Entrepreneurial Roles and Identity in the UK and China

What is it about?

This paper examines entrepreneurial roles and identity in both the United Kingdom and China through the lenses of identity theory and social identity theory, to develop a deeper and more holistic understanding of the concept of entrepreneurial identity. By examining the entrepreneur as both a role and an identity this paper explores how an entrepreneur views the role of the entrepreneur, the counter-roles to the entrepreneur and the ‘self-as-entrepreneur’ to understand how entrepreneurs construct their identity as entrepreneurs in the UK and China.

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Why is it important?

By looking at role identity in different social constructs and contexts, a more nuanced view of entrepreneurial identity can be uncovered for entrepreneurs in the UK and China. The study finds that entrepreneurs in the UK use counter-roles to bridge the disconnect between their understanding of the entrepreneur-as-role and the self-as-entrepreneur whereas entrepreneurs in China have less conflict reconciling the two, and use the counter-role as a way to paint entrepreneurship as a ‘calling’, justifying their abandonment of other identities.

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