Entrepreneurship: economic and social embedding of the production of futures

Entrepreneurship, the practice of creating new economic enterprises through innovation that are sustained by economic performance, is, theoretically, an individualistic account of socio-economic change. If new enterprises and new economies are created by entrepreneurship then to what extent does this activity harbour prescience and to what extent does its creative destruction carry moral responsibility? Although entrepreneurship is socially constructed as an individualistic account of the production of new patterns of organisation, theories of entrepreneurship span a number of ontologies, i.e. individual motives, new firm formation, socially beneficial activity, the production of networks and multi-organisational forms, and even of micro economies. The paper discusses the conception entrepreneurship as a set of socially constructed processes which together produce futures at multiple ontological levels, and seeks to identify relationships between this body of knowledge and anticipating, creating and 'minding' futures

Modernisation of foresight methodology: reflexivity and the social construction of knowledge. A note to authors in COSTA22

Following a very interesting discussion during and after the Final MC in Brussels this week, We offer you some thoughts of guidance on how you might take account of the Action in your publications that are COSTA22-inspired. We refer in particular to the planned books and special editions. The key idea from COSTA22 was a modernisation of methodology in support of the wider use of foresight methods amongst a diversity of contexts. The aphorism > underlies an overt recognition of the socially constructed nature of > and the reflexivity that operates in constructing meaning from this knowledge. The guidance note takes this discussion further

Creative methodologies for understanding a creative industry

The chapter presents a conceptual framework for the identification and analysis of value creating and value capture systems within creative industry contexts based on theoretical and empirical studies. It provides a ‘digital economy’ perspective of the creative industries as a micro-level example of a wider analytical problem, which is how society changes itself. The increasing level of innovation and creativity produces greater levels of instability in social structures (habits, norms etc.) Completely new industries can arise (and ‘creatively’ destroy old ones) as new stabilised patterns form, particularly where entry costs are tumbling, such as digital milieu. Observations of workshops over several days with creative groups, interviews with creative enterprises, literature reviews on creative industries, business models and value systems have informed the analysis and conceptualisation. As a result we present a conceptual framework that we suggest can capture how novelty arises as emergent order over time. We have extended previous work that investigates the significance of emergence in theorising entrepreneurship into an exploration of how to articulate the creation and flow of value and effective ontology in a creative landscape. In the digital economy, the creative industries revolve around dynamic, innovative and often unorthodox collaborations, whereby numerous large, small and micro-businesses come together for the duration of a project, then disband and form new partnerships for the next project. Research designs must therefore address multiple contexts and levels presenting an analytical challenge to researchers. Methodologically, we suggest that the framework has analytical potential to support the collection of data: ordering and categorising empirical observations concerning how different phenomena emerge over time across multiple levels of analysis and contexts. Conceptually, the work broadens the notions of ‘business model’ to consider value creating systems and particular states reached by those systems in their evolution. The work contributes new concepts for researchers in this field and a wider framework for practitioners and policy makers

Wild cards, weak signals and prganizational improvisation

This paper addresses the need for reliable action guidelines that can be used by organisations in turbulent environments. Building on current conceptual and empirical research, we suggest an analytical approach for the management of surprising and potentially damaging events. In order to do so we use the wild card management system. Wild cards refer to sudden and unique incidents that can constitute turning points in the evolution of a certain trend or system. As the first of the two components of such a wild card system we advocate a weak signal methodology to take into account those wild cards that can be anticipated by scanning the decision environment. The second component, the nurture of improvisation capabilities, is designed to deal with ongoing crisis. This paper can be seen as part of a broader agenda on how to manage in conditions of continuous but unpredictable change.wild cards, weak signals, improvisation, minimal structures

Competing biosecurity and risk rationalities in the Chittagong poultry commodity chain, Bangladesh

This paper anthropologically explores how key actors in the Chittagong live bird trading network perceive biosecurity and risk in relation to avian influenza between production sites, market maker scenes and outlets. They pay attention to the past and the present, rather than the future, downplaying the need for strict risk management, as outbreaks have not been reported frequently for a number of years. This is analysed as ‘temporalities of risk perception regarding biosecurity’, through Black Swan theory, the idea that unexpected events with major effects are often inappropriately rationalized (Taleb in The Black Swan. The impact of the highly improbable, Random House, New York, 2007). This incorporates a sociocultural perspective on risk, emphasizing the contexts in which risk is understood, lived, embodied and experienced. Their risk calculation is explained in terms of social consent, practical intelligibility and convergence of constraints and motivation. The pragmatic and practical orientation towards risk stands in contrast to how risk is calculated in the avian influenza preparedness paradigm. It is argued that disease risk on the ground has become a normalized part of everyday business, as implied in Black Swan theory. Risk which is calculated retrospectively is unlikely to encourage investment in biosecurity and, thereby, points to the danger of unpredictable outlier events