'Don't Forget to Like, Share and Subscribe': Digital Autopreneurs in a Neoliberal World



Ashman, Rachel ORCID: 0000-0002-5579-6304, Patterson, A ORCID: 0000-0003-1508-9258 and Brown, Stephen
(2018) 'Don't Forget to Like, Share and Subscribe': Digital Autopreneurs in a Neoliberal World. Journal of Business Research, 92. pp. 474-483.

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Abstract

We seek to move beyond the exalted figure of the heroic entrepreneur that predominates the study of entrepreneurship; to take a less agentic view of entrepreneurship; to tell stories rarely told, and to demonstrate how historical and technocultural forces are as instrumental in directing entrepreneurial activity as individual motivations. We enlist the work of Foucault and others, in conjunction with netnographic fieldwork that focuses on an assemblage of young YouTubers striving to become what we call autopreneurs. We reveal how they internalize a structure of feeling, divined from neoliberal ideology, that shapes their everyday affairs. We find that three main wellsprings - the dynamics of competition, the creativity dispositif, and technologies of the self – detrimentally affect the quality of their lives and collectively institute a ‘cruel optimism’ which promises much but delivers little. We conclude with some thoughts on the ramifications of our work for the study of entrepreneurship.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Neoliberalism, Entrepreneurship, YouTube, Subjectivity, Critical
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 08 Aug 2018 12:22
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:29
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.07.055
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3024749