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 Global South. Secondly, this study departs from these meta-theoretical assumptions by presenting entrepreneurship as a development apparatus (EDA). It argues that mainstream entrepreneurship theory has entered a theoretical impasse and is unable to explain the inability of EDA to contribute significantly to economic development and job creation. By reconceptualising entrepreneurship in the folds of post-development theory, insight is gained into the inability of EDA to contribute significantly to job creation and economic development in the Global South. Thirdly, this study differentiates EDA from other phenomena included under the entrepreneurship umbrella and calls for the rejection of the product of EDA as a form of entrepreneurship. When this is done, the discourse on economic development, job creation and emancipation of the marginalised communities in the Global South can move beyond entrepreneurship.
