Title: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Invited Talk

Speakers: André Spicer

Date: Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Time: 12:00-13:30

Abstract:

What is driving the declining quality of innovation-driven entrepreneurship? In this paper, we argue the growing entrepreneurship industry is an important yet overlooked explanation. This rapidly growing industry has transformed the nature of entrepreneurship and encouraged a particular form of low-quality entrepreneurship. It has done so by leveraging the Ideology of Entrepreneurialism to mass-produce and mass-market products that make possible what we term Veblenian Entrepreneurship. This is entrepreneurship pursued primarily as a form of conspicuous consumption. Aside from lowering average entrepreneurial quality, Veblenian Entrepreneurship has a range of (short-run) positive and (medium and long-run) negative effects for both individuals and society at large. We argue that the rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur has contributed to creating an increasingly Untrepreneurial Economy. That is an economy which superficially appears innovation-driven and dynamic, but is actually rife with inefficiencies and unable to generate economically meaningful growth through innovation.

Bio:

André Spicer is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and the founding director of ETHOS: The Centre for Responsible Enterprise at Cass. He is an expert in the areas of Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Professor Spicer has done work on organizational power and politics, organisational culture, employee identity, the creation of new organizational forms, space and architecture plays at work and leadership. His work looks at a wide range of settings including knowledge intensive firms, financial institutions, seaports, universities, libraries, media organizations, and new social movements.

He has published extensively in top scholarly journals such as Organization Science, Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization Studies. He has also published the books ‘Contesting the Corporation’ (Cambridge), ‘Unmasking the Entrepreneur’ (Edward Elgar), ‘Understanding Organizations’ (Sage), ‘Metaphors we Lead By’ (Routledge), and ‘The Wellness Syndrome’ (Polity). He has received research funding from the ESRC, British Academy, Handelsbanken Foundation, the Welsh Assembly, and the Higher Education Innovation fund.

He is a frequent commentator in the global media outlets such as FT, CNN, BBC, CNBC, Channel Four, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Times, Telegraph, Independent and many others. He has worked with a range of large organisations including Barclays, City of London Corporation, Skandia Old Mutual, BNY Mellon, Transport for London, IBM, Ford, UK Houses of Parliament and InterSpa (Austria). He is invited to give speeches in range of settings like the UK House of Lords, the European Commission, the Mansion House, Occupy London and at universities around the world.