Entrepreneurial Discourse from a Critical Feminist Perspective

Following literature that already reframes entrepreneurship as a social change activity, we consider the change potential of entrepreneurial narratives in crowdfunding pitches of predominantly female-run ventures. In particular, we position the community driven phenomenon crowdfunding as a vehicle to transcend and change the predominantly masculine discourse within entrepreneurship literature. Following an idiographic methodology, we critically analyze the discourse in crowdfunding video representations of ventures and explore structure, linguistic usage, visual artifacts and the implied intentions towards social change from a feminist perspective. From the sampling set of 42 crowdfunding campaigns, we use discursive elements and tropes to identify feminist themes as important factors towards influencing the way society (the crowd) understands entrepreneurial activities. In addition, we contribute to research by furthering the social change perspective on entrepreneurship and by addressing epistemological issues relating to prevailing paradigms.