Elisabeth Weber

Bio: Elisabeth Weber is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 20 citations.

Darwinians, Communitarians and Missionaries: The Role of Founder Identity in Entrepreneurship

Abstract: Drawing on social identity theory, we explore the identities, behaviors, and actions of 49 firm founders in the sports-related equipment industry. Our analysis suggests the existence of three pure types of founder identities and shows how these identities systematically shape key decisions in the creation of new firms, thereby “imprinting” the start-ups with the founders’ distinct self-concepts. We synthesize our findings in a typology that sheds light on the heterogeneous meanings that founders associate with new firm creation and that improves understanding as to why fundamental differences in firm creation processes and outcomes exist.

THE MIDWINTER SACRIFICE: A Sequel to "Can Morality Be Christian?"

Abstract: Òmoral luck,Ó or the idea that, to a degree at least, we require good fortune if we are to be good. However, in this essay, I want to argue, to the contrary, that Christianity embraces moral luck to such an extreme degree that it transforms all received ideas of the ethical. In the course of this argument, I shall try to show that these received ideas of the ethical, which may or may not permit some play to Òmoral luck,Ó all subscribe to a Òsacrificial economy.Ó And that they do so in two different variants: either in terms of the giving up of the lesser for the greater, or else of a more radical notion of absolute sacrifice of self for the other, without any ÒreturnÓ for, or of, the self in any guise whatsoever. The second variant, which would usually see itself as escaping the sacrificial economy of do ut des (ÒI give that you may giveÓ), but which I will argue is but this same economy taken to its logical extreme, has been recently espoused in different but profoundly analogous ways by Jan Patocÿka, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.2 Against this view, which now enjoys a wide consensus, I shall argue that a self-sacrificial view of morality is first, immoral, second, impossible, and third, a deformation, not the fulfilment, as Patocÿka echoed by Derrida claims, of the Christian gospel. The article has two parts: first, a consideration of Òmoral luckÓ accompanied by an intermittent analysis of ShakespeareÕs late play The WinterÕs Tale. Second, a more systematic spelling out of the implications of this analysis for a consideration of Òmorality, gift and sacrifice.Ó

L’accompagnement : symétrie dans les asymétries ?

Abstract: Cet article presente une analyse de deux entretiens d’accompagnement vecus par une formatrice d’adultes et un directeur d’etablissement fondamental et menes par une enseignante universitaire et un conseiller pedagogique. Cette analyse permet d’interroger la nature de « la mise au service de l’accompagne » par l’accompagnateur. Se mettre au service d’autrui implique-t-il systematiquement une relation symetrique comme cela est decrit dans la litterature ? Il apparait que lors de ces deux entretiens l’asymetrie soit bien presente et ne s’inscrit pas une dimension relationnelle mais dans une comparaison a soi.

The poetics and politics of identity at the crossroads of cultural difference and diversity

Abstract: This essay traces the relational dynamics of cultural difference and diversity as represented in Pan-American fiction by Gisele Pineau, Maryse Conde, Dionne Brand, T. C. Boyle, Conceicao Evaristo, and Alejo Carpentier. In the process, it addresses and problematizes the following questions: How is identity constituted, produced, and enacted when identity-based forms of oppression deny or delimit the negotiation and comprehension of its meanings? How do difference and diversity designate the other? How are boundaries of difference and borderlands of diversity constituted, maintained or deconstructed? And finally, if these boundaries and borderlands constitute the space of power relations where identifications are performed, then, what are their effects on the formation of identity?