Abstract
This book by Björn Bjerke and Hans Rämö is a successful attempt to add to our theoretical understanding of entrepreneurialism. Time, timing, space and place are important concepts, argue the authors, as they provide a phenomenological view of the entrepreneurial imagination. This way of understanding suggests the entrepreneurial process ‘as an active form of human action’ (p.15), and challenges the traditional North American functional perspective on entrepreneurship. In contrast, we are presented with the Scandinavian view, where here we see entrepreneuring as sense-making, language making, culture making and history making.
The contents of the book might appear to some as a little serendipitous. Personally, after the initial chapter that introduces the idea of entrepreneuring, I liked the way that the authors have included chapters on their own phenomenological epistemology, and tried to link this to the chapters that follow on different types of entrepreneuring including regional development, information and communication technology and environmental matters. I also think that there will be some who work in this area who will feel that the dense text fails to offer informed empirical work on aspects of entrepreneurship. Yet we should not bemoan the fact that this book is theoretically driven; it is a text that is well grounded in work from other disciplines, particularly sociology and geography. The book holds together a well structured journey through its component chapters, although the index is not very helpful.
This book definitely will be of interest to the serious small business, enterprise and entrepreneurial researcher. For example, the idea of entrepreneuring is a challenge to the normative US understanding of entrepreneurship and small business research. Entrepreneuring brings time and timing (the difference between measured chronological activity and acting with wisdom at the right moment) and space and place (the former a functional evaluation of location in comparison to location occupied with meaningful purpose) into an analysis of entrepreneurial activities. The authors argue that entrepreneuring is based on action through timing and place, providing a way to understand enterprise as meaningful human activity ‘to recognize how human action in timely places constitutes different expressions of the concept’ (p.48). Readers will note the influence of Heidegger in such an analysis.
We have here a basis for understanding the different types of entrepreneuring presented. The authors explain entrepreneuring in the ‘common sector’, ‘business sector’ and ‘citizen sector’. Chapters 3 and 4 set entrepreneuring in the context of society: the latter specifically taking into account what we might refer to commonly as social enterprise, networking and social capital. These chapters and chapter 5 bring into view ideas about citizen entrepreneurs and social innovation. Thus, the authors situate enterprise within the context of shifting societal values, the crisis in welfare, community renewal, migration and economic competitiveness.
Chapter 6, ‘Entrepreneuring and Regional Development’, begins by considering the Balkanization of advanced industrial economies in response to globalization. In this section the authors discuss firm collaboration and competition, and draw on Marshall’s industrial district thesis. They argue that the meaning of place is set in a context of innovation, knowledge clusters and networks, and thus entrepreneuring can exist through circumstances that owe as much to aspiring governance as to successful regions. There are some excellent points made here, as the authors demonstrate the relationship between space and place, bringing in the relational perspective: for example, on the role of entrepreneuring between space, place and economy.
Chapter 7 looks at entrepreneurial action and environment, and chapter 8 is on information and communication technology networking. These two chapters are relatively thin in comparison to earlier chapters, although they still allow the reader to situate entrepreneuring in such contemporary fields. The authors describe types of green enterprise and, a little predictably, associate this with corporate social responsibility. On top of the usual aspects of networking, the authors introduce ideas on trust and control within and between organizations, which we can trace back to Castells. These two chapters build on the relational perspective introduced earlier, which itself is strongly underpinned by their affinity to Heidegger.
It is unreasonable to expect such a book to satisfy the needs of all researchers in the field of entrepreneurship. Those interested in the utilitarian aspects of enterprise and entrepreneurialism will find little in the way of ‘management’ as a discipline, neither will those interested in aspects such as finance – certainly there are no mission-led ‘guides to start-up’ here. Undoubtedly, these are deliberate omissions. However, while I would recommend this book as an excellent informed contribution, it is not without weakness. The way in which US authors are lumped together as somehow unable to provide critique on the way that we understand entrepreneurship is a crass generalization, and the positing of the Scandinavian approach as the alternative to the dominant theories of North America ignores many contemporary authors who work in proximity to this field (see for example Bates and Robb, Julia Sass Rubin, Lionais and North in Southern, 2011; see also Gibson-Graham, 1996; Leyshon et al., 2003).
In fact, the reader is led through a journey of something here that is, in the main, a positive experience. The history-making entrepreneur(ing) demonstrates that even with a theoretically driven approach, and with the Scandinavian view providing an alternative and more cultured voice, we are presented with a concept that holds the same heroic light as that of entrepreneurialism. The book also lacks a certain political edge despite politics (passively) emerging in a number of chapters. This is not so much about policy, but about these questions: if we accept that entrepreneuring is about actions in context, why we do not take into account contestation over resources, particularly through structures such as class and ‘race’? Why is the research field unable to examine the fact that entrepreneurial behaviour can have very negative consequences, and may be a contributory factor in low pay, poverty and discrimination? For example, market-led enterprise or social enterprise may be part of the problem, whatever that problem may be. The authors are keen to demonstrate how e struggle to explain entrepreneurialism through normative terminology, which they strongly convince is inadequate. Although limited, the book also calls for a more thorough understanding of the political economy of entrepreneurialism.