Hegemonic discourses on entrepreneurship as an ideological mechanism for the reproduction of capital

University-market articulation

In this discursive formation, we identified a link between the articulation of academic and market practices, which—as noted by Rasmussen (2011)—are placed as the main source of wealth, growthand personal and professional fulfillment. The two discursive objects that formed this link were: ‘academic success as result of market insertion’ and ‘market lab’.

In the first discursive object, ‘academic success as result of market insertion’, words such as entrepreneurship, applicability, practice, market insertion and success systematically emerged from the discourse of our interviewees and helped reinforce what had already been observed by Ainsworth and Hardy (2008), namely the link between the individual and the company:

… All our members are well placed in the market, everyone leaves and manages to get a good internship, at Petrobras, at Shell, everyone is well placed. It’s a sign that the market is recognizing the value of the junior businessman. (Interviewee No.14, at UERJ)

The interviews showed that, the experience acquired by working at a Junior Enterprise is regarded as relevant, since practice (the application of theory, discursively contained in the activities of these junior companies) prevails over theory (empty, discursively contained in the activities of the classroom). Just as tutors recommend that their students use theory to solve every-day issues at these Junior Enterprises, so they also suggest that professional insertion is the main objective of the university experience and a parameter for one’s individual success:

[The student should believe that] this is what I’m studying for. This here is the application of what I am learning. This is how I will earn money in my life. This is how I will develop my career … . (Interviewee No.22, at FGV-RJ)

The second discursive object deals with the formation of business expectations, the Junior Enterprise being considered a ‘market lab’, as it anticipates the practice of what will be later experienced in the market itself. The discourse on the experience acquired by working in a Junior Enterprise is recurrently associated with the learning about certain office positions, as though the students had to assume the same duties and responsibilities of established professionals:

[At the Junior Enterprise] you have the opportunity to be the company president …, a director, or a manager, do you understand? To lead a team, to lead on a project, to lead a company, a department or sector, … you get the company for yourself … and you want to grow with the company, to be an entrepreneur. (Interviewee No. 46, at IBMEC-RJ)

At the same time, they would virtually be able to develop unmatched activities, similar those carried out in the actual market and which could not possibly be experienced in conventional training programs:

You feel important, it’s something I always said at the beginning, ‘ah, I’ve got a meeting’, I love meetings. I feel important … It’s a credibility … ‘Ah what do you do? Ah, I work at the Junior Enterprise’. (Interviewee No.10, at UFRJ)

These analysed discourses highlight the close connection, as noted by Li and Liu (2011) and Taatila (2010), between the individual and the company already at the educational level. The result, in contrast, is a problematic notion that affirms that effective teaching may strictly only qualify professionals for the market. This suggests that they be exclusively committed to business results in detriment to society, and also suggests a radical equipping of higher education.

The entrepreneurial spirit

This discursive formation considered the existence of a certain entrepreneurial spirit, or a new spirit, according to Boltanski and Chiapello (2007), pervading the work being carried out at these Junior Enterprises, and the need for development through innovative actions. Four discursive objects, principles and entrepreneurial characteristics have been identified that guide a given individual’s actions in the world: ‘a proactive search for knowledge’, ‘sharing experiences’, ‘new ways of doing things’ and ‘putting into practice’.

The first of these discursive objects, ‘the proactive search for knowledge’ appears in almost all the interviews. The initiative to search for knowledge is attributed to the member as soon as he joins the Junior Enterprise. Such a proactive stance, which discursively speaking is in line with the appropriate literature and appears as fundamental to the identification of new opportunities (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003; Short et al., 2010), is important because such an environment prepares students for the real labour market. This is perceived as an environment where ‘to each his own’ is the rule:

We recognize much more that individual who doesn’t need to be told what to do—He’s given an opportunity, sees it and seizes it. (Interviewee No.11, at UFRJ)

… This is in line with market practice, in the market, no director, manager or supervisor is going to be stroking your hair and telling you what needs to be done. (Interviewee No. 11 at UFRJ)

