24456: Fit or Misfit? Toward a Theory of Entrepreneurial Identification (session 25842)

Designated as a “Best Paper” by MOC
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Despite the rise of entrepreneurial identity scholarship and the enumeration of various types and kinds (e.g., communitarians, darwinians, and missionaries), questions abound with respect to how entrepreneurs actually construct their identities. In other words, before being entrepreneurs, how do they become entrepreneurs? Utilizing a three-year, longitudinal field study, we find that—in the absence of more formal socialization processes—entrepreneurs construct and draw upon mental models of their occupation (i.e., stereotypes, archetypes, and prototypes) to guide the construction and enactment of their entrepreneurial identities. For novice entrepreneurs in particular, such mental models embody varying degrees of myth, mystery, and misinformation. Our findings reveal that, far from being naive misconceptions, these models inform behavior, perpetuate occupational stereotypes, and influence perceptions of fit (i.e., identification) and misfit (i.e., disidentification). We find, however, that through the course of individual experience and exposure to other occupants, entrepreneurs become more sophisticated in disentangling myth from materiality and arrive at more grounded conceptions of their occupation. These findings make important contributions to theory (e.g., illustrating identity construction processes outside of organizational and professional frameworks), as well as practice (e.g., increasing identification in historically underrepresented populations).

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