‘Money probably has something to do with my life’: discourse and materiality in the working lives of start-up entrepreneurs

Musilek, K, Jamie, K and Learmonth, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3436-9386, 2023. ‘Money probably has something to do with my life’: discourse and materiality in the working lives of start-up entrepreneurs. Work, Employment and Society. ISSN 0950-0170 (Forthcoming)

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Abstract

This article contributes to an understanding of work-intensive entrepreneurial lives as part of analysing the intensification of work in society. It offers an empirical extension of Foucauldian analyses which attribute commitment to work to the influence of neoliberal enterprise discourse while often neglecting the material conditions of entrepreneurial work. The article draws on moderate constructionism and materialist discourse analysis to offer an account that pays attention to discourse and material realities. This ethnographic study shows how participants evoked norms of enterprise discourse to explain their commitment to work. However, they also understood these norms to be fundamentally shaped by their material conditions. The major contribution of the paper is to show that the interpenetration of discursive norms with the investment logic of enterprise tends to displace boundaries between work and personal life and shift temporal arrangements of work from work-life ‘balance’ to prospects of free time in the imagined future.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Work, Employment and Society
Creators:	Musilek, K., Jamie, K. and Learmonth, M.
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Date:	29 May 2023
ISSN:	0950-0170
Identifiers:	Number Type 1768144 Other
Rights:	Accepted for publication in Work, Employment and Society. Reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	29 Jun 2023 07:27
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2023 07:27
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/49301

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