Regarding the second discursive object, ‘sharing experiences’, the acquisition of knowledge not only relates to the classroom, although it is an individual activity, but is more commonly perceived as the exchange of experiences among colleagues, members of other junior companies, as well as counseling by former members. On one hand, sharing is made possible by the fact that such organizations—discursively—do not adopt the same notion of competition in the market:

… The Junior Enterprise is a movement … that is much greater than only the one company … . It has this synergy of team work, without the competitiveness of companies on the outside where it’s each one for himself … they work together, always willing to help each other. (Interviewee No. 17, at UERJ)

However, the sharing of information is not entirely complete, especially with regard to the services on offer, suggesting there is a degree of competition among Junior Enterprises as well as between these and their tutors—which rather misrepresents the concept behind the JEMs (Junior Enterprise Movements):

… We don’t offer … very specific company stuff, such as contracts, that kind of legal stuff … we don’t usually supply … a model of our financial spreadsheet … the enterprises [junior] never let on how their projects are carried out. (Interviewee No.11, at UFRJ)

… But it often happens that a professor will demand to know why a certain project was sent to the Junior Enterprise and not to him … Some professors are somewhat envious of projects that are sent to us. I’ve even heard tell … of professors who acted as mentors to a project and then tried to take it for themselves … . (Interviewee No.28, at FGV-RJ)

The entrepreneurial spirit, on the other hand, is discursively connected to the idea of a junior entrepreneurial figure, as it refers to the creation as well as the execution of business related activities. This is clear in the discursive object entitled ‘the new ways of doing things’, where the entrepreneur is considered as someone who is creative and who can see opportunities where nobody else can, and take advantage of them, including at the very Junior Enterprise stage:

In the Junior Enterprise … there is a degree of flexibility in its activities, in its departments … a person has the chance to become an entrepreneur within the company, to make modifications, to implement new things … Of course, there are limits, but he has the room to start experimenting, He can already begin to understand what the consequences of his actions can be. (Interviewee No.1, at UFRJ)

But, these discourses have also shown the limits, similar to those encountered in companies in the marketplace, to acting in an innovative way, limits that arise from the relations of power that exist in organizational practices (Ogbor, 2000):

Not everyone can be an entrepreneur in the company, otherwise you would have each one trying to convince everyone else to join him, pulling them to his side, and a lot of heads for few bodies. (Interviewee No.4, at UFRJ)

Ultimately I can use the presidential card. … Not that I ever do, but I can reach a point where I simply say: shut up and do it. It happens. This kind of thing happens in a company, didn’t you know? (Interviewee No.50, at PUCRio)

However, the entrepreneur is not just someone who sets up a new business and always innovates, but also someone who achieves and implements things successfully, almost in a serendipitous way (Dew, 2009). As a consequence, the fourth discursive object, ‘putting into practice’ suggests that having ideas is not enough—it is also necessary to accomplish them:

Because he needs to have this sense of putting things into practice … Not just stopping at the idea … There was a phrase that I heard here in the Junior Enterprise that I will carry with me for the rest of my life as a personal motto … If you have initiative, you must also have finishing power, to put things into practice and do it right. (Interviewee No.48, at PUCRio)

This discursive formation encompasses a discourse that is aligned with a free-market based society, as pointed out by Du Gay (2000) and it demands values, requiring a professional profile that is, aside from entrepreneurial, also adaptable, committed, autonomous and ambitious.

Differentiation in the market

It is important for each individual to stand out from the others in a competitive context that is considered healthy and normal. The discursive formation, ‘differentiation in the market’ identifies certain distinctive elements mentioned by the participants, as members of a Junior Enterprise. This includes two discursive objects: ‘a stepping stone into the market’ and ‘status acquisition’.

