Enterprise Culture and the Search for Excellence: New Times or Old Hat?

The creation of a class of strong native entrepreneurs has long been an aim of Irish industrial policy. Social science discussion of strategies stimulating Irish enterprise have tended to emanate from two broad theoretical viewpoints, modernisation theory and dependency theory,f which hold opposing views on the role the Stale can play in the promotion of business and enterprise. Considerations of the relationship between the State and an indigenous class of entrepreneurs have tended to centre on notions of ‘modernising’ and the ‘modernisation’ of society. This article shifts the focus away from a concentration on modernising to a consideration of the nature of modernity. The tendency to equate modernisation and modernity is liable to conceal or misrepresent the activities of certain economic actors, in particular State personnel. Using elements of the institutional analysis of modernity developed by Giddens (1991), the article examines the ‘selectivity function’ of Irish State personnel and their relationship with potential Irish entrepreneurs. This selectivity function can be construed as an attempt to establish an expert system to enable State personnel to assert some control over the enterprise culture juggernaut.

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Enterprising activism

Minority Women and Austerity ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781447327134.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Leah Bassel ◽

Akwugo Emejulu

Keyword(s):

Social Justice ◽

Third Sector ◽

Minority Women ◽

Enterprise Culture ◽

Women's Activism ◽

The Third ◽

Welfare Mix ◽

Third Sector Organisations ◽

The Third Sector ◽

The Impact

In this chapter, we explore how the changing politics of the third sector under austerity problematises minority women’s intersectional social justice claims in Scotland, England and France. We begin by exploring the ‘governable terrain’ of the third sector in each country since the 1990s. As the principle of a ‘welfare mix’ becomes normalised in each country, the reality of having different welfare providers vying for state contracts seems to prompt isomorphic changes whereby third sector organisations refashion themselves in the image of the private sector as a necessity for survival. We then move on to discuss the impact these changes in the third sector are having on minority women’s activism. We analyse how the idea of enterprise has become entrenched within these organisations and how an enterprise culture is problematically reshaping the ways in which organisations think about their mission, practices and programmes of work—especially in relation to minority women. We conclude with a discussion about what the marketisation of the third sector means for minority women. We argue that political racelessness is enacted through enterprise as minority women’s interests are de-politicised and de-prioritised through the transformation of the third sector.

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