Critical entrepreneurship studies: A manifesto

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contests the neo-liberal aspects of entrepreneurship discourse by showing other meanings of entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship initiatives. It investigates the relationship between entrepreneurship and contemporary capitalism. The book explores how entrepreneurship research is largely bound by Western organisational discourses. It demonstrates how traditional entrepreneurship research furthers an archetype of the white, Christian entrepreneur which marginalises 'Other' ethnic entrepreneurs. The book discusses the way entrepreneurship is traditionally constructed around discourses of a masculine, male subject. It elaborates on how entrepreneurship has become a favoured instrument wherever there is poverty, unemployment and other socio-economic issues. The book examines the process of transformation in Poland from a communist regime to a neoliberal economy. It shows how the heroic, white masculine style of leadership in entrepreneurship still prevails, but it also brings to the fore that there are other interesting models of entrepreneurial leadership.