Entrepreneuring after 50: the liminal identity transitions of older emergent entrepreneurs

Garcia-Lorenzo, Lucia ORCID: 0000-0001-9166-0263, Sell-Trujillo, Lucia and Donnelly, Paul (2020) Entrepreneuring after 50: the liminal identity transitions of older emergent entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 32 (9-10). 922 - 942. ISSN 0898-5626

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Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been proposed as a solution to extending working lives. However, little is known about how older (50+) entrepreneurs manage their personal transitions into entrepreneurship. In this paper, we propose to use a liminal identity work perspective to explore the identity paradoxes that older entrepreneurs experience during their transition into entrepreneurship and how they manage it. We use a qualitative study conducted over 14 months in the United Kingdom. Our analysis shows how older entrepreneurs confront identity paradoxes, interruptions and identity polarization in their attempts to shift from older identities and activity patterns into new ones. The entrepreneurs who manage to overcome the identity interruptions and polarization that the transition brings move away from an initial sense of isolation and bring creative understandings to older entrepreneuring processes. Our results expand current understanding of entrepreneurial identity work in liminal conditions, especially among older entrepreneurs, by looking at the tensions emerging between potentially new and customary identities and behaviours as an important aspect of entrepreneuring transitions rather than as negative frictions to be avoided.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tepn20/current
Additional Information:	© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	03 Dec 2020 14:15
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 02:23
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/107553

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