Freedom is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose: Entrepreneurialism and the Changing Nature of Employment Relations

Abstract

We explore the acceptance of new contingent work relationships in the United States to reveal an emergent entrepreneurial ideology. Our argument is that these new work relationships represent a new social order not situated in the conglomerates and labor unions of the past, but on a confluence of neo-liberalism and individual action situated in the discourse of entrepreneurialism, employability, and free agency. This new employment relationship, which arose during the economic and social disruptions in the 1970s, defines who belongs inside an organization (and can take part in its benefits) and who must properly remain outside to fend for themselves. More generally, the fusing of entrepreneurship with neo-liberalism has altered not only how we work and where we work but also what we believe is appropriate work and what rewards should accompany it.

Citation

Eberhart, R.N., Barley, S. and Nelson, A. (2022), "Freedom is Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose: Entrepreneurialism and the Changing Nature of Employment Relations", Eberhart, R.N., Lounsbury, M. and Aldrich, H.E. (Ed.) Entrepreneurialism and Society: New Theoretical Perspectives (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 81), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 13-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20220000081002