To distinguish oneself from the others, although not indispensable at the Junior Enterprise level, is fundamental in the market. Thus our interviewee discourses showed a need to seek added value to the individual curricula of each student, in order to better compete in the labour market, something that was both desired by students and endorsed by teachers. For them, taking part in a Junior Enterprise is necessary to acquire ‘experience’, something perceived as being desired by the market:

… The first thing is the curricular difference, when you put in it an extra line, ‘I took part in a Junior Enterprise’, and the market today sees that as something important … generally at recruitment and selection events, there are already forms for you to fill out that include a small section: Have you ever participated in a Junior Enterprise? (Interviewee No.3, at UFRJ)

In this sense, a Junior Enterprise is understood as being a ‘stepping stone into the market’ (the first object of discourse), as it helps its members to get good jobs in important companies:

You will develop skills that someone who has only done an internship won’t have … the academic world teaches you to think, not necessarily to apply those thoughts. (Interviewee No.22, at FGV-RJ)

… people use the Junior Enterprise a lot as a trampoline to other things. (Interviewee No.3, at UFRJ)

This process may or may not accompany the second discursive object, ‘status acquisition’. This distinguishes the members from the other students at the same university:

I can network, I get to know lots of students, I get to know professors, the Junior Enterprise gives a student status … Because you have your own room, you have the e-mail, you have some privileges, we can use a printer free of charge, there are … free courses … you can travel on behalf of the university … it’s an incentive. (Interviewee No.28, at FGV)

These two discursive objects corroborate differences perceived by interviewees in working at a Junior Enterprise. The activities are seen as very similar to those carried out by real companies, which makes it possible for the student to take part in day-to-day operations and to hold positions that no internship program could offer, but within the academic environment itself to which they belong.

The Importance of practice

According to the students’ interviews, the discussion regarding entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship downplays the importance of formal education, since their testimonials suggested that successful entrepreneurs could put aside this kind of knowledge by ‘getting their hands dirty’ instead. Therefore, the discursive formation ‘importance of practice’ associates learning to actual practice. Three discursive objects arise from this discursive formation: ‘formal education’, ‘overcoming oneself and growing professionally’ and ‘junior slave’.

The emphasis on the practical does not imply that the students disregard university (viewed as a place of theory), but they believe that learning by doing is inherent to the entrepreneur’s agenda. Consequently, this turns formal education into something potentially irrelevant:

… university is less important … my priority is to the company … . Being in here, putting things into practice, is great. (Interviewee No.52, at PUCRio)

This reasoning also applies to daily life, because in the same way that successful entrepreneurs can do without academic knowledge, assuming students learn from actual practice, then they question the applicability of the courses offered:

We learn a lot, I, in just two weeks, learnt a lot. Even more than in two years at university. (Interviewee No.24, at FGV)

And this included entrepreneurship itself as something difficult to be taught in terms of theory:

To teach entrepreneurism is pretty much like saying, let’s teach, let’s have a course on theology to make people learn to have faith. (Interviewee No.1, at UFRJ)

In this sense, whatever may not be readily put into practice is irrelevant. This concept confuses higher education with both technical education and entrepreneurial education (Thornton et al., 2011), which are allegedly directed at actual practice.

As an initiative, according to these testimonies, the Junior Enterprise offers a practical space that provides students with a degree of maturity, in line with the second object of discourse, ‘overcoming oneself and growing professionally’. Du Gay (2000) and Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) noted, as something positive and ‘naturally’ expected of market logic, the focus on the importance of self-performance and the individual overcoming of challenges, which appears recurrently in the testimonies of the interviewees:

… We don’t have holidays. Sometimes, we work all day. I leave here, on average, at 8.30 at night, and arrive at the university at 7.00 the next morning. As I said, I don’t have holidays … It’s a lot of stress, a lot of responsibility, so you have to really want to work at the Junior Enterprise. (Interviewee No.53,at PUCRio)

These testimonies also indicated that working at a Junior Enterprise is exhausting, although the benefits of professional growth as a result are perceived as significant. This actually led some of the interviewees to state, ironically, that the junior entrepreneur is often a ‘junior slave’ (third object of discourse), because he sacrifices himself, working for no pay:

