Marcus Lindahl

Challenging the myths of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship studies started out as a young field, one where a mix of economists, psychologists, geographers and the occasional anthropologist came together to study the wonder and weirdness that is entrepreneurship, in a wide range of fashions and with few a priori assumptions to hold it back. Today, some of this eclecticism lives on in the field, but at the same time we have seen that the field has matured and its popularity has led to the field becoming increasingly institutionalized – and thereby beset by an increasing number of assumptions, even myths. Consequently, this special issue queries some of the assumptions and potential myths that flourish in the field, inquiring critically into the constitution of entrepreneurship as a field of research – all in order to develop the same. Without occasions where a field can question even its most deeply held beliefs, we are at risk of becoming ideologically rather than analytically constituted, which is why we in this special issue wanted to create a space for the kind of critical yet creative play that e.g. Sarasvathy (2004) has encourages the field to engage with.

How do you do? On situating old project sites through practice‐based studies

Purpose – The purpose of this editorial is to reflect on the growing interest of situated project research.Design/methodology/approach – The editorial is conceptual and relies on published work and ...

The projectification of university research

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss and critically examine how formal project management (PM) tools and techniques affect the organization of university research. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is empirically grounded and explores how university researchers respond to an increasing emphasis on formalized PM methods to manage research work conducted within the university. The empirical material consists of 20 interviews with research staff working with engineering, natural and medical sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Describing how PM techniques are increasingly imposed upon the researchers, the paper analyses different modes of relating to the formalized toolsets, and discusses their accommodation and resistance within academia. Findings – One key finding is how the PM formalization is resisted by partial accommodation and containment. This can be described in terms of an enactment of a front- and a backstage of the research organization. At the front-stage, formal PM technol...

Leadership and the 'right to respect' - on honour and shame in emotionally charged management settings

Honour, as a concept, is at times seen as implicit in leadership and the working of peer groups, but has rarely been explicitly discussed in management studies. This paper presents honour as a key category in socio-moral contexts, and discusses how it and related concepts, such as respect, shame and pride, affect leadership contexts. We argue, through a discussion on honour as it has been studied in, for example, sociology and anthropology, that studies thereof can be a promising avenue for developing the way in which complex leadership settings and exchanges are analysed.

Coping with lack of authority: Extending research on project governance with a practice approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore alternative coping strategies that may compensate for the limitations of weak governance structure in a product development project. D ...

The Uncanny Organization Man: Superhero Myths and Contemporary Management Discourse

Mythology, as a concept, is commonly thought to refer to a system of stories of ancient gods or similar archaic religious phenomena, a template adhered to even in more modern mythologies, such as the powerful Cthulhu Mythos (Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagnl). However, we can in popular culture find elaborate mythological systems not strictly tied to religious structures, and more akin to the often less studied hero-myth tradition. One specific such, which we’ll argue has an influence on contemporary management discourse, is that of superhero comics. Starting from the first issue of Action Comics (June 1938), superhero comics have been at the forefront of analyzing the prevailing cultural unconscious, and no other form of cultural expression can measure up to comics in sheer popular culture referencing value. Even if we restrict ourselves to the two main Western mythologies — DC and Marvel — the collected storylines in these ‘universes’ (as comic book mythologies are nowadays commonly known) contain an almost limitless amount of potential for story-telling and iconic referencing, and one which is oft-used across cultural forms — including the form we know as management.

8 Start Ups as Vessels Carrying and Developing Science-Based Technologies: Starting and Restarting JonDeTech

The creation of start-ups is often aimed at commercializing science-based technologies (Pries & Guild, 2007; Shane, 2004; Wright, Clarysse, Mustar, & Lockett, 2007) and keeping control of them (Siegel, Waldman, Atwater, & Link, 2004). However, due to a high rate of failure, it is particularly hard to predict whether or not start-ups will succeed in commercializing their technology. Several barriers have emerged over time at individual, financial, organizational and technological levels (Markman, Siegel, & Wright, 2008).

Improvisation – An emergence theory perspective

The paper addresses the occurrence of improvisation and intuition within dynamic business environments from an emergence theory perspective. As argued, the dynamics of the so-called red queen principle forces competition towards the verge of the manageable, making improvised and intuitive action and decision-making not a shortcoming but a necessity in a successful business context. Particularly, the paper discusses how we may interpret the highly rationalistic acts and outcomes of planning and plans in such chaotic and uncertain contexts. We draw upon a longitudinal study of large industrial project deliveries incorporating more than 25 such deliveries.

The ghosts of shared leadership: on decision-making and subconscious followership in the 'death zone' of K2: Leaders, Teams and Situations Outside the Norm

The ghosts of shared leadership : on decision-making and subconscious followership in the death zone of K2

The vanishing collectable: On economy, honour and the ‘English garden’

Abstract How is it possible to conceive a system of value and hierarchy, i.e. a collection, when the absolute can only be achieved when the collection vanishes? Using the dramatic events of the British garden scene in the 18th-century as a backbone, this article will argue that gardening in general and high-stake gardening in particular show in several ways the intrinsic aspects of what can be referred to as an honour economy, not guided by commonly accepted thoughts of utility and transactional value but rather driven by notions of loss and conspicuous activities such as consumption, leisure and waste.