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Article
Publication date: 29 January 2024

Liang Shang

Social entrepreneurship has been recently viewed as an emancipatory process that promotes freedom and autonomy for social entrepreneurs and those they serve. However, the…

Abstract

Purpose

Social entrepreneurship has been recently viewed as an emancipatory process that promotes freedom and autonomy for social entrepreneurs and those they serve. However, the mechanisms of how emancipation is enacted remain relatively underexplored. By using an integrative lens, this paper aims to explore the emancipation experiences of women social entrepreneurs and unpack the processes through which they extend their self-emancipation to facilitate the empowerment of others.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted a qualitative multiple-case study approach. Semistructured interviews were conducted with eight women social entrepreneurs from various industries in Hong Kong to understand and examine their experiences of “emancipation from” and “emancipation to” in social entrepreneurship.

Findings

This study identified a three-phase emancipatory journey of women social entrepreneurs. Specifically, the findings revealed that their emancipation experiences started with self-awareness of constraints in their surroundings, primarily due to stereotyped social norms and institutional barriers. This phase is followed by embracing social entrepreneurship as a coping strategy for navigating the perceived constraints and exploring new possibilities with increased agency. Ultimately, this transformation extends beyond their individual growth into broader social impacts as women social entrepreneurs use their newfound agency to effect meaningful social changes.

Originality/value

This study enriches the “entrepreneuring as emancipation” perspective by embracing an integrative lens that allows us to delve into the complex layers of emancipation experiences of women social entrepreneurs. Notably, this study differentiates various conceptions of emancipation, presenting a dual role of women social entrepreneurs as both the emancipated and the emancipator. By situating the study in Hong Kong, where women often face gendered expectations that shape their career choices and development, this study offers a nuanced and contextual understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities women social entrepreneurs encounter in their environment.

Details

Gender in Management: An International Journal , vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-2413

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 May 2023

Bede Akorige Atarah, Vladi Finotto, Eimear Nolan and André van Stel

The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial…

1985

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this research is to determine the stages that women in resource-constrained environments go through in order to emancipate themselves through entrepreneurial activities. Based on their fieldwork, the authors develop a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 57 female entrepreneurs in two resource-constrained countries in West Africa. Non-participant observations were employed as a secondary data collection technique to provide important sources of information for triangulation.

Findings

This study's findings indicate that the process of female emancipation through entrepreneurship begins with the perception of one's personal motivations, followed by the choice of economic activities, the gathering of various necessary resources, and finally the commencement and running of a venture to bring about the desired emancipation. Various factors, such as family, the external environment, personal qualities and ease of operations, were found to influence the choice of entrepreneurial activities. We also found that human, social, cultural and political capital interact to produce economic capital, a central form of capital for the starting and running of ventures in resource-constrained environments.

Originality/value

Although extant studies have shown that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women to liberate themselves from various constraints, it is as yet unclear which process these women follow to achieve such emancipation. The development of a process framework of emancipation-through-entrepreneurship is the key contribution of this paper. Despite extant research demonstrating that entrepreneurship can assist women in financially limited settings to achieve economic independence, the specific steps these women take in the process remain unclear. Thus, this paper presents a process framework that focuses on women in constrained environments and their journey to emancipation through entrepreneurship.

Details

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol. 30 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1462-6004

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 February 2020

Jane Andrew and Max Baker

The authors critique Modell's proposition that critical realism is useful in elucidating and creating possibilities for emancipation.

Abstract

Purpose

The authors critique Modell's proposition that critical realism is useful in elucidating and creating possibilities for emancipation.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors begin by outlining Modell's conception of enabling structures. If ‘activated’ by reflexive individuals, these are theorised to be a mechanism through which agents can begin to emancipate themselves. However, the authors argue that emancipation must be contextualised within the material realities of global capitalism, paying particular attention to the shape of inequality and the subjects of exploitation. In doing this, they draw on Marx to pose an alternative view of structure.

Findings

In offering a Marxist critique of critical realism, the authors show how capitalist superstructure and base work together to reinforce inequality. In doing this, they highlight the enduring importance of collective action as the engine of emancipation. It is for this reason that they advocate for an emancipatory politics, which is collectively informed outside of, and in conflict with, the logics of capitalism.

Research limitations/implications

The authors argue that explicit discussions of capitalism and its structures must be at the centre of critical accounting research, especially when it pertains to emancipation.