A lot of people say, ‘oh no, I’m going to work in a Junior Enterprise to earn nothing, I’m going to work for free, I’m going to be a slave, I’m going to be this, I’m going to be that … ’. (Interviewee No.9, at UFRJ)

I think that most people think like that, that it’s a sort of slave labour, that people work too much and get little in return. (Interviewee No.52, at PUCRio)

This kind of sacrifice also involves being absent from family and friends, and, in some cases, having to give up romantic attachments and hobbies:

Nobody can ever know just how much we work, so hard, so hard, how we stay up to the early hours of the morning, without earning a penny … you have to give up other things, … friends, family, just to dedicate yourself, but it’s totally worth it. (Interviewee No.8, at UFRJ)

It’s all about going to bed at 3 am and getting up at 5. Just for the fun of it, right? (Interviewee No.10, at UFRJ)

The relationship between the three discursive objects of this discursive formation favours the practical over the academic life, considering that the entrepreneur can spare the theory, without, however, being able to spare practice. Neglecting the theory can lead to the transformation of individuals into mere merchandise/subjects, always submissive to the labour market. Assuming, as pointed out by Du Gay and Salaman (1992: 626), that in the discourse of enterprise ‘becoming a better worker is represented as the same thing as becoming a more virtuous person, a better self’, working on something considered a priority, along with the commitment of members of the Junior Enterprise, does not make ‘junior slavery’ a problem, but, to respondents, a necessary sacrifice.

Wealth creation

A fifth discursive formation identified, namely ‘wealth creation’, suggests that the entrepreneur has the social function of converting opportunities into economic results, including two discursive formations: ‘establishment and expansion of businesses’ and ‘a breeding ground for entrepreneurs’.

In agreement with other literature on the subject of entrepreneurship (Hitt et al., 2010; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000), our interviewees viewed entrepreneurs as the drivers of capitalism through the ‘establishment and expansion of business’, by the creation of new consumer goods and innovative methods of management and production:

… are the people who want to achieve something. They have the capital and they have a very strong idea … a dream to set up their own business. (Interviewee No.8, at UFRJ)

Such individuals are characterized as owners or employees who have the social function of identifying opportunities and converting them into economic values, thereby playing a key role in expanding or establishing businesses:

He is really an entrepreneur … because he invested in the business, saw the opportunity for growth … and he grew from there. … He’s a guy who went after what he wanted … had an opportunity in the market, of unfulfilled demand, and he began to supply that need … . (Interviewee No.24, at FGV-RJ)

Both students and tutors had difficulty in identifying entrepreneurs in areas outside conventional business, while linking the entrepreneur to the businessman to his identity within the organizational space, particularly at the Junior Enterprises. As a consequence, the other discursive object of this discursive formation refers to junior enterprises as a ‘breeding ground’ for entrepreneurs who will either work in the market or set up companies. This implies that the entrepreneurial practice is discursively associated with the idea of an ideal entrepreneur or entrepreneurship:

… Yeh, I thinks that’s what it is in general, the Junior Enterprise is a great storehouse of people who then go to work in the market and want to do something, set up an enterprise of their own some time during their lives … . (Interviewee No.3, at UFRJ)

That happens over and over, you have large numbers of people who have worked here [at the Junior Enterprise] and who have opened up their own businesses. (Interviewee No.48, at PUC-Rio)

These discursive objects of this formation are structured upon the concept that entrepreneurs can convert opportunities into economic results, thus incorporating the role of a business expansion social agent and contributing directly to the development of society.

The entrepreneur as an organizational product

The discursive formation entitled ‘the entrepreneur as an organizational product’ gathers discursive objects that identify the labour market insertion of professional experience at a large company, while ‘leveraging opportunities’ and ‘constructing social networking’.

Although Junior Enterprises are perceived as organizations that leverage the emergence of future entrepreneurs, the discourses state that working for a large company leads to a more effective learning process; hence, ‘leveraging opportunities’ (first discursive object) by means of the enlargement of opportunities for market insertion, working as an employee or a business owner.

Therefore, the establishment of a business must be preceded by the acquisition of experience in larger, more structured, and more legitimate organizations, which have a more significant share of the market:

… The Junior Enterprise gives you a strong foundation, but still lacks a lot of what you need. You still need to go through a senior consultancy … there are differences. It’s always good for you to experience these differences, to take the abuse. It’s the abuse of life. (Interviewee No.48, at PUC-Rio)

I think about it [opening my own business]. I think it would be fully viable, but I don’t have an idea right at this moment, know what I mean? … So, I prefer to get to know, contact other companies first. (Interviewee No.54, at PUCRio)

This premise supports the arguments by Sorenson and Audia (2000), which state that organizations are responsible for the creation of opportunities for people to develop confidence in their own abilities to set up and run a business:

The Junior Enterprise is a workshop of entrepreneurism. … this here is a place for opening up the experience of being an entrepreneur. (Interviewee No.12, at UERJ)

Thus, the interaction between members of a given Junior Enterprise, other companies’ entrepreneurs, and former junior entrepreneurs, helps foster ‘constructing social networking’ (second discursive object), which consequently facilitates the mobilization of resources, as well as professional insertion:

The Junior Enterprise, I think it’s an excellent starting point … Both in networking, and in terms of one’s skills … You are always learning, even at the end of your career, every day is a new challenge. And I think it’s there that we can develop not only our skills, but also our character and our friends. (Interviewee No.48, at PUCRio)

According to Brittan and Freeman (1986), entrepreneurs rely on their social relationships to mobilize resources for their companies, both in financial and staffing terms, which means having to deal with well-connected and successful people in the area in which the entrepreneur hopes to establishes a business:

We have here a council of former JE members that help us … they help us with internships … ends up being yet one more contact. (Interviewee No.44, at IBMEC)

In the discursive formation entitled ‘entrepreneur as an organizational product’, our testimonials emphasized the importance of the company role in the professional experience of entrepreneurs, which can occur either through the level of expertise gained in the execution of different productive activities, or on the social level, through social ties with successful individuals, which can turn into contributions to the setting up of businesses.

Social models of entrepreneurs

In the last discursive formation, ‘social models of entrepreneurs’, the interviewees were inspired by examples of successful entrepreneurs, according to three discursive objects: the ‘familial exemplarity’, the ‘exemplarity of successful businessmen’ and the ‘exemplarity of former members’.

The first discursive object refers to ‘familial exemplarity’. For many of the interviewees, the recipe for success can be enhanced by the family environment, since the first examples one gets are provided by members of the family, including those who have had informal businesses, who have regular stories of endurance, perseverance and success:

An example of an entrepreneur? … My grandfather … He began at an early age to work in a drug store, at just thirteen. … With the help of my great-grandfather, he bought that drug store, and then bought another … he bought a restaurant, he bought a cinema … and he began to diversify, but then he saw that TV was emerging, so he sold the cinema, invested in a hospital clinic and this became a success, and now he invests in cattle, which is his business now. (Interviewee No.24, at FGV)

The ‘exemplarity of successful businessmen’ is the second discursive object. Supported by the arguments of Anderson and Warren (2011), that entrepreneurs have a distinctive presence in society shaped by expectations, when the interviewees were asked about the first example of an entrepreneur that came to mind, the most cited names were almost always those of successful figures who appear regularly in the media, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Donald Trump:

[Example of an entrepreneur] Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, we talk about them, talk a bit about their backgrounds … . (Interviewee No.53, at PUCRio)

The third discursive object deals with the ‘exemplarity of former members’. Just as in the case of the previous two discursive objects, when asked about an example of an entrepreneur, the interviewees often recalled the allegedly successful trajectory of a member or former member of the company. Their spoken memories of former members use words such as eternal, blood, DNA, passion, and these former members seem to be regarded by the interviewees as individuals who left a legacy behind, which is reinforced by their return to their former Junior Enterprises, who are always willing to help structure and restructure the enterprises’ professional activities:

