ENTR 207 Week 2

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ENTR 207 Week 2 Entrepreneurship in Society
Dr Luke Pittaway
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our next election manifesto will offer greater
incentives to business, remove unacceptable
barriers that prevent people with enterprise from
getting on and, from classroom to boardroom, seek
to widen and deepen the spirit of enterprise
Gordon Brown, The Sunday Times, 31 Dec 2000
If we can make Britain a country of enterprise
we will as a consequence advance and progress in
new technology and we will reduce unemployment as
well as increasing self employment. A society in
which entrepreneurship is valued and encouraged
is a dynamic society.
Gavron, R et al (1998), The Entrepreneurial
Society, Institute for Public Policy Research
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The entrepreneur within society
the entrepreneur as a concept is very much a
product of its times and the current state of
economic development which shifts as the
economic structure evolves.
Gray, C, 1998, Enterprise and Culture, Routledge
This is not to suggest that individual
capitalists and adventurers had no part to play
in Britains success or that they did not display
qualities enabling them to succeed, but more that
the prevailing socio-economic structures gave
rise to the opportunities for certain active and
enterprising people to express and satisfy
themselves.
Gray, C, 1998, ibid
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Individualism versus communitarianism
No matter how individualistic a maverick
entrepreneur may appear to observers from other
cultures, none is an island. There are always
credit, customer/supplier, and information
sharing networks that link entrepreneurs into
regularized patterns of exchange. In short, all
production is team production, and thus by its
very nature, production is social. On the other
hand, no matter how communally focused some
cultures may appear to us, one can usually find
underneath a fundamental, perhaps even somewhat
principled response for the autonomy of
individuals.
Lavoie, D and Chamlee-Wright, E (2000), Culture
and Enterprise, Routledge, p68
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Climatic factors in entrepreneurship
Time/era Place/geography Religion and
ideology Political events, conditions and
policies Technological and scientific
developments Economic conditions Culture,
prevailing attitudes and social structures
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Enterprise culture
Enterprise culture is defined as the full set of
conditions that promote high and rising levels of
achievement in a countrys economic activity,
politics and government, arts and sciences, and
also the distinctively private lives of the
inhabitants
Centre for Policy Studies/Institute of Policy
Research, 1987, cited in Keat and Abercrombie,
1991 23
Environmental conditions in the economic, social
and political realms must act as prompting events
in order for new ideas to spread. These external
directional causes are shocks that delegitimise
the currency of dominant ideas allowing new
concepts to gain precedence. In the case of
entrepreneurship, this was the major social and
economic turbulence of the 1970s.
Alvarez, 1993
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Thatchers enterprise culture the build up
1960s onwards a changing workforce Immigration
from Caribbean, Asia, East Africa, etc Womens
liberation changes in domestic living patterns,
expectations and labour market Expansion of
higher education Increasing Americanisation
post-WW2
1970s industrial unrest Strikes, absenteeism,
high labour turnover, poor quality standards Oil
crisis, three-day week Union power
Rationalisation of large-scale
manufacturing New focus on role of small firm
within the economy post-Bolton Report (1971)
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The growth of enterprise culture, 1979-
Some environmental conditions
Social Cult of the individualEmphasis on self
actualisation Demise of a job for life
portfolio careers Growth of international
travel Growing consumer culture Shifting family
roles
Economic Denationalisation and
privatisation Flotation wider share
ownership Corporate re-engineering and
downsizingPerformance related pay Decline of
manufacturing rise of services Liberalisation
of markets Relaxation of trade barriers
Technological Spread of new media, into the home
as well as the workplace Faster money
transfer Communications technologies Development
of WWW (1989)
Political Breakdown of Socialist regimesOpening
of new market economies
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Government measures

