Title: De-linking entrepreneurship from profit-motivated capitalism: some lessons from an English locality

Authors: Colin C. Williams

Addresses: University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DP, UK

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to contribute to the entrepreneurship literature that has sought to deconstruct the normative view of the entrepreneur as a heroic icon of profit-motivated capitalism by developing a typology of the multifarious lived practices of entrepreneurship ranging from wholly social to wholly profit-motivated forms of entrepreneurship cross-cut by wholly informal to wholly formal forms of entrepreneurial endeavour. This is then applied by reporting evidence from a small-scale survey of the multiple forms of entrepreneurship in the English locality of Bassetlaw. The finding is that just 12% of the entrepreneurs surveyed in this locality are engaged purely in profit-driven entrepreneurship in the legitimate economy. The outcome is a call to more widely apply this typology that depicts the multiple forms of entrepreneurship in order to open up entrepreneurship to re-signification as demonstrative of the possibility of futures beyond legitimate profit-driven capitalism.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; enterprise culture; social entrepreneurship; informal economy; shadow economy; underground sector; capitalism; England; profit motive; entrepreneurial endeavour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEI.2013.056996

International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2013 Vol.2 No.3, pp.225 - 239

Received: 10 Sep 2012
Accepted: 27 Feb 2013
Published online: 28 Feb 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article