The narrative cleansing of Andrew Carnegie: entrepreneurial generativity as identity capital

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to proffer a reconstructed theoretic model of entrepreneurial generatively that accounts for personal and social identities in the narrative construction of entrepreneurial identity..Design/methodology/approachThe authors followed general analytically structured history processes using the life of Andrew Carnegie to understand how generativity scripts aid in aligning personal and social identities in the formation of entrepreneurial identity.FindingsThe authors argue that Carnegie used entrepreneurial generativity as a form of redemptive identity capital during the narrative reconstruction of his entrepreneurial identity.Originality/valueThis paper extends Harvey et al.’s (2011) model of entrepreneurial philanthropy motivation by including forms of self-capital (psychological capital and self-identity capital) as part of the co-construction of entrepreneurial identity and proposing a reconstructed capital theoretic model of entrepreneurial generativity.