Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Culture and Organization on 01/01/2021, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14759551.2020.1861451
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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Entrepreneurship and the struggle over order and coherence
T2 - a thematic reading of Robert Musil’s 'The Man Without Qualities'
AU - Loacker, Bernadette
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Culture and Organization on 01/01/2021, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14759551.2020.1861451
PY - 2021/8/31
Y1 - 2021/8/31
N2 - This paper is grounded in a thematic reading of Robert Musil's (1933/1997) novel The Man Without Qualities. Combining literary, social, and economic theory, the discipline-spanning novel engages with some of the central questions and conflicts of our age, such as the search for order and coherence, seeking to overcome the fragmentation of life. Specifically, we suggest that Musil refers to the advent of entrepreneurship and the ‘enterprising spirit’ as an example evocative of these pursuits, as well as their concomitant ambiguities and frictions. Our analysis therefore engages with the role of Austrian economic theory in consolidating entrepreneur/ship as an ideal socio-economic model and order. By discussing the complexities inscribed in seemingly unifying orders such as entrepreneurship, the paper contributes in particular to critical and process entrepreneurship studies in MOS. It responds to calls for further literary, inter-disciplinary, and historical analyses in entrepreneurship research.
AB - This paper is grounded in a thematic reading of Robert Musil's (1933/1997) novel The Man Without Qualities. Combining literary, social, and economic theory, the discipline-spanning novel engages with some of the central questions and conflicts of our age, such as the search for order and coherence, seeking to overcome the fragmentation of life. Specifically, we suggest that Musil refers to the advent of entrepreneurship and the ‘enterprising spirit’ as an example evocative of these pursuits, as well as their concomitant ambiguities and frictions. Our analysis therefore engages with the role of Austrian economic theory in consolidating entrepreneur/ship as an ideal socio-economic model and order. By discussing the complexities inscribed in seemingly unifying orders such as entrepreneurship, the paper contributes in particular to critical and process entrepreneurship studies in MOS. It responds to calls for further literary, inter-disciplinary, and historical analyses in entrepreneurship research.
KW - Ambiguities and frictions
KW - Austrian economists
KW - critical entrepreneurship studies
KW - process studies
KW - Musil
KW - order and coherence
U2 - 10.1080/14759551.2020.1861451
DO - 10.1080/14759551.2020.1861451
M3 - Journal article
VL - 27
SP - 403
EP - 422
JO - Culture and Organization
JF - Culture and Organization
SN - 1475-9551
IS - 5
ER -