Understanding the Enterprise Culture Paradigm

Abstract

Although the UK's enterprise culture emanates from the Thatcher era, critiques of current (and proposed) industrial policies and initiatives make the observation that the current Blairite enterprise policies are remarkably similar in their ideological underpinning to those of the Thatcherite 1980s. The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual explanation for two seemingly irreconcilable phenomena: the persistence of the enterprise culture as a dominant UK model for economic development against the very limited success this model has enjoyed in achieving its objectives. To do so the authors first explore the concept of culture and then develop an ideal typology of the broad bundle of ideas and ideologies that have come to be known as the ‘enterprise culture’. This is deconstructed to test its rigour and to explore paradox and appropriateness as a contemporary economic development model. Broadly, they conclude that the failure of enterprise culture policies to impact upon the life and work of the small firm owner-manager are culturally-based, due, not least, to substantive differences in the material ‘ways of doing’ ascribed to enterprise adherents and small firm owner-managers. Given that entrepreneurship, as an approach to business, has also long been recommended as a cure for the ills of larger firms, particularly by government agencies, the coherence of the enterprise culture paradigm stretches beyond the small firm sector. Furthermore, the authors hope to contribute to the wider debate concerning the impact of management cultures on organizational performance and, in particular, their relationship with non-managerial cultures in the surrounding society, including the political and rhetorical spheres.