Entrepreneuring as discursive processes of emancipation and legitimation

The aim of this paper is to analyse how power is discursively produced in local entrepreneurial processes through legitimation and emancipation, thereby contributing to a developed conceptualisation of the production of power in entrepreneurial processes. By viewing entrepreneurial processes as instances of construction of power structures in terms of legitimation and emancipation, both the innovating and re-producing aspects of entrepreneurship can be analysed in a better way. In our empirical study of an organization that can be seen as a bundle of entrepreneurial processes – a rock club in a small rural town that underwent a transition from being rebels into acting as saviours of the region - we found that actors draw upon discourses of Assimilation, Outcasting, Grandiosification and Responsibilisation in their continuous interaction around notions of legitimation and emancipation. Different discourses are drawn upon by different actors at different times, implying that the spaces of action are continuously created and re-created in social interaction. These processes imply tensions and ambiguities between different discursive positions, which we have analysed in terms of autonomy, professionalization, creativity, maturity, altruism and visionary thinking.QC 20220831