In the Tribe of Sisyphus: Rethinking Management Education from an “Entrepreneurial” Perspective

Abstract

In this article, Camus’s reading of the myth of Sisyphus provides an “entrepreneurial” perspective on management education. Traditionally management has been constrained by the conceptually limiting horizon of management knowledge and practice, with an emphasis on control and efficiency. As such, learning processes have come to reproduce a manipulable homo oeconomicus. Sisyphus’s desire to create, the “absurdity” of his dignified revolt, in short, his “entrepreneurship,” exemplify a transformative and playful force central to learning processes. Embracing the opening toward a metaphorical style, this article introduces Sisyphean “entrepreneurship” as a novel way of thinking about and organizing learning processes in management education.