Social Dynamics in Entrepreneurship
This course is an obligatory course in the Master of Entrepreneurship, and looks at entrepreneurship as a process (entrepreneuring) which is enacted by people with diverse backgrounds and goals in relation to various societal, cultural and political contexts. In that respect, entrepreneurship is regarded as embedded in, and similar in nature to, the general processes of ongoing social interaction in which people organize the entire society.
The course is designed in the paradigm of social constructionist organization theory, which regards organizing as a continuous process of ongoing social interaction between actors in their quest to make sense of the world. One consequence of that process is the emergence of social groups of various degrees of complexity, some of which may develop into entrepreneurial ventures. Members of a social group derive a social identity from that membership.
As people are included in several social groups, each person inhabits several identities. Entrepreneuring provides the people involved in it with an entrepreneurial identity, which needs to compete with their other identities. The lectures will show that the core distinctive feature of the entrepreneurial identity is the skill to interpret (read) organizing processes and to employ them for a specific purpose. A series of skills/application sessions will train students to acquire those skills themselves.