Originality/value

Given the importance of the conceptual framing of critical accounting research, this article suggests that critical realism has much to offer. That said, the authors draw on Marx to raise a number of important questions about both the nature of structure and the identity of reflexive agents within critical realism. They do this to encourage further debate about the emancipatory possibilities of the critical accounting project and the ideas proposed by Modell (2020).

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1991

Hans J.G.A. van Mierlo

Reconsiders tax reform and economic emancipation of women withrespect to public policy formation in The Netherlands. In particular,investigates the attempts of organised interest…

Abstract

Reconsiders tax reform and economic emancipation of women with respect to public policy formation in The Netherlands. In particular, investigates the attempts of organised interest groups of the Dutch women′s liberation movement during the 1980s to influence the public policy process on tax form. The theory of public choice is applied as a theoretical framework for this case study of The Netherlands. The analysis starts with an overview of the issues at stake in the tax reform debate in The Netherlands. Organised women′s interest groups have a specific viewpoint on these issues. These viewpoints are expressed in the public policy process by various lobby mechanisms and political arenas in the Dutch political‐economic system. The attempts to influence these mechanisms and arenas in favour of women′s interests appear to have been rather unsuccessful in the 1980s. The Dutch policy process can be characterised by the so‐called “barrier model”. Various barriers in the Dutch policy process offer an explanation for the relative failure of the organised women′s interest groups to influence the tax reform process in The Netherlands. This explanation may also be valid for similar cases in other West European countries, where the same issues of tax reform and women′s emancipation are at stake and where the public policy process has the same characteristics. Finally, formulates some policy recommendations to overcome the barriers in the public policy process on tax reform.

Details

Journal of Economic Studies, vol. 18 no. 5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-3585

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 June 2015

Sven Modell

The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such…

2469

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories to examine whether the paradigmatic tensions associated with such research can be alleviated whilst engendering politically engaged scholarship aimed at facilitating processes of emancipation in organisational fields.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a review of relevant accounting research and offers recommendations for how to combine institutional and critical research approaches in a paradigmatically consistent way.

Findings

Extant accounting research combining institutional and critical theories has not dealt effectively with the partly inter-related problems of ontological drift (i.e. misalignment of ontological assumptions and epistemological commitments) and the conflation of notions of agency and structure. If such problems remain unaddressed institutional research aimed at generating politically engaged scholarship and human emancipation is unlikely to progress in a paradigmatically consistent direction. Recommendations for how to address these issues, grounded in recent advances in critical realism, are elaborated upon. This results in a contingent view of the ontological possibilities of emancipation in organisational fields as well as the epistemological premises that need to be filled to engender processes of emancipation.

Originality/value

The paper reviews an emerging body of research seeking to radicalise institutional accounting research and enhance its contributions to democratic debate in organisations and society. It also outlines how some pertinent paradigmatic tensions associated with such research may be addressed.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 28 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 July 2019

Sven Modell

The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique…

1398

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique centred on the neglect of social structures in the former perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper based on a critical reading of ANT inspired by CR.

Findings

Although the author does not question the ability of ANT to be imbued with critical intent per se, the author is critical of its tendency to downplay the significance of pre-existing, social structures and the concomitant neglect of enduring and ubiquitous states of structural stability as an ontological possibility. This may lead to an overly optimistic view that naively valorises agency as a largely unfettered engine of emancipation. By contrast, CR offers a deeper and more nuanced ontological conception of how social structures constrain as well as enable emancipation. In contrast to the highly empiricist epistemology of ANT, it also provides an epistemological rationale for going beyond empirical descriptions of how social structures work to advance theoretically informed, explanatory critiques that are better suited for realising less easily observable opportunities for emancipation.

Research limitations/implications

The paper advances the debate about how social structures should be examined in critical accounting research and the relative merits of doing so in advancing emancipatory projects.

Originality/value

The paper is an attempt to contrast ANT and CR as two distinct approaches to critical accounting research and thus extends the debate about what such research is and could be.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 33 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 December 2004

Sonja Gallhofer and Jim Haslam

According to Best (1995, p. 270), ours “is an age devoid of emancipatory vision” (cited in Gallhofer & Haslam, 2003, p. ix). In Accounting and Emancipation we aim to impact upon…

Abstract

According to Best (1995, p. 270), ours “is an age devoid of emancipatory vision” (cited in Gallhofer & Haslam, 2003, p. ix). In Accounting and Emancipation we aim to impact upon the present in that our concern is to explore how accounting may be positively aligned with a (positive) notion of emancipation. In the process of exploration, we draw upon and intervene in debates from the social sciences and humanities (especially debates pertaining to emancipation), radically question existing practices and ways of seeing and engage with multiple accountings and agencies in various modern contexts. Aside from the motivating concern to search out an emancipatory vision vis-à-vis accounting, we hold that the relation between accounting and emancipation and how it may constitute a positive alignment are matters that are complex, multifariously shaped and notably fluid. Thus, another factor motivating our study is the need to keep such matters under review.

