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Mapping the Multiverse: A Cultural Cartographic Approach to Realizing Entrepreneurial Possibilities

Timothy R. Hannigan (University of Alberta, USA)

Yunjung Pak (University of Alberta, USA)

P. Devereaux Jennings (University of Alberta, USA)

Advances in Cultural Entrepreneurship

ISBN: 978-1-80262-208-9, eISBN: 978-1-80262-207-2

Publication date: 18 April 2022

Abstract

Entrepreneurship evolves in and around fields, particularly around the creation of opportunities. A central problem remains that entrepreneurial opportunities are both distributed among and co-created by embedded actors. We propose framing this in cultural terms as a “multiverse problem,” whereby entrepreneurial possibilities are understood within the bounds of a field, but also through traversing adjacent topographies. We argue that a focus on entrepreneurial moments captures important dynamics that bring together adjacent possibles, leading to drastically different pathways. The usefulness of this argument is illustrated in this paper through the articulation of a cultural cartographic approach to mapping and realizing entrepreneurial possibilities. We develop four principles of cultural cartography, apply them to several examples, and demonstrate implications to cultural entrepreneurship and adjacent theoretical traditions.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mike Lounsbury and Christopher Steele for their thoughts about this paper; Vern Glaser for his work with Yunjung Pak and on clarifying our notion of fields (particularly with Timothy Hannigan); and the IDeaS Group for their streams of theorizing and analysis that form a general backdrop for this paper.

Citation

Hannigan, T.R., Pak, Y. and Jennings, P.D. (2022), "Mapping the Multiverse: A Cultural Cartographic Approach to Realizing Entrepreneurial Possibilities", Lockwood, C. and Soublière, J.-F. (Ed.) Advances in Cultural Entrepreneurship (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 80), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-237. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20220000080013

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited