Unsettling Entrepreneurship by Teaching Dark Side Theories

Abstract

Dark side theories enrich entrepreneurship curriculums and textbooks by exposing students to critical perspectives of entrepreneurship research and practice. The emerging research field recognizing entrepreneurship’s dark side challenges students to better identify the social impacts of enterprises and innovations in addition to economic impacts (e.g., profit). This article showcases common themes from the dark side literature, and this article offers strategies to infuse dark–light language into entrepreneurship courses. Dark side theories can complement entrepreneurship concepts taught in theory courses, such as risk-taking, creative destruction, entrepreneurial discovery, and social entrepreneurship. Dark side theories give students language to be critical regarding their perspectives on entrepreneurship. In this article, a particular classroom exercise, which asks students to map the social and economic impacts of various enterprises onto a dark–light spectrum, is discussed. This exercise challenges students to define entrepreneurial success (and failure) beyond profit and production (or lack thereof) by giving them a dark–light language to leverage in their critiques of entrepreneurship. Students are pushed to critically evaluate the various impacts enterprises have on economies and societies. Furthermore, students are exposed to nontraditional examples (e.g., drug cartels, Rolling Jubilee Fund, among others) that broaden their perspectives on economic and social good (and bad).