Objectives
The main objective of this paper is to enhance our understanding of entrepreneurship in established organizations, and the activities labelled as strategic entrepreneurship (SE).
Literature review
Drawing upon the literature on interpretative repertoires (IR) and the SE literatures interest in the practice of balancing between opportunity and advantage-seeking activities, I have meet the objective by addressing the following research question: how are opportunity and advantage positions constructed? In this way contributing to the most recent research on SE practices, but also adhere to the linguistic turn within entrepreneurship research.
Approach/method
Following the linguistic turn, I take an ÍR approach by the study of the discursive practice of constructing opportunity and advantage positions. Empirical material has been generated qualitatively through 28 interviews and document studies within two middle-sized firms in Sweden.
Results/Findings
The results show how opportunity and advantage positions were constructed by the use of multiple IR. Moreover, the results indicate the importance to understand what repertoires are consumed and produced within the organization as IR have constitutive effects upon what will be privileged within the firm or not. In the studied firms the repertoires used were constructed upon reactivity while the firm tried to position themselves as proactive.
Value/ Implications
Few entrepreneurship scholars have studied how IR are used and produced, and even fewer has studied the discursive practice of constructing opportunity and advantage positions, an approach that gives us an alternative understanding and a new language of SE practices and the construction work of people in practice. In this way making several important theoretical contributions e.g. by suggesting that opportunities and advantages are not dual, rather they are co-constructed and emerge in social interaction.