Title: The rhetorical construction of web 2.0 entrepreneurship

Authors: Björn Remneland Wikhamn

Addresses: School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 610, S-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract: Stories of the successful creation of web 2.0 platforms, such as Youtube and Facebook, circulate in both popular press and in academic texts. These ventures are dependent on a critical mass of users' involvement, and how the entrepreneurs are mobilising these platforms are of key interest. Still, however, there are few critical analyses on how these mobilisation processes evolve in practice. This paper analytically compares accounts from two entrepreneurs' different mobilisation efforts of web 2.0 ventures in Sweden. The first account is based on an interview where the entrepreneur in retrospection reflects on the process, while the second account is based on a longitudinal study following the entrepreneur in the making. The two accounts are analysed and discussed based on a narrative approach, looking at how the entrepreneurs speak about their ventures' developments.

Keywords: web 2.0 entrepreneurship; narrative; involvement; mobilisation; reflection; web 2.0 ventures; Sweden.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTE.2016.080248

International Journal of Technoentrepreneurship, 2016 Vol.3 No.2, pp.97 - 113

Received: 03 Sep 2013
Accepted: 10 Dec 2014
Published online: 09 Nov 2016 *

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