Mapping the aliran of the academic discipline of entrepreneurship: A ...

My aim is to uncover the pr inc iples and consequences of a autoc ht honous
transformation that is taking place in the field of historical knowledge. It may well
be that this transformation, the problems that it raises, the tools that it uses, the
concepts that emerge from it, and the results that it obtains are not entirely foreign
to what is called structural analysis. But this kind of analysis is not specifically
used [Foucault, 2004, p17].
While in this dissertation, I am creating an archaeological aliran ba sed upo n an episteme
on entrepreneurship, it should be kept in mind that this is a process of defining the
structure of an object. It should not be taken as being a form of structuralist analysis that
can necessarily be applied external to the episteme.
2.5.1.03 Foucault’s second reason was that by describing the abo ve mentioned ‘planes
of differentiation’ did not necessarily display an awareness of the relationship between
them. As with the conjunct relationship between ontology and epistemology discussed
above it can also be expected that similar conjunct relationships exist between the ‘planes
of differentiation’.
2.5.1.04 I have, in section 2.1.3.07, discussed the chronological changes in Foucault’s
thinking to 1976 where disciplines began taking a greater identity in the regulation of
knowledge. As outlined in the models developed thus in Part Two, the discipline of
entrepreneurship is a subset of the discourses around entrepreneurship, and has emerged
from it as well as, in part, constituting it.
2.5.1.05 In a move proba bly less than usual in a piece of research about entrepreneurship
I will not be offering a ny definition of entrepreneurship. To do so would possibly add to an
already overcrowded field, and to the existing “contentious definitional debate in
entrepreneurship (Gartner 2001; Hansemark 1998; Lindsay & Hindle 2002; Low &
MacMillan 1988 ; Hill & McGowan 1999 )” [cited in O’Connor, Cherry and Buckley, 2006,
p1]. I maintain that such definition(s), assuming the discipline is truly representational of
the subject matter, should derive from:
• the discipline itself:
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