. Reflection can thus be used as a tool for breaking out of preconceived notions and norms, which is a core element opportunity exploitation (Deacon and Harris 2011; see also Baker and Nelson 2005;Lundmark and Westelius 2014) and ultimately result in higher-level learning. Higher-level learning incorporates a number of conceptualizations of learning that challenges assumptions, develops understandings of complex causational relationships, including double-loop learning (Argyris and Sch€ on 1978), and transformative learning (Mezirow 1990(Mezirow , 1991 and knowledge of one's own ignorance (Schultze and Stabell 2004).…”

The Liability of Volatility and How it Changes Over Time Among New Ventures

“…A potentially more valid argument against adaptation, which better reflects our findings, is the role of uncertainty and complexity in the new venture context (Knight, 1921; McKelvey, 2004). From this perspective, while young ventures are able to change, change is unlikely to improve venture performance in predictable ways because the owners are unable to determine what works and what does not with any level of satisfactory accuracy (Frankish, Roberts, Coad, Spears, & Storey, 2013; Lundmark & Westelius, 2014). Rather, our results indicate that configurations that (for whatever reason) exhibit lower short-term revenue volatility are favored by selection mechanisms.…”