Against ‘Enterprise’ (but not against ‘enterprise’, for that would make no sense)

This article explores different conceptions of ‘enterprise’ and seeks to indicate the extent to which they are non-reducible. Its main focus is on one particular conception of enterprise that has underpinned a powerful critique of public sector organizations and which has been translated into a vari...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization (London, England) Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 37 - 57
Main Author: du Gay, Paul
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi SAGE Publications 01.01.2004
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Accountability
Bureaucracy
Colleges & universities
Corporate governance
Dualism
Enterprises
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Governance
Local government
Management
Modernization
Organization theory
Organizational behavior
Organizational change
Organizational Structure
Politics
Public Administration
Public enterprise
Public Sector
Public services
Social entrepreneurship
Studies
United Kingdom > UK
public administration
enterprise
accountability
bureaucracy
governance
ISSN:1350-5084, 1461-7323
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article explores different conceptions of ‘enterprise’ and seeks to indicate the extent to which they are non-reducible. Its main focus is on one particular conception of enterprise that has underpinned a powerful critique of public sector organizations and which has been translated into a variety of specific organizational strategies for restructuring or modernizing the public services. This conception, it is argued, is very different from that informing much of the prescriptive and descriptive literature on entrepreneurship within management studies, for instance. The article also attempts to question the opposition between ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘enterprise’ that frames this self-styled ‘entrepreneurial’ approach to organizational reform. This epochal ‘bureaucracy/enterprise’ dualism, it is argued, is best viewed as a rhetorical move in a political polemic, but one with real effects.
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ISSN:1350-5084
1461-7323
DOI:10.1177/1350508404039777