Understanding Enterprise Culture:The Fashioning of Enterprise Activity Within Small Businesses

This paper represents an attempt to make visible the impact of enterprise culture on small business enterprise activity.

In doing this it sets out to explore understandings of the enterprise culture phenomenon, by subjecting the conventional conceptualization to critical scrutiny. In particular it queries the way in which the accepted understanding of this phenomenon conceives of the state as an entity involved in a direct, causal prohibitory relationship with individual units such as small businesses.

An alternative understanding of enterprise culture which focuses on attempts by the state to strategically manage the enterprise activities of small businesses without annihilating their existence and their autonomy is proposed.

This alternative suggests that our understanding of enterprise culture should focus on the strategic practices and activities required of small businesses to ensure competitive advantage and the optimal performance of the market economy.

Empirical data drawn from interviews with Irish small business entrepreneurs are presented. These centre on their reaction to the Irish state policy of selectivity, understood as the targeting of state resources at small businesses most likely to grow successfully, through the development of a strategic orientation in their business dealings.

It is widely acknowledged that the likelihood of business failure is connected to a lack of managerial attention to business strategy. This paper demonstrates how an enterprise policy such as selectivity aims to ensure competitive advantage through the development of a strategic mindset on the part of small business entrepreneurs