Jean Clarke

It's all action, it's all learning: action learning in SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to argue that action learning (AL) may provide a means of successfully developing small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach – The literature around SME learning suggests a number of processes are important for SME learning which similarity, it is argued, are encompassed in AL. AL may therefore offer a means of developing SME. This argument is then supported through the results of a longitudinal qualitative evaluation study conducted in the north‐west of England, which involved the use of AL in 100 SMEs.Findings – The paper finds that the discursive and critical reflection aspects of the set environment appeared to be of great utility and importance to the SMEs. Sets also had an optimum level of which helped them find “common ground”. Once common ground was established set members often continued to network and form alliances outside of the set environment. SME owner‐managers could discuss both personal and business. Finally, AL offered the ...

Sensegiving in entrepreneurial contexts: The use of metaphors in speech and gesture to gain and sustain support for novel ventures

Gaining and sustaining support for novel ventures is a vital yet difficult entrepreneurial process. Previous research on this topic has generally focused on the social competence and social capital of those creating new ventures, and their ability to align their ventures, with collective norms of novel ventures as sensible, acceptable and legitimate. We suggest that sensegiving – the ability to communicate a meaningful course for a venture – to investors and employees may also play a direct role in achieving support for a venture. Based upon a micro-ethnographic study of two individuals who were in the process of creating new ventures, we demonstrate how they give sense, to others in real time that involve not just their speech but also their gestures. Overall, we find evidence that in the early stages of the commercialization of a venture, metaphors in both speech and gesture are consistently used to emphasize agency and control and the predictability and taken-for-grantedness of a novel venture.

Immaturity The Constraining of Entrepreneurship

We introduce conceptions of ‘enacted cognition’,‘practical authorship’ and ‘maturity’ that help us to investigate entrepreneurship as an activity. The first two stem from social constructionist per...We introduce conceptions of ‘enacted cognition’,‘practical authorship’ and ‘maturity’ that help us to investigate entrepreneurship as an activity. The first two stem from social constructionist perspectives on patterns of recognition and the articulation of knowledge respectively (Shotter, 1993; Vygotsky, 1986). The third is found in Kant’s (1784/1991) essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’ By combining these, our research highlights those factors that prevent entrepreneurs developing maturity and so embedding their ideas within the wider economic and social activities of their community. A novel e-postcard methodology is employed with 44 UK entrepreneurs to investigate these factors from the entrepreneurs’ own judgements. Implications for the development of a new methodology, for the conceptualization and development of entrepreneurial activity and learning among small firm managers, and for policy are discussed.

The Mature Entrepreneur: A Narrative Approach to Entrepreneurial Goals

The majority of existing research on entrepreneurial goals is individualistically oriented and tends to begin with the assumption that entrepreneurs are animated solely by the pursuit of independence, freedom and profit-making. In this study, we employ Kant’s concept of maturity to develop insight into entrepreneurial goals as socially embedded. Drawing on a narrative orientation we explore how entrepreneurs articulate their goals and the images they use to metaphorically express these goals. We find that entrepreneurs articulate goals that evoke public, social and moral concerns alongside the more commonly accepted entrepreneurial goals of independence and challenging existing orthodoxies.

Re-imagining the growth process: (co)-evolving metaphorical representations of entrepreneurial growth

We investigate the role and influence of the biological metaphor ‘growth’ in studies of organizations, specifically in entrepreneurial settings. We argue that we need to reconsider metaphorical expressions of growth processes in entrepreneurship studies in order to better understand growth in the light of contemporary challenges, such as environmental concerns. Our argument is developed in two stages: first, we review the role of metaphor in organization and entrepreneurship studies. Second, we reflect critically on three conceptualizations of growth that have drawn on biological metaphors: the growing organism, natural selection and co-evolution. We find the metaphor of co-evolution heuristically valuable but under-used and in need of further refinement. We propose three characteristics of the co-evolutionary metaphor that might enrich our understanding of entrepreneurial growth: relational epistemology, collectivity and multidimensionality. Through this we provide a conceptual means of reconciling an economic impetus for entrepreneurial growth with an environmental imperative for sustainability.

The manager's tale: stories of managerial identity

than others. For business historians, the essays on the department store Liberty’s and on the manufacture and marketing of Japanese leather wallpaper are likely to be of greatest interest. Essays on second-hand furniture and on bridal showers also raise interesting points about changes in consumer attitudes. Across the chapters a wide range of primary sources are used, including business records, diaries and interviews. This is an advantage over many similar works, which are not able to encompass such a variety of source materials. There are two instances when further explanation of how a set of diaries and a series of business records were analysed would be beneficial. The majority of the essays, however, use the primary sources clearly and concisely. Business historians will benefit from the opportunity provided in this volume to compare their research on retailers and consumers with similar topics in other countries or periods. While Buying for the home does not entirely fulfil a clear research agenda itself, it provides a useful overview of alternative approaches to the history of retailing and consumption.

To act and learn: a Bakhtinian exploration of action learning

This paper considers the work of the Russian social philosopher and cultural theorist, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin as a source of understanding for those involved in action learning. Drawing upon data gathered over two years during the evaluation of 20 action learning sets in the north of England, we will seek to work with the ideas of Bakhtin to consider their value for those involved in action learning. We consider key Bakhtin features such as Making Meaning, Participative Thinking, Theoreticism and Presence, Others and Outsideness, Voices and Carnival to highlight how Bakhtins can enhance our understanding of the nature of action and learning.

Performance in Small Firms

Since the 1970s it has become increasingly common for academics and policy makers alike to claim that the impetus for economic growth and innovation depends on both improved performance of existing small firms and increasing the number of start-up companies. Herbig et al. (1994, p. 37), for example, report: ‘small, new businesses have been the main driving force for the economic growth of the 1980s, contributing virtually all the new jobs during that decade’. This belief that small firms are the driving force of Western economies is a relatively recent occurrence. Up until the 1970s interest from policy makers and academics was limited and it was assumed that economic development was based on mass production by large companies (Carr and Beaver, 2002). Following the first oil price shock in 1973, many large companies were hit by severe economic problems, and increasingly began to be seen as inflexible and slow to adjust to new market conditions. Against this background, in Britain, the government initiated a comprehensive inquiry into the role of small businesses in the economy. The final report (the Bolton Report) was presented in 1971 and suggested that small firms were integral to a successful economy, thus sparking much interest in the performance of small firms.

Vivienne Westwood and the Ethics of Consuming Fashion

Little attention has been given to the ethics of fashion consumption despite the often trenchant critique of the fashion industry for intensifying cycles of production, consumption, and disposal and encouraging in consumers a superficial sense of identity and the good life through apparel. In this article, we suggest that although relationships with clothes are not often explicitly stated as “being ethical,” the capacity to be ethical can pervade the buying and wearing of clothes. We focus on the fashion designer, environmental campaigner, and critic of consumption Vivienne Westwood and those who consume her clothing. Using a single case study approach (combining interview data, participant observation, internal and external documents, and literature), we examine the ethical potential of consuming fashion. We show how ethics in consumption is a critical engagement with how products such as clothes are bought and used, and understanding the value of the products we choose to buy. Consumers find themselves personally implicated with and caring for a designer’s work and become responsible for reflecting on their own consumption decisions rather than cheaply satisfying immediate desires.