• Pilot of New Enterprise Programme
• Introduced by Labour government. Involved 32
  unemployed managers.
• 4-month programme, plus practical experience.
  Later expanded to include Firm Start provide
  management skills training for established firms.
• 1979- Regime of tax cuts
• Aiming to provide incentives to growth of small
  businesses
• Introduction of Enterprise Allowance scheme
• For those aged 16-64. 40 per week for 52 weeks
  (or less if business failed sooner)
• Enterprise Unit established in the Cabinet,
  under Lord Young
• Particular focus on assisting with the creation
  of small businesses, encouraging small firms and
  formulating enterprise education for 14-18 year
  olds
• Graduate Enterprise Programme
• To encourage graduates to start up in business
• 1987 Enterprise in Higher Education initiative
  introduced
• to increase dramatically the supply of more
  highly qualified people with enterprise

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What the enterprise culture sought to address

• Key strands in Conservative philosophy were to
• Reinstate Britains competitiveness in
  international markets
• Bring about reform of three sectors
• private, public and voluntary
• Break down dependency culture
• Diminish or destroy the power of the unions

In economic terms, it was posited on the
trickle-down effect of wealth creation, and the
assumption that competition is vital At the
same time, it sought to promote certain key
values among citizens such as self respect, self
reliance, freedom from state control, and the
sense that individuals should draw on their own
resources in order to compete in the open market.
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Criticisms of enterprise culture

• The enterprise culture was not without its
  critics. Some of the criticisms levelled against
  it were that
• the focus on small firms sometimes meant
  mismanagement, low pay, insecure employment and
  exploitation for workers
• real power still lay with the large firms, who
  contracted out to smaller firms
• there was little real growth in true self
  employment
• it encouraged a self-seeking attitude among
  citizens and bred lack of concern for others
• consumerist and materialistic values were
  taking precedence over all others
• the gap between the haves and the have-nots
  was widening
• those living on the margins of society felt
  little benefit

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If there is a spirit of enterprise, a set of
stories or images in the culture that celebrate
some form of entrepreneurial creativity, then
economic prosperity is more likely. If you want
to get a sense of whether a community is apt to
grow wealthier, we are suggesting that you find
out what stories they tell, what heroes they
admire, what metaphors they use. Economic
development is, at its heart, a cultural process.
Lavoie and Chamlee-Wright, 2000 53
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Some issues to consider
An entrepreneurial culture What might this
require, and is it feasible to create one?
Perceived significance and value placed on
entrepreneurs fluctuates at different points in
time and according to different ideological
standpoints Individual entrepreneur is
embedded within society - not a lone pioneer
Contribution and collaboration the
entrepreneur as hero? Incremental
innovation and interconnectedness
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Useful reading
Alvarez, J L (1993), The popularisation of
business ideas the case of entrepreneurship in
the 1980s, Management Education and Development,
21, 1, pp 26-32. Burrows, R (1991), The
discourse of the enterprise culture and the
restructuring of Britain, in J Curran and
Blackburn, R (eds), Paths of Enterprise the
future of small business, Routledge.   Burrows, R
(1991), Introduction entrepreneurship, petty
capitalism and the restructuring of Britain in R
Burrows (ed), Deciphering the Enterprise Culture
entrepreneurship, petty capitalism and the
restructuring of Britain, Routledge.   Heelas, P
and Morris, P (eds), The Values of the Enterprise
Culture, Routledge.   Keat, R and Abercrombie, N
(eds) (1991), Enterprise Culture, Routledge.   R
Burrows (ed), Deciphering the Enterprise Culture
entrepreneurship, petty capitalism and the
restructuring of Britain, Routledge. Scase, R
(2000) The enterprise culture the
socio-economic context of small firms in S
Carter and D Jones-Evans (eds), Enterprise and
Small Business, FT Prentice Hall, pp
32-47. Also Evans, E J (2001), The Forging of
the Modern State early industrial Britain
1783-1870, 3rd ed, Longman. Thompson, F (2001),
Gentrification and the Enterprise Culture
Britain 1780-1980, Oxford University Press.