He only did that because he loves it so much, so we have lots of former members who come here to give presentations, to teach courses, offer us millions of things, training for us … . (Interviewee No.54, at PUCRio)

And, in a universe where personal experience and professional practice are essential attributes, the help that is offered is always discursively constructed through the person’s background itself:

We invite them [former members] to all the events … they usually say, they start with the phrase, ‘in my day’ … they give good examples … examples of their life experiences that helped get them into the jobs market. (Interviewee No.17, at UERJ)

All the Junior Enterprises that took part in this research survey regularly invite former members to speak at conferences, where they are expected not just to motivate the current students, but also to recruit new workers, which reinforces the discourse of being successful as a result of the experience of having been a junior entrepreneur:

For example, Michel [former member] … the difficulties he went through to start his company and the success he enjoys today in the market. Last year, his company was the company that paid its shareholders the most in dividend. He received seven million in bonuses, in other words, he’s a guy who worked here with us, so you think: I can get there. It’s an inspiration, a motivation. (Interviewee No.43, at IBMEC/RJ)

These three discursive objects refer to examples that may come from the family, the media, or the experience acquired in Junior Enterprises. To a certain extent, this is identified as a standardization of the concept, since entrepreneurs are no longer seen as unique individuals, but rather as commonplace (Santos, 2007), at least with regard to success, especially if they have already worked for a given organization.

Convergences

The discursive formations are inserted in a context that emphasizes, according to Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) and Du Gay (2000), a particular model of entrepreneur (a business owner or an employee) who converts his individual and social goals into organizational strategies, while taking into account a company’s demands, priorities, values and principles.

In this sense, an initial convergence between the discursive formations (entrepreneurial spirit, wealth creation and social models of entrepreneurs) understands entrepreneurship as a mass phenomenon in which anyone can, through it, realize themselves personally and professionally. Anyone can be an entrepreneur, under two necessary conditions: 1) the individual must be seen as being autonomous and have the characteristics considered as ‘adequate’ and 2) an inherently socioeconomic context of a free market must be in place. And in this process, the individual is taught in terms of ‘how to control his conduct, his behaviour, his attitudes, how to intensify his performance, multiply his capacity, how to put himself in his rightful place, where he can be most useful’ (Foucault, 2012: 177). This allows the individual to be a full-time entrepreneur, which should be an attitude assumed by everyone because this is the way to promote the growth and socioeconomic development of nations. In other words, the goal of a disciplinary power is to run the lives of individuals and to control them in their relations, in their learning, in order to make them docile and castrated and thus absorb all their potential (Foucault, 1979).

A second discursive formation convergence (university-market articulation, importance of practice, entrepreneurial spirit) arises as a consequence of the first and refers to the discursive gap between formal education and professional practice. Based on the concept that anyone can become an entrepreneur, simply by meeting certain conditions, formal education loses its significance in shaping the individual, since it does not necessarily form new entrepreneurs. One should point out that the exception occurs when the intention is to create new entrepreneurs. At this point, academia and market merge through similar curricular proposals for entrepreneurial education (Mars and Rios-Aguilar, 2010) which prioritise values, assumptions, activities, skills and competencies demanded by the market and by the business world in its present form. Thus, as Ogbor (2000) argues, to discipline the individual, in Foucaultian terms, means disciplining the individual for the market through an entrepreneurial education.

The third discursive formation convergence (market differentiation, social models of entrepreneurs) refers to the close ties between the individual and the company in a simultaneous process of discursive construction that strongly encourages individuals who realize their potential in the workplace. This aligns with the argument pointed out by Du Gay and Salaman (1992: 624) that the discourse of enterprise creates the vision of an harmonic relation between ‘the greatest possible realization of the intrinsic abilities of individuals at work and the optimum productivity and profitability of the corporation’.

