The dominant entrepreneurship discourses leave little space for alternative interpretations of entrepreneurship (da Costa & Saraiva, 2012; Williams & Nadin, 2013). Thus, social entrepreneurship (SE) is used to highlight a focus on social change (Mair & Martí, 2006).
However, entrepreneurship concerns practices beyond wealth-creation (Verduijn et al. 2014). This study aims to add to the critical social entrepreneurship research on the political nature (Dey & Steyaert, 2010), discourse (Hervieux et al. 2010; Hulgård, 2010; Levander, 2010; Teasdale, 2011), rhetorical strategies (Grenier, 2009; Ruebottom, 2013), and language use (Parkinson & Howorth, 2008) of SE. Additionally, the aim is to examine the declarative aspects in emancipatory entrepreneuring (Rindova et al. 2009).
Traditionally, SE in Finland relates to employing people with unprivileged job-market position (Pättiniemi, 2006). Although registered work-integration social enterprises gain slightly better benefits, their adoption has been marginal. In 2010’s focus moved from work-integration to solving societal problems with entrepreneurship. These developments link SE to self-employment (Busenitz et al. 2015). Although self-employment for social change is not institutionally recognised as SE, some small business owner-managers refer to themselves as “social entrepreneurship” despite any concrete benefits (Houtbeckers, 2014).
The interest here is why self-employment aiming for social change started to be called "social entrepreneurship". More specifically, how small business owner-managers with SE identity talk about their work. The data includes four owner-managers and the analysis covers 13 interviews and 37 observation visits (2009-2014).
This study finds that owner-managers’ rhetorical moves include comparison between categories (“social entrepreneurship/entrepreneurship”, “small/large business”), a sense of an emerging community (social entrepreneurship occupation), claiming individual agency over structures, fatalism (“system will collapse”), and distancing from categories. I argue that due to the Finnish context, the owner-managers use the label “social entrepreneurship” for their social change activities although they engage in emancipatory entrepreneuring. They need to poach (de Certeau, 1984) their practice for social change due to the general understanding of entrepreneurship as merely wealth-creation and economic growth. Although they suggest their everyday practices do not match SE discourse, they still use it for declaring their mission.
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