Performing entrepreneurial masculinity: an ethnographic account

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Time: 12.30pm - 1.30pm
Venue: KHBS 1007, Kingston Hill campus, Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 7LB
Price: free
Speaker(s): Professor Simon Down, Anglia Ruskin University

Abstract: This seminar paper addresses the empirical relationship between masculinity, hegemony and entrepreneurial identity as a largely neglected debate; this omission is addressed by outlining how 10 enterprising men who own and run small businesses perform, in the Goffmanesque sense, a style of 'entrepreneurial masculinity' in front of each other during their leisure lives when they meet as a local entrepreneurial fraternity in a semi-rural pub. By so doing, we expand upon prevailing ideas about how male actors perform entrepreneurial identity and develop ethnographic accounts of how gender, entrepreneurship and identity projection culturally intersect.

Short bio: Simon Down is Professor of Management and Deputy Dean for Research and Business Development at the Lord Ashcroft International Business School, Anglia Ruskin University. He has previously worked at Newcastle University, UK, Wollongong University, Australia, and Plymouth University, UK. He began his working life as an entrepreneur in the independent music sector before working for London Underground. He is the author of two books: Narratives of Enterprise: Crafting Entrepreneurial Self-identity in a SmallFirm (Edward Elgar, 2006), an ethnographic study of a small firm in the UK, and a textbook, Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Small Business (Sage, 2010). He has published articles and book chapters on small firm policy, entrepreneurial and organizational self-identity, indigenous entrepreneurship, management history and ethnographic methodology in journals such as Human Relations, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Organization and the International Small Business Journal. His current research work is based on an ESRC funded project entitled 'Situating small business regulation: A longitudinal study of how regulation is received, understood and used'. He is also co-applicant and senior advisor to Dr Jukka-Pekka Heikkilä, a 2013 recipient of the Royal Society/British Academy Newton International Fellowship award to investigate latent forms of entrepreneurship in East Asia (specifically North Korea where Dr Heikkilä is a visiting professor).

For further information about this event:

Contact: Dr Marfuga Iskandarova
Tel: 020 8417 5572
Email: M.Iskandarova@kingston.ac.uk