The Social Representation of Entrepreneurs in the French Press

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to question the foundations and structure of entrepreneurs' social representation in the French press. Social representations are the result of a perceptive and cognitive construction of reality, which transforms social objects (people, contexts, situations) into symbolic categories (values, beliefs, ideologies), therefore providing a collective significant system for the regulation of cognitions and actions (Ljunggren and Alsos, 2001).Within the consensual reality through which the social world is created and experienced, the press can be emphasized as an entrepreneurial `Greek chorus' (Kets deVries, 2000) playing a key role in the diffusion and transformation of entrepreneurial culture at the local and national levels.We conducted a discourse analysis of 962 articles, from 2001 to 2005, in order to study the press's potential impact on entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility beliefs.We identified three main categories of discourses — the legitimacy discourse, the normativity discourse, and the accessibility discourse, which may impact readers' desirability and feasibility beliefs. This is the first attempt to assess the role of the public discourse in fuelling entrepreneurial intentions in the French context.

The social status of entrepreneurs

“…For instance, Block and Wagner (2010) discuss the various structural and institutional incentives for entrepreneurship in Germany, while Klandt and Volkmann (2006) offer a critical view on the role of German business education. Also, while we have discussed the key role that media portrayals of entrepreneurship have in its social construction, we have not assessed the actual representations of media output (for example: Anderson and Warren, 2011;Radu and Redien-Collot, 2008). To strengthen our understanding of entrepreneurship in Germany, future works could combine all such elements in order to produce a more comprehensive explanation.…”

‘Surfing on the ironing board’ – the representation of women's entrepreneurship in German newspapers

“…Media thus contribute to the social construction of female entrepreneurship as a more or less desirable career option, as has been emphasized for entrepreneurship in general (e.g. Baron 2004;Nicholson and Anderson 2005;Radu and Redien-Collot 2008).…”

Learning to make sense: what works in entrepreneurial education?

“…Some scholars have challenged the dominant conceptions that suggest entrepreneurship is an intrinsic related property of the individual person (Chell, 2007), and instead look towards the interconnected web of entrepreneurial practices with the broader societal and cultural images of the entrepreneur, (Bruni et al, 2004;Nicholson and Anderson, 2005;Peterson and Meckler, 2001). These scholars have sought to recognise that the representation of the entrepreneur as a heroin of innovation may be socially constructed, and that entrepreneurial practice operates within a social reality which is constructed and shaped by their actions and that of other in response to their actions, (Dood and Anderson, 2007;Radu and Redien-Collot, 2008). The article aims to examine the specific contribution of a practice-based view of learning as a means of entrepreneurial education and HRD development.…”