The Fairytale of the Successful Entrepreneur: Reasons and Remedies for the Prevalent Ideology of Entrepreneurship

Fabiola H. Gerpott () and Alfred Kieser ()
Additional contact information
Fabiola H. Gerpott: WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management
Alfred Kieser: University of Mannheim

Chapter 8 in Against Entrepreneurship, 2020, pp 133-151 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Entrepreneurs are modern heroes. What explains their extraordinary popularity? We argue that there are no measurable success factors that predict entrepreneurial mastery. Instead, it is the goal of upholding the entrepreneurial ideology that ensures that those who are successful are celebrated as entrepreneurial role models. We recap the assumptions of the entrepreneurial ideology that sparks the wish to become a successful entrepreneur in many people. The reason to be against the over-glorification of entrepreneurship is that the promises often do not hold; startups neither considerably contribute to economic prosperity nor do they usually make people rich. Accordingly, we critically reflect on research that tries to find the success recipe of entrepreneurship. We also discuss whether a focus on entrepreneurial teams could serve as a remedy.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-47937-4_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030479374

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-47937-4_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().