Title: Entrepreneurial identity construction and consumption of cultural products (movies)

Authors: Antti Kauppinen

Addresses: Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, 90014, Finland

Abstract: Entrepreneurial identity construction has often been studied as a process narrative of how a person becomes an entrepreneur. The process involves nascent entrepreneurs in both establishing a business and simultaneously negating the influence of rivals (subversion). Prior research reports that nascent entrepreneurs in the cultural industries often recognise the value of their forthcoming product while using (consuming) existing products. However, the available research lacks detail on how the subversion element can be activated while consuming cultural products, such as movies. This paper offers a content analysis, measuring how consuming (in the form of watching) movies affects nascent entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial identity construction narratives. Results show that the hardship content in movies improves the subsequent entrepreneurial orientation (EO) content of nascent entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial identity construction narratives (labelled the 'violence effect') while the accomplishment content is negatively related to this EO content. Both effects are stronger when there is blame content alongside EO content. As an individual effect, that blame content has a U-shaped correlation with the EO content.

Keywords: new business; blame; subversion; content analysis; hardship; accomplishment; violence effect.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2017.088672

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2017 Vol.9 No.4, pp.315 - 345

Accepted: 10 Nov 2016
Published online: 14 Dec 2017 *

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