The Evolution of Organizational Archetypes: From the American to the Entrepreneurial Dream

Abstract

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the image of the organization man dominated the cultural imagination and undergirded capitalist organizing. Yet, in the last 20 years, there has been a signal shift away from the organization man and toward the entrepreneur as an ideal. Although scholars have suggested that entrepreneurship in the new economy is rooted in neoliberal ideology, I argue that neoliberalism alone does not account for the ease with which entrepreneurialism has become a dominant discourse. By critically examining entrepreneurial discourse as communicated through US business periodicals from 2000 to 2009, I present a case for the “entrepreneurial man” as formed at the partial inclusion and/or rejection of aspects of the self made man, organization man, and neoliberalism. Ultimately, this analysis critiques the entrepreneurial man archetype as a rejection of the social contract and the embracing of a privatized, entrepreneurial American dream.

Keywords:

• Entrepreneurial Identity
• Organizational Discourse
• Archetypal Criticism
• American Dream
• Neoliberalism
• Masculinity

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the members of her dissertation committee for their encouragement in developing the argument in this paper: Helga Shugart, Mary Strine, George Cheney, and William Schulze. The author would also like to thank Shiv Ganesh, Joshua Barbour, Kevin Barge, and the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.

Notes

1. BusinessWeek is ranked in the top three general business magazines and Inc. publishes the annual list of the 500 and 5000 fastest growing companies.

2. For ease of reading, I have omitted the specific references for quotations from BusinessWeek and Inc. Magazine, though I am happy to provide them upon request.

3. According to Baumol, Litan, and Schramm (2007), replicative businesses are those that “establish enterprises very similar to those that already exist” and innovative businesses (which they tellingly refer to as “productive”) are those that “launch enterprises that commercialize new products, services, or processes that contribute to economic growth” (p. 2). See Gartner (2004) and Gill (2012) for critiques of this kind of entrepreneurial hierarchy.

4. This is not to say that women were not present as entrepreneurs. Women's experiences were occasionally mentioned, but most often were couched in the implication that women needed to develop and practice skills that were otherwise natural for men.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rebecca Gill

Rebecca Gill (Ph.D., University of Utah) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. Data for this paper were drawn from the author's dissertation, directed by Karen Lee Ashcraft. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2011 meeting of the International Communication Association in Boston, MA