Details

Re-Inventing Realities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-307-5

Book part
Publication date: 22 September 2022

Violina P. Rindova, Santosh B. Srinivas and Luis L. Martins

The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that…

Abstract

The assumption of wealth creation as the dominant motive underlying entrepreneurial efforts has been challenged in recent work on entrepreneurship. Taking the perspective that entrepreneurship involves emancipatory efforts by social actors to escape ideological and material constraints in their environments (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen, 2009), researchers have sought to explain a range of entrepreneurial activities in contexts that have traditionally been excluded from entrepreneurship research. We seek to extend this research by proposing that entrepreneurial acts toward emancipation can be guided by different notions of the common good underlying varying conceptions of worth, beyond those emphasized in the view of entrepreneurial activity as driven by economic wealth creation. These alternative conceptions of worth are associated with specific subjectivities of entrepreneurial self and relevant others, and distinct legitimate bases for actions and coordination, enabling emancipation by operating from alternative value system perspectives. Drawing on Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) work on multiple orders of worth (OOWs), we describe how emancipatory entrepreneurship is framed within – and limited by – the dominant view, which is rooted in a market OOW. As alternatives to this view, we theorize how the civic and inspired OOWs point to alternate emancipatory ends and means through which entrepreneurs break free from material and ideological constraints. We describe factors that enable and constrain emancipatory entrepreneurship efforts within each of these OOWs, and discuss the implications of our theoretical ideas for how entrepreneurs can choose among different OOWs as perspectives and for the competencies required for engaging with pluralistic value perspectives.

Details

Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-658-5

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 24 March 2014

Karen Verduijn, Pascal Dey, Deirdre Tedmanson and Caroline Essers

The purpose of this paper is to use the attribute “critical” as a sensitizing concept to emphasize entrepreneurship's role in overcoming extant relations of exploitation…

2118

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to use the attribute “critical” as a sensitizing concept to emphasize entrepreneurship's role in overcoming extant relations of exploitation, domination and oppression. It builds on the premise that entrepreneurship not only brings about new firms, products and services but also new openings for more liberating forms of individual and collective existence.

Design/methodology/approach

Honing in on Calas et al.'s (2009) seminal piece on critical entrepreneurship studies, and building on Laclau's (1996) conceptualization of emancipation as intimately related to oppression, the paper explores different interpretations of emancipation and discuss these from a critical understanding of entrepreneurship. The paper then employs these interpretations to introduce and “classify” the five articles in this special issue.

Findings

The editorial charts four interpretations of emancipation along two axes (utopian-dystopian and heterotopian-paratopian), and relates these to various strands of critical entrepreneurship research. United by a general commitment to positive change, each interpretation champions a different take on what might comprise the emancipatory or oppressive potential of entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

As the emancipatory aspect of entrepreneurship has attracted increasing attention among entrepreneurship researchers, the paper formulates a tentative framework for furthering views on the emancipatory aspects of entrepreneurship as a positive phenomenon in critical research – which to date has tended to be preoccupied with the “dark side” of entrepreneurship.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 February 2022

Rana Zayadin, Antonella Zucchella and Amitabh Anand

The aim of the study is to examine the reciprocal relation between context and emancipatory acts. Context is important in shaping the entrepreneurial action, particularly in a…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of the study is to examine the reciprocal relation between context and emancipatory acts. Context is important in shaping the entrepreneurial action, particularly in a developing region, as it expounds its emancipatory role. At the same time emancipatory acts can affect context as well.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employs an inductive research design, applying an open-ended exploratory research and conversation analysis, to elicit the stories of 25 entrepreneurs who are challenging their status quo.

Findings

Acts of emancipation were observed through a dynamic process centred around entrepreneurs' abilities to respond to policy debates. These debates introduced an individual level action towards social and institutional change. The findings present a model of entrepreneurial acts as an enabler in a socially constrained and challenging context.

Originality/value

Through contextual embeddedness, this study captured the entrepreneur's abilities to re-perform and negotiation with their context towards actions of emancipation. The study aims to capture individuals' narratives to enhance our understanding of the contextual and embedded factors that shape the entrepreneurial process towards emancipation. The study presents a model that theorises these narratives and actions.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

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