Critical analysis to expand the job creation discourse beyond entrepreneurship
type: CreativeWork
description: The current theoretical framing of entrepreneurship includes a number of diverse phenomena under the same conceptual umbrella. This entrepreneurship umbrella is painted as a silver bullet for economic development and job creation. It is furthermore hailed as a panacea for emancipation and wealth creation for everyone, even and, especially, those in marginalised positions. Based on this narrative, entrepreneurship has been extended as a development apparatus, specifically in a Global South context where job creation and poverty alleviation are a dire need. Entrepreneurship as a development apparatus (EDA) is introduced in this study and defined as the implementation of entrepreneurship support programs (such as training, incubation and funding) in economically marginalised communities, based on the assumption that these interventions will lead to economic development and job creation. However, EDA is not living up to its promise. Critical entrepreneurship studies (CES) posit that mainstream entrepreneurship theory is built on a number of meta-theoretical assumptions that do not adequately take into consideration the value- laden reality underlying the ideology of entrepreneurship. These include inter alia the assumptions that the entrepreneurship findings in the global North can be duplicated in an African context, that everything included in the entrepreneurship umbrella will contribute to economic development, and that anything labelled “entrepreneurship” can be considered the saviour of the job creation crisis. Other critical voices suggest that the mainstream entrepreneurship ideology is being applied too far outside the context for which it was developed, i.e. the Global North. This study firstly extends on the nascent field of CES by critically analysing the public and scholarly entrepreneurship discourses in South Africa to identify if and how the assumptions and discursive practices in mainstream entrepreneurship theory are extended to the discourse in the Gl…
abstract: The current theoretical framing of entrepreneurship includes a number of diverse phenomena under the same conceptual umbrella. This entrepreneurship umbrella is painted as a silver bullet for economic development and job creation. It is furthermore hailed as a panacea for emancipation and wealth creation for everyone, even and, especially, those in marginalised positions. Based on this narrative, entrepreneurship has been extended as a development apparatus, specifically in a Global South context where job creation and poverty alleviation are a dire need. Entrepreneurship as a development apparatus (EDA) is introduced in this study and defined as the implementation of entrepreneurship support programs (such as training, incubation and funding) in economically marginalised communities, based on the assumption that these interventions will lead to economic development and job creation. However, EDA is not living up to its promise. Critical entrepreneurship studies (CES) posit that mainstream entrepreneurship theory is built on a number of meta-theoretical assumptions that do not adequately take into consideration the value- laden reality underlying the ideology of entrepreneurship. These include inter alia the assumptions that the entrepreneurship findings in the global North can be duplicated in an African context, that everything included in the entrepreneurship umbrella will contribute to economic development, and that anything labelled “entrepreneurship” can be considered the saviour of the job creation crisis. Other critical voices suggest that the mainstream entrepreneurship ideology is being applied too far outside the context for which it was developed, i.e. the Global North. This study firstly extends on the nascent field of CES by critically analysing the public and scholarly entrepreneurship discourses in South Africa to identify if and how the assumptions and discursive practices in mainstream entrepreneurship theory are extended to the discourse in the Gl…
language: en
keywords: UCTD, Critical discourse analysis, Reconceptualised framework, Terminology confusion, Entrepreneurship as a development apparatus, Post-development theory, Critical entrepreneurship studies
date published: 2021
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:52:18Z
provider: University of Pretoria
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Pretoria

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/84817