Abstract
ABSTRACT Entrepreneurs’ use of linguistic practices, such as storytelling, in building legitimacy with customers and others is well documented. Yet, not all entrepreneurs may equally use or benefit from such practices in their legitimacy-building efforts. For those with stigmatized social identities, like disability, embodied properties and practices of non-linguistic, more visual kind, may be salient despite being under-explored in the entrepreneurial legitimacy studies. To address this knowledge gap, this article examines how disabled entrepreneurs gain legitimacy with customers and, more specifically, how impairment visibility shapes their capacity to do so. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with UK-based entrepreneurs, the article extends Suchman’s work by reconceptualizing his legitimacy-building strategies considering impairment visibility. It is argued that impairment visibility can both enable and constrain legitimacy depending on the product offering and the target market. Disabled entrepreneurs are found to adopt four embodied legitimacy-building strategies in the marketplace, each with specific implications for their micro-level interactions with customers.
Highlights
How entrepreneurs gain and sustain support for new ventures entering markets is widely researched in entrepreneurship and organization studies (Cornelissen, Holt, and Zundel 2011; Überbacher 2014)
It is argued that impairment visibility can both enable and constrain legitimacy depending on the product offering and the target market
The article makes three key contributions to the entrepreneurial legitimacy literature (De Clercq and Voronov 2009a, 2009b; Lounsbury and Glynn 2001; Martens, Jennings, and Devereaux Jennings 2007; Fisher et al 2017; Überbacher 2014). It highlights the role of personal embodied proper ties and non-linguistic practices in the legitimation process by extending our understanding of how disabled entrepreneurs with visible and invisible impairments acquire legitimacy when confronted with stigma and the normative assumptions of able-bodiedness
Summary
How entrepreneurs gain and sustain support for new ventures entering markets is widely researched in entrepreneurship and organization studies (Cornelissen, Holt, and Zundel 2011; Überbacher 2014). The article makes three key contributions to the entrepreneurial legitimacy literature (De Clercq and Voronov 2009a, 2009b; Lounsbury and Glynn 2001; Martens, Jennings, and Devereaux Jennings 2007; Fisher et al 2017; Überbacher 2014) It highlights the role of personal embodied proper ties and non-linguistic practices in the legitimation process by extending our understanding of how disabled entrepreneurs with visible and invisible impairments acquire legitimacy when confronted with stigma and the normative assumptions of able-bodiedness. Entrepreneurs may have to exert additional effort at the micro-level of their interactions with customers to gain legitimacy by employing a range of embodied non-linguistic as well as linguistic practices
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