infonet-economy

This article argues that current management education works primarily with an instrumental, reified and fragmented conception of knowledge that ignores the connection between knowing and passion. To propose a learning process that is less dispassionate and disembodied and that conceives of knowledge as invention, we first exemplify the current crises of (management) education and reflect on its implied concepts of knowledge and learning along Lyotard's principle of ‘performativity'. We further probe the relationship between passion and knowledge through Derrida's idea of the ‘unconditional university' and illustrate its merit for both critical reflection and affirmative invention. Instead of a nostalgic re-evocation of ancient pedagogies, we reflect critically upon the possibilities of a deconstruction-based pedagogy in contemporary management education and propose Serres' figure of the ‘troubadour of knowledge' as a conceptual persona that can guide us in developing learning practices that incorporate and combine the value of critique and invention.

In lieu of an abstract, here is the introduction:

In their critical analysis of entrepreneurship Jones and Spicer (2009: 115) end their study by suggesting that perhaps "what we find when we unmask the entrepreneur is the face of the other"; the face that, in the work of theorists like Levinas, Derrida or Badiou, symbolizes the par excellence ethical moment or event. Jones and Spicer further argue that "[e]thics is in fact absolutely central to debates about the entrepreneur" even though entrepreneurship studies "rarely comes clean about . . . the ethics of entrepreneurship" (p. 102). Indeed, it is uncommon for the ethical ‘question' to be so clearly brought centre stage in debates of entrepreneurship. Jones and Spicer's work is also notable for how it establishes ethics (whose teleological focus is the ‘good life') and critique (which is preoccupied with denaturalizing, unmasking and problematizing self-evidences, myths and political truth-effects; Dey and Steyaert, 2012) as inextricably intertwined. Indeed, Jones and Spicer's hint at the co-implication of the ethical and the political moment of entrepreneurship is significant insofar as even though there is a burgeoning literature of critical studies of entrepreneurship (e.g. Tedmanson et al., 2012; Verduijn et al., 2014), these critical analyses all too rarely go all the way by linking up political with ethical questions (Calás et al., 2009). As the ethics and politics of entrepreneurship are dealt with in separate academic debates, this results in a zero-sum logic where an emphasis on one phenomenon necessarily leads to the exclusion of the other. Given this situation, in this chapter, we try to untangle the ethico-political "conundrum' of entrepreneurship studies by asking how ethico-politics can be related to an understanding of entrepreneurship as imagination (Gartner, 2007; Sarasvathy, 2002). A central contention of our argument is that ethico-politics as imagination takes shape through narrative practices rather than (merely) through a position of judgment based on normative principles and rules.

To enact the conjunction of ethics and politics in entrepreneurship research, we believe that conceptual creativity and philosophical anchorage are crucial. When it comes to ethical theories, which we will look at in more detail in the following section, there is no need to re-invent the wheel. Rather it is paramount to "re-mind" us of and retrospectively appreciate (Hassard, Cox & Rowlinson, 2013) the many theoretical possibilities which are available already and which permit us to counter the often a-theoretical set-ups and to arrive (with them) at some conceptual creativity. To this end, in this contribution we engage with Paul Ricoeur to develop a "critical hermeneutic of imagination" which creates a conceptual framework attentive to the ethico-political dynamic of language. Furthermore, we believe such a Ricoeurian approach allows us to redraw the current stalemate between critical approaches (focusing on political dynamics, processes and ideologies which "limit', "restrict', "mask', etc.) and affirmative approaches (whose focus are practices and spaces of becoming, social creativity and emancipation) in entrepreneurship studies (Weiskopf & Steyaert, 2009). In our view, a critical project (premised on a logic of "nay"-saying; ibid.) alone will not suffice to set free the potentiality of entrepreneurship, wherefore we propose an approach that relates critical reflection with creative possibilities and which can be named an "[a]ffirmative politics [that] combines critique with creativity in the pursuit of alternative visions and projects" (Braidoitti, 2013, p. 54).

Purpose - This paper pinpoints the importance of critical research that can problematise the self-evidences, myths, and political truth effects of social entrepreneurship, thus creating space for different, more radical enactments.

Design/methodology/approach - We develop a typology that maps four types of critical research, and illustrate the merits and limitations of each critique through existing research. We also delineate the contours of a fifth form of critique, which aims at radicalising social entrepreneurship through interventionist research.

Findings - The typology we present involves myth-busting (problematising by using empirical facts), a critique of power effects (problematising by denormalising discourses, ideologies, and symbols), a normative critique (problematising by engaging in moral reflection), and a critique of transgression (problematising by considering practitioners' counter conduct).

Research limitations/implications: We make it clear that the critique of social
entrepreneurship must not be judged on the basis of what it says but on whether or not it creates the conditions for novel articulations and enactments of social entrepreneurship.

Practical implications: We argue that practitioners' perspectives and viewpoints are indispensible for challenging and extending scientific doxa. Further, prospective critical research must include an even stronger focus on practitioners' experience.

Originality/value - This is the first contribution of its kind to map critical activities in the field of social entrepreneurship, and to indicate how the more radical possibilities of social entrepreneurship can be fostered through interventionist research.

