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Generational Encounters and the Social Formation of Entrepreneurial Identity: 'Young Guns' and 'Old Farts'

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Simon Down, Dr James Reveley

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Abstract

Generational relations and entrepreneurialism in organizations are attracting increasing attention from organizational scholars. This article bridges these areas of interest, by examining how entrepreneurial identity is shaped by generational encounters within a small organization context. In so doing, it contributes to ongoing challenges to the scientistic orthodoxy regarding the formation of entrepreneurial persons. Evidence from an ethnographic study of two joint ownermanagers in the port fendering industry is presented. Wenger's 'community of practice' framework is used to show that generational encounters, through their influence on self-identity, are an important social context of the decision to embark on an entrepreneurial career. By emphasizing micro-socially situated aspects of identity formation, this article provides an interactionist complement to recent accounts of entrepreneurs and identities as being (re)produced by discourses that have hegemonic effects.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Down S, Reveley J

Publication type: Review

Publication status: Published

Journal: Organization

Year: 2004

Volume: 11

Issue: 2

Pages: 233-250

ISSN (print): 1350-5084

ISSN (electronic): 1461-7323

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350508404030381

DOI: 10.1177/1350508404030381

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