Making sense of self-employment in late career

Understanding the Identity Work of Olderpreneurs

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2373907
AutoresOliver Mallett (0000-0002-2327-3592, Durham University Business School, UK), Robert Wapshott (0000-0002-9462-0782, Sheffield University Management School, UK)
Ano2015
Volume29
Fascículo2
Páginas250-266
Data de publicação2015-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoWork Employment and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0950017014546666
OpenAlexW2151924254
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas29
Referências citadas31

The enterprise culture is a pervasive socio-historical discourse. This article adopts a narrative identity work approach to explore how individuals may exert agency to make sense of and negotiate with the structuring features of such discourses. Older entrepreneurs are an interesting case through which to explore these processes because ageing is predominantly portrayed as a form of decline to be resisted or hidden and as inherently anti-enterprise. Qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with two UK-based older entrepreneurs reveal how they engaged problematically with discourses around enterprise culture and ageing in constructing their identities. Sedimentation and innovation are proposed as valuable concepts for understanding how particular discourses become embedded in the understanding and identity work of individuals and how they seek to exert agency. The findings demonstrate the difficulties in innovative identity work for older entrepreneurs and this is discussed in terms of narrative resource poverty

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Identity (music · Identity negotiation · Narrative · Negotiation · Political science · Psychology of self · Public relations · Sense of agency · Social science · Sociology · Structure and agency · Structuring · Work (physics · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences · Family Business Performance and Succession · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology