Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T23:10:51.317Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Language and Communication in Entrepreneurship Research

from Part II - Language Awareness in Business and the Professions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2022

By
Annaleena Parhankangas  and
Erika Darics
Edited by
Erika Darics
Erika Darics
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Language and communication play critical roles in the process of entrepreneurship and are at the heart of a so-called entrepreneurial skillset. To succeed, entrepreneurs need to have efficient communication skills on the one hand, and language awareness and discursive consciousness on the other. This chapter sets out to lay out the current state of research that addresses the role of language and communication in entrepreneurship and published in major entrepreneurship publication outlets written by entrepreneurship scholars. This review demonstrates that despite studying questions related to language and communication, there seems to be no or very little cross-fertilization between entrepreneurship scholarship and disciplines concerned with language, communication and/or discourse. We also provide a case study based on a specific area of entrepreneurial activity: crowdfunding. We hope this chapter will inspire linguists who scrutinize entrepreneurial interactions to be mindful of entrepreneurship theories and the specific contexts of the industry.

Keywords

EntrepreneurshipEntrepreneurial SkillsetEntrepreneurial Communication
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Awareness in Business and the Professions , pp. 39 - 61
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahl, H. (2004). The Scientific Reproduction of Gender Inequality: A Discourse Analysis of Research Texts on Women’s Entrepreneurship. Copenhagen Business School Press.Google Scholar
Ahl, H. (2006). Why research on women entrepreneurs needs new directions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 30(5), 595–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahl, H. (2007). Sex business in the toy store: A narrative analysis of a teaching case. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(5), 673–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahl, H. and Marlow, S. (2012). Exploring the dynamics of gender, feminism and entrepreneurship: Advancing debate to escape a dead end? Organization, 19(5), 543–562.Google Scholar
Ahl, H. and Nelson, T. (2015). How policy positions women entrepreneurs: A comparative analysis of state discourse in Sweden and the United States. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(2), 273–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, T. H., Davis, B. C., Short, J. C. and Webb, J. W. (2014). Crowdfunding in a prosocial microlending environment: Examining the role of intrinsic versus extrinsic cues. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(1), 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, T. H., Davis, B. C., Webb, J. W. and Short, J. C. (2017). Persuasion in crowdfunding: An elaboration likelihood model of crowdfunding performance. Journal of Business Venturing, 32(6), 707–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, T. H., McKenny, A. F. and Short, J. C. (2013). The effect of entrepreneurial rhetoric on microlending investment: An examination of the warm-glow effect. Journal of Business Venturing, 28, 690–707.Google Scholar
Anglin, A. H., Short, J. C., Drover, W., Stevenson, R. M., McKenny, A. F. and Allison, T. H. (2018). The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(4), 470–492.Google Scholar
Anglin, A. H., Wolfe, M. T., Short, J. C., McKenny, A. F. and Pidduck, R. J. (2018). Narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance: A social role theory perspective. Journal of Business Venturing 33(6): 780–812.Google Scholar
Ardichvili, A., Cardozo, R. and Ray, S. (2003). A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(1), 105–123.Google Scholar
Baron, R. A. and Markman, G. D. (2003). Beyond social capital: The role of entrepreneurs’ social competence in their financial success. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(1), 41–60. doi: 10.1016/S0883-9026(00)00069-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benson, D. F., Brau, J. C., Cicon, J. and Ferris, S. P. (2015). Strategically camouflaged corporate governance in IPOs: Entrepreneurial masking and impression management. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(6), 839–864.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berglund, H. (2015). Between cognition and discourse: Phenomenology and the study of entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 21(3), 472–488.Google Scholar
Bhatia, V. (1993). Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. Longman.Google Scholar
Botan, C. (1997). Ethics in strategic communication campaigns: The case for a new approach to public relations. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 34(2), 188–202.Google Scholar
Burgoon, J., Buller, D. B. and Woodall, W. G. (1996). Nonverbal Communication: The Unspoken Dialogue. McGraw-Hill Company, Inc.Google Scholar
Byrne, O. and Shepherd, D. A. (2015). Different strokes for different folks: Entrepreneurial narratives of emotion, cognition, and making sense of business failure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(2), 375–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camillo, A. A. and Camillo, I. C. (2016). The ethics of strategic managerial communication in the global context. In Normore, A. H., Long, L. W. and Javidi, M. (eds.), Handbook of Research on Effective Communication, Leadership, and Conflict Resolution (pp. 566–590): IGI Global.Google Scholar
Chell, E. (2013). Review of skill and the entrepreneurial process. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 19(1), 6–31.Google Scholar
Clarke, J. S. and Cornelissen, J. P. (2014). How language shapes thought: New vistas for entrepreneurship research. In Mitchell, J. R., Mitchell, R. K. and Randolph-Seng, B. (eds.), Handbook of Entrepreneurial Cognition (pp. 383–397). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Cornelissen, J. and Clarke, J. (2010), Imagining and rationalizing opportunities: Inductive reasoning, and the creation and justification of new ventures. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 539–557.Google Scholar
Daly, P. and Davy, D. (2016a). Structural, linguistic and rhetorical features of the entrepreneurial pitch: Lessons from Dragons’ Den. Journal of Management Development, 35(1), 120–132CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, P. and Davy, D. (2016b) Crafting the investor pitch using insights from rhetoric and linguistics. In Alessi, G. M. and Jacobs, G. (eds.), The Ins and Outs of Business and Professional Discourse Research: Reflections on Interacting with the Workplace. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 182–203.Google Scholar
Deerwester, S., Dumais, S. T., Furnas, G. W., Landauer, T. K. and Harshman, R. (1990). Indexing by latent semantic analysis. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 41(6), 391–407.3.0.CO;2-9>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dey, P. and Mason, C. (2018). Overcoming constraints of collective imagination: An inquiry into activist entrepreneuring, disruptive truth-telling and the creation of ‘possible worlds’. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(1), 84–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Down, S. (2006) Narratives of Enterprise: Crafting Entrepreneurial Self-Identity in a Small Firm. Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Doyle, V., Freeman, O. and O’Rourke, B. (2017, June). A multimodal discourse analysis exploration of a crowdfunding entrepreneurial pitch. In European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (pp. 415–423). Academic Conferences International Limited.Google Scholar
Drakopoulo Dodd, S. (2002). Metaphors and meaning: A grounded cultural model of US entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 17(5), 519–535.Google Scholar
Drori, I., Manos, R., Santacreu-Vasut, E., Shenkar, O. and Shoham, A. (2018). Language and market inclusivity for women entrepreneurship: The case of microfinance. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(4), 395–415.Google Scholar
ERIM. (2019). ERIM Journals List (EJL) 2016–2021. www.erim.eur.nl/about-erim/erimjournals-list-ejl, accessed on 23 April 2019.Google Scholar
Fernández-Vázquez, J. S. and Álvarez-Delgado, R. C. (2019). Persuasive strategies in the SME entrepreneurial pitch: Functional and discursive considerations. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1–18.Google Scholar
Fischer, E. and Reuber, A. R. (2014). Online entrepreneurial communication: Mitigating uncertainty and increasing differentiation via Twitter. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(4), 565–583.Google Scholar
Fletcher, D. (2007). ‘Toy Story’: The narrative world of entrepreneurship and the creation of interpretive communities. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(5), 649–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FT. (2019) 50 Journals used in FT Research Rank. www.ft.com/content/3405a512-5cbb-11e1-8f1f-00144feabdc0, accessed on 23 April 2019.Google Scholar
García-Gómez, A. (2018). Dragons’ Den: Enacting persuasion in reality television. Discourse, Context & Media, 21, 1–9.Google Scholar
Gartner, W. B. (1990). What are we talking about when we talk about entrepreneurship? Journal of Business Venturing, 5(1), 15–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmeling, S. (2011). Contingency as an entrepreneurial resource: How private obsession fulfills public need. Journal of Business Venturing, 26(3), 293–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harzing, A-W. (2019). Journal Quality List. https://harzing.com/resources/journal-quality-list#whatsin, accessed on 23 April 2019.Google Scholar
Hébert, R. F. and Link, A. N. (1988). The Entrepreneur: Mainstream Views and Radical Critiques: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hechavarría, D. M., Terjesen, S. A., Stenholm, P., Brännback, M. and Lång, S. (2017). More than words: Do gendered linguistic structures widen the gender gap in entrepreneurial activity? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 42(5): 797–817.Google Scholar
Herring, S. C. and Androutsopoulos, J. (2015). Computer-Mediated Discourse 2.0 The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Vol. 2, pp. 127–151). Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hjorth, D. (2007). Lessons from Iago: Narrating the event of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(5), 712–732.Google Scholar
Hjorth, D. and Steyaert, C. (2004) Narrative and Discursive Approaches in Entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Holt, R. and Macpherson, A. (2010). Sensemaking, rhetoric and the socially competent entrepreneur. International Small Business Journal, 28(1), 20–42.Google Scholar
Iedema, R. (2007). On the multi-modality, materiality and contingency of organization discourse. Organization Studies, 28(6), 931–946.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaminski, J., Jiang, Y., Piller, F. and Hopp, C. (2017, May). Do user entrepreneurs speak different? Applying natural language processing to crowdfunding videos. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2683–2689). ACMGoogle Scholar
Kedves, A. (2016). Discursive legitimation in online crowdfunding: A study of Kickstarter projects promoting human rights. Globe: A Journal of Language, Culture and Communication, 3.Google Scholar
Koester, A. J. (2004). Relational sequences in workplace genres. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(8), 1405–1428.Google Scholar
Larrimore, L., Jiang, L., Larrimore, J., Markowitz, D. and Gorski, S. (2011). Peer to peer lending: The relationship between language features, trustworthiness, and persuasion success. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 39(1), 19–37.Google Scholar
Larsson, M. and Lundholm, S. E. (2010). Leadership as work-embedded influence: A micro-discursive analysis of an everyday interaction in a bank. Leadership, 6(2), 159–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, J. and Deng, L. (2016). A genre analysis of web-based crowdfunding discourse. Asian ESP Journal, 171–202.Google Scholar
Low, M. B. (2001). The adolescence of entrepreneurship research: Specification of purpose. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 25(4), 17–26.Google Scholar
Lundmark, E. and Westelius, A. (2014). Entrepreneurship as elixir and mutagen. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(3), 575–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malmström, M., Johansson, J. and Wincent, J. (2017). Gender stereotypes and venture support decisions: How governmental venture capitalists socially construct entrepreneurs’ potential. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 41(5): 833–860.Google Scholar
Mantere, S., Aula, P., Schildt, H. and Vaara, E. (2013). Narrative attributions of entrepreneurial failure. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(4), 459–473.Google Scholar
Marlow, S. and McAdam, M. (2012). Analyzing the influence of gender upon high–technology venturing within the context of business incubation. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(4), 655–676.Google Scholar
Marlow, S. and McAdam, M. (2015). Incubation or induction? Gendered identity work in the context of technology business incubation. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(4), 791–816.Google Scholar
Martens, M. L., Jennings, J. E. and Jennings, P. D. (2007). Do the stories they tell get them the money they need? The role of entrepreneurial narratives in resource acquisition. Academy of Management Journal, 50(5): 1107–1132.Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. (1997) Analysing genre: Functional parameters. In Christie, F. and Martin, J. R. (eds.), Genre and Institutions. Social Processes in the Workplace and School. Cassell, pp. 3–39.Google Scholar
Mautner, G. (2017). Organizational discourse. In Mautner, G. and Reiner, F., (eds.), Handbook of Business Communication, Linguistic Approaches. Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 609–628.Google Scholar
Mehlenbacher, A. R. (2017). Crowdfunding science: Exigencies and strategies in an emerging genre of science communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(2), 127–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Micelotta, E., Washington, M. and Docekalova, I. (2018). Industry gender imprinting and new venture creation: The liabilities of women’s leagues in the sports industry. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 42(1), 94–128.Google Scholar
Moss, T. W., Neubaum, D. O. and Meyskens, M. (2015). The effect of virtuous and entrepreneurial orientations on microfinance lending and repayment: A signaling theory perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(1), 27–52.Google Scholar
Moss, T. W., Renko, M., Block, E. and Meyskens, M. (2018). Funding the story of hybrid ventures: Crowdfunder lending preferences and linguistic hybridity. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(5), 643–659.Google Scholar
Murray, G. C. and Marriott, R. (1998). Why has the investment performance of technology-specialist, European venture capital funds been so poor? Research Policy, 27(9), 947–976.Google Scholar
Navis, C. and Glynn, M. A. (2010). How new market categories emerge: Temporal dynamics of legitimacy, identity, and entrepreneurship in satellite radio, 1990–2005. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(3), 439–471.Google Scholar
Nicholson, L. and Anderson, A. R. (2005). News and nuances of the entrepreneurial myth and metaphor: Linguistic games in entrepreneurial sense-making and sense-giving. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29(2), 153–172.Google Scholar
Ober, S., Zhao, J. J., Davis, R. and Alexander, M. W. (1999). Telling it like it is: The use of certainty in public business discourse. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 36(3), 280–296.Google Scholar
Ogbor, J. O. (2000). Mythicizing and reification in entrepreneurial discourse: Ideology‐critique of entrepreneurial studies. Journal of Management Studies, 37(5), 605–635.Google Scholar
Pang, B. and Lee, L. (2008). Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Foundations and Trends® in Information Retrieval, 2(1–2), 1–135.Google Scholar
Parhankangas, A. and Ehrlich, M. (2014). How entrepreneurs seduce business angels: An impression management approach. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(4), 543–564.Google Scholar
Parhankangas, A. and Renko, M. (2017). Linguistic style and crowdfunding success among social and commercial entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing, 32(2), 215–236.Google Scholar
Paulus, T. M. and Roberts, K. R. (2018). Crowdfunding a “Real-life Superhero”: The construction of worthy bodies in medical campaign narratives. Discourse, Context & Media, 21, 64–72.Google Scholar
Pennebaker, J. W. (2011). The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say about Us? Bloomsbury Press.Google Scholar
Pennebaker, J. W., Mehl, M. R. and Niederhoffer, K. G. (2003). Psychological aspects of natural language use: Our words, our selves. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 547–577.Google Scholar
Perren, L. and Jennings, P. L. (2005). Government discourses on entrepreneurship: Issues of legitimization, subjugation, and power. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29(2), 173–184.Google Scholar
Pollack, J. M., Rutherford, M. W. and Nagy, B. G. (2012). Preparedness and cognitive legitimacy as antecedents of new venture funding in televised business pitches. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(5), 915–939.Google Scholar
Pope, A. R. (2018). Understanding the writing demands of crowdfunding campaigns with the genre-mapping report. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 81(4), 485–505Google Scholar
Porter, A. L., Roessner, D. J., Cohen, A. S. and Perreault, M. (2006). Interdisciplinary research: Meaning, metrics and nurture. Research Evaluation, 15, 187–195.Google Scholar
Powell, E. E., Hamann, R., Bitzer, V. and Baker, T. (2018). Bringing the elephant into the room? Enacting conflict in collective prosocial organizing. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(5), 623–642.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyysiäinen, J. and Vesala, K. M. (2013). Activating farmers: Uses of entrepreneurship discourse in the rhetoric of policy implementers. Discourse & Communication, 7(1), 55–73.Google Scholar
Schultz, P. L., Marin, A. and Boal, K. B. (2014). The impact of media on the legitimacy of new market categories: The case of broadband internet. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 34–54.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Shane, S. and Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–226.Google Scholar
Short, J. C., McKenny, A. F. and Reid, S. W. (2018). More than words? Computer-aided text analysis in organizational behavior and psychology research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 415–435.Google Scholar
Singh, S., Corner, P. D. and Pavlovich, K. (2015). Failed, not finished: A narrative approach to understanding venture failure stigmatization. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(1), 150–166.Google Scholar
Spinuzzi, C., Nelson, S., Thomson, K. S., Lorenzini, F., French, R. A., Pogue, G., Burback, S. D. and Momberger, J. (2014). Making the pitch: Examining dialogue and revisions in entrepreneurs’ pitch decks. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 57(3), 158–181.Google Scholar
Steigenberger, N. and Wilhelm, H. (2018). Extending signaling theory to rhetorical signals: Evidence from crowdfunding. Organization Science, 29(3), 529–546.Google Scholar
Steyaert, C. (2007). Of course that is not the whole (toy) story: Entrepreneurship and the cat’s cradle. Journal of Business Venturing, 22(5), 733–751.Google Scholar
Timmons, J. and Spinelli, S. (2008). New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, . (1996). The representation of social actors. In Caldas-Coulthard, C. and Coulthard, M. (eds.), Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge, pp. 32–71.Google Scholar
van Werven, R., Bouwmeester, O. and Cornelissen, J. P. (2015). The power of arguments: How entrepreneurs convince stakeholders of the legitimate distinctiveness of their ventures. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(4), 616–631.Google Scholar
Vealey, K. P. and Gerding, J. M. (2016). Rhetorical work in crowd-based entrepreneurship: Lessons learned from teaching crowdfunding as an emerging site of professional and technical communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 59(4), 407–427.Google Scholar
Viney, R. A. E., Clarke, J. and Cornelissen, J. (2017). Making meaning from multimodality: Embodied communication in a business pitch setting. In Cassell, C., Cunliffe, A. L. and Grandy, G. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Business and Management Research Methods: Methods and Challenges (pp. 298–312). SAGE.Google Scholar
Wagner, C. S., Roessner, J. D., Bobb, K., Klein, J. T., Boyack, K. W., Keyton, J. and Börner, K. (2011). Approaches to understanding and measuring interdisciplinary scientific research (IDR): A review of the literature. Journal of Informetrics, 5(1), 14–26.Google Scholar
Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Ramirez, A. Jr, Burgoon, J. K. and Peña, J. (2015). Interpersonal and hyperpersonal dimensions of computer-mediated communication. The Handbook of the Psychology of Communication Technology, 1(22).Google Scholar
Wolfe, M. T. and Shepherd, D. A. (2015a). “Bouncing Back” from a loss: Entrepreneurial orientation, emotions, and failure narratives. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(3), 675–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, M. T. and Shepherd, D. A. (2015b). What do you have to say about that? Performance events and narratives’ positive and negative emotional content. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 39(4), 895–925.Google Scholar
Wry, T., Lounsbury, M. and Glynn, M. A. (2011). Legitimating nascent collective identities: Coordinating cultural entrepreneurship. Organization Science, 22(2), 449–463.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×