This article identifies power, subjectivity, and practices of freedom as neglected but significant elements for understanding the ethics of social entrepreneurship. While the ethics of social entrepreneurship is typically conceptualized in conjunction with innate properties or moral commitments of the individual, we problematize this view based on its presupposition of an essentialist conception of the authentic subject. We offer, based on Foucault's ethical oeuvre, a practice-based alternative which sees ethics as being exercised through a critical and creative dealing with the limits imposed by power, notably as they pertain to the conditioning of the neoliberal subject. To this end, we first draw on prior research which looks at how practitioners of social enterprises engage with government policies that demand that they should act and think more like prototypical entrepreneurs. Instead of simply endorsing the kind of entrepreneurial subjectivity implied in prevailing policies, our results indicate that practitioners are mostly reluctant to identify themselves with the invocation of governmental power, often rejecting the subjectivity offered to them by discourse. Conceiving these acts of resistance as emblematic of how social entrepreneurs practice ethics by retaining a skeptical attitude toward attempts that seek to determine who they should be and how they should live, we introduce three vignettes that illustrate how practices of freedom relate to critique, the care for others, and reflected choice. We conclude that a practice-based approach of ethics can advance our understanding of how social entrepreneurs actively produce conditions of freedom for themselves as well as for others without supposing a "true self' or a utopian space of liberty beyond power.

Creative process theories of entrepreneurship have mainly been formulated in terms of enactment, narration, disclosure and effectuation. This paper contributes to the theory of entrepreneuring by developing the concept of invention which both emphasizes the relational and embodied qualities of novelty. Moving the focus from creative destruction to deconstructive creativity, this paper lays the basis for a research agenda of entrepreneurship studies that we qualify as "dangerous", giving credit to the as yet neglected double-sidedness of entrepreneuring: the riskiness and promise of invention.

Extract:

Critique of Social Entrepreneurship: An Impossible Act?

On the face of it, ‘social entrepreneurship' represents a concept whose meaning cannot be exhausted by a single definition. Where its various interpretations have been conceived by some as a hindrance to the unfolding of its full potential (e.g. Martin and Osberg, 2007), the worrying point, in our estimate, is not that ‘social entrepreneurship' encompasses too many meanings but that the term's potential richness, inventiveness and radicalness has been narrowed down by dominant, politically-shaped understandings of the word ‘social'. Giv-en that social entrepreneurship has not been properly understood in its relation to power, ideology and the rendition of the social as governable terrain (Carmel and Harlock, 2008), our contribution departs from the conviction that prevailing understandings of social en-trepreneurship are limited as a result of being aligned with elites' comprehension of the good life and society propre. Many possible understandings of social entrepreneurship be-come unthinkable, precisely because they are made to appear to be unreasonable, odd or illegitimate by prevailing standards of truth.
We should critically reconsider the limitations to which social entrepreneurship is currently subjected, so as to instigate more imaginative articulations. However, the point is that a critique of the social entrepreneurship canon is highly unlikely. But why exactly is this the case? There are many reasons for the current paucity of critical engagement with social entrepreneurship, however, a case can be made that the widespread belief in the redemp-tive power of management, combined with an unshakable belief in the market as leverage for "making a difference', makes social entrepreneurship appear to be good, reasonable, and necessary. Partly due to social entrepreneurship's taintless evaluative reputation, it has, in fact, become easier to celebrate the most far-reaching utopia than to express even the most marginal point of discontent. In other words, any provocative, counter-intuitive or anach-ronistic enactment of social entrepreneurship is neutralized a priori because this would direct attention away from the ostensible "real-life" pressures of the day, thus delaying the immediate involvement with today's most pressing social problems. Where dominant nar-ratives of social entrepreneurship promote harmonious social change based on instrumen-tal business-case logic (Arthur et al, 2010), this leaves little space for a substantial critique of social entrepreneurship, for the simple reason that the canon suggests that the solution is already there. Anyone who raises concerns is immediately looked at suspiciously, because social entrepreneurship is overwhelmingly perceived to have already passed the test of critical scrutiny.

Whilst the costs related to the current normalisation of social entrepreneurship are mani-fold, one of the pre-eminent problems is that social entrepreneurship has been envisioned as a de-politicised blueprint for dealing with social problems. In extremis, social entrepre-neurship has been appointed the role of tackling the symptoms of the capitalist system rather than its root causes (Edwards, 2008), thus reinforcing a system that has lately re-vealed its full toxicity (Noys, 2011). Because social entrepreneurship appears to be beyond question, this paper wants to reclaim the space of critique, for, as we will argue, critique is the pivotal quality that must be fostered to overcome social entrepreneurship's current stasis and to unlock its potential. Given that the academic treatment of social entrepreneur-ship has played a crucial role in mainstreaming logics of problem-fixing, linear progression, and social equilibrium, we will start by analysing academia's immanent critical potential.28 The first objective of this paper will be to develop a typology of critical approaches that maps how critique of social entrepreneurship is currently being done. As we make clear that scholarly mechanisms of censorship and control are not fully effective in averting criti-cal activity, the second objective of this contribution will be to go beyond current possibili-ties and to consider ways to expand the range of critical approaches and, in particular, to describe ways for radicalising, both conceptually and pragmatically, the critique of social entrepreneurship. Overall, critique is viewed as a means for problematising "social entre-preneurship' with the aim of releasing some of its suppressed possibilities (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2011). By implication, critique is never an end in itself, but rather serves as a means for creating solutions (both imaginative and real) which are not possible within the matrix of the present. Thus, by critically examining social entrepreneurship we will, in the end, be able to implement social entrepreneurship differently.
To develop our contributions, we will proceed in the following manner. After a short expo-sition of the emergence of critical approaches in social entrepreneurship, we will identify, based on a review of the extant academic literature, four types of critique, called "myth busting', "critique of power effects', "normative critique' and "critique of transgression', all of which will be presented and discussed in terms of how they question and add a differ-ent, if not fresh, view to some of social entrepreneurship's most powerful assumptions. Each type of critique is illustrated through a particularly demonstrative study. Thereafter, we will discuss new possibilities by focusing on the kinds of critique that elicit the radical cause of social entrepreneurship. Emphasis will be placed on fostering the view of critique as intervention (Steyaert, 2011), for interventions clearly show that social entrepreneurship, the way we know it, does not exhaust what social entrepreneurship might become.