We argue that entrepreneurship research would benefit from a practice perspective, and drawing from Bourdieu's work, we envision entrepreneurship as a profoundly socially embedded process connected to entrepreneurs' positions in structures of power relations. In taking an initial step in the development of a practice perspective of entrepreneurship, we focus on one domain of entrepreneurial action, that is, the gaining of legitimacy by newcomers entering a field, which we conceive as the enactment of entrepreneurial habitus. We question the assumption that a newcomer entering a field automatically is deemed an entrepreneur and instead argue that he or she must be 'legitimized' as an entrepreneur by enacting taken-for-granted yet conflicting expectations about 'fitting in' with field rules and 'standing out' as a rule breaker. We discuss how newcomers' cultural and symbolic capital shape their ability to attain legitimacy and, in turn, how the interplay between newcomers' legitimacy and success influences ...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0266242609334971

Toward a Practice Perspective of Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Legitimacy as Habitus

Building on work that associates organizational resilience with crisis recovery and strategic renewal, I examine how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) vary in the formalisation of activiti...

Rethinking Organizational Resilience and Strategic Renewal in SMEs

This comparative research examines the characteristics of nascent entrepreneurs' cognitive social capital created via face-to-face and electronic communication.The nascent entrepreneurs had trained...

Networks, Communication and Learning during Business Start-up The Creation of Cognitive Social Capital

It is commonly reported that new businesses have difficulty in accessing finance. Such businesses can engage in ‘bootstrapping’ activities as a way of compensating for the lack of finance and other resources. This paper extends prior research on start-up finance by investigating how social networks can help new ventures to acquire bootstrapped resources and how these resources influence business performance. Based on theoretical considerations, the paper proposes a framework linking social networks and bootstrapping activities to the performance of firms during the early stages of operation. The model is tested using structural equation modelling. Results obtained from the longitudinal study based on a sample of 211 entrepreneurs indicate that social networks play a key role in the acquisition of bootstrapped resources. The study differentiates between the roles of strong ties, weak ties and brokerage in accessing three different types of bootstrapped resources: payment related, owner related and joint ut...

Resourcing new businesses: social networks, bootstrapping and firm performance

Purpose – This paper uses a social capital theoretical framework to examine how the relational dimension of business networks affects the networking activities of female entrepreneurs. In particular, the study examines the role of trust on women's networking behaviour and the part played by government business development officers in supporting women entrepreneur's opportunity recognition behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – The research used mixed methods to gather and analyse data. A survey instrument was used to gather quantitative data and qualitative data was gathered from interviews and written responses to open‐ended questions included in the survey.Findings – The quantitative findings suggest firstly that approximately 20 per cent of the reason why women entrepreneurs belong to formal business networks is to search for business opportunities; however, their experience of trusting significantly affects their perception of the potential benefits of networking activities. Moreover, government deve...

Women entrepreneurs, opportunity recognition and government‐sponsored business networks: A social capital perspective

According to Woolcock, social capital can be defined as the “norms and networks facilitating collective action for mutual benefit”. Furthermore, Gabbay and Leenders suggest that social capital offers some potential for integrating the proliferation of network research that has been developed over the last 30 years. Examines an innovatory partnership between Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (MMUBS) and a number of agencies including the Prince's Trust to provide skills to entrepreneurs from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. The New Entrepreneur Scholarship Scheme (NESS) was the result of an initiative by the Chancellor Gordon Brown to encourage higher education institutes to make a larger contribution to the UK's entrepreneurial culture. MMUBS piloted the first NESS programme for 18 nascent entrepreneurs. It was decided to adopt an “action‐learning” approach concentrating on the development of a realistic business idea as well as creating a supportive environment within the group. This intervention has aided NESS participants by building and strengthening networks that become the basis of their social capital.

Kevin Boles

Papers

Building social capital through action learning: an insight into the entrepreneur