This is evident, for example, in the case of those entrepreneurs who cannot stop working, despite the sacrifices seen as inherent to the process and who, on the contrary, articulate and consider as natural, the binomial of pleasure and suffering in their professional day-to-day in a fairly instrumental kind of way. In part, this is due to the importance attributed to the exemplary models (familial, media-sponsored or success) of entrepreneurs whose stories serve as a stimulus in associating the figures of the entrepreneur with a hero, an extreme worker, who should be imitated.

The fourth discursive convergence (entrepreneur as an organizational product; market differentiation) shifts the focus from the innovative enterprise of an individual to the figure of the employee entrepreneur. The business space—especially that of a large enterprise—is discursively depicted as essential for the formation of someone who is a developer of entrepreneurship and who may choose to continue working as an employee (internal entrepreneur) or quit and establish his own business. Even when the Junior Enterprise appears in the discourse as an entrepreneurial environment, the discourse is that its members must work in a large company before opening up their own business.

This, however, does not happen without a fifth adjacent convergence: the discourse that business initiatives, which favor the flexibilization of work, transfer the full responsibility with regard to their careers to a company’s employees. Such careers are defined accordingly to an individual’s ability to compete and ultimately win. These discursive formations (market differentiation and entrepreneurial spirit) converge to praise the innovative, adaptive and autonomous individual, that is, someone who has an aversion to anything that is rigid, ordinary and safe, as opposed to the required availability and commitment to pace, change and risk.

The eighth, and final convergence refers to entrepreneurs as social actors by definition, actors who are more suitable to drive the capitalist machine, to maximize gains generated by innovations and to leverage countries by promoting economic development.

Discursive silences

An analysis of discursive silences is fundamental. The discourses have a number of silences, omissions and obscure connotations which enabling research that reveal hidden intentions, implicit assumptions and veiled ambiguities. It is through its recognition that whatever can and cannot be said about something becomes perceptible (Fairclough, 1993).

The first silence refers to the negative side of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. The link between entrepreneurship and the current world economic order is an inexorable and natural discourse, which certainly implies adhesion. Relevant questions are silenced, such as: is not the current stage of capitalism favourable to the concentration of capital, mega-mergers and oligopolies? Furthermore, are not such phenomena antagonistic to free-markets and free competition? The same silence occurs in the students’ discourses, where they failed to mention the real dimensions of personal sacrifice represented by so many hours of dedication and work needed to deliver projects on time, something that is always softened by words such as passion, love, dedication and devotion.

A second silence concerns failure, which is only highlighted when the goal is to associate it discursively to a tale of overcoming that culminates in success. Recursively, the image of the hero or the successful entrepreneur is opposed to the anti-hero: the bad entrepreneur, the lunatic and the loser.

The discursive constructions on entrepreneurship—as emphasized by McChesney (1998) and Chomsky (1998)—do not note the consequences of neoliberal principles (the third silence). The implications of the (re) production of entrepreneurial ideals towards contemporary labour relations are not questioned. The concept that the contemporary professional is an independent economic unit inserted into a competitive context becomes natural, as it is embodied in the image of the ‘Individual SA’. The silence about the precariousness of labour relations, especially in Junior Enterprises, remains.

A fourth silence deals with the principles behind the application of certain concepts to entrepreneurial activities, such as harmony and synergy (with a company’s expectations), capacitation, training and adequation (to the market’s needs). The conciliation between the interests of companies and those of their employees is assumed as natural. In the students’ discourses, this was reflected in the choice of these words and not of others in the discursive composition.

Finally, the last silence stands out: the absence of comment on the power relations that are part of the initiatives carried out in Junior Enterprises. Similarly, hierarchies, dismissals (referred to as resignations), the high turnover rate and the competition between companies for customers also received no mention. The issue of competition is one example. Although most interviewees claimed that competition does not exist, we identified competition among: students who wish to join such organizations; students and tutors who aim to find new customers and projects; students who wish to be assigned to the most important positions; Junior Enterprises seeking customers and Junior Enterprises who seek more power within their organizations.

The orders of discourse

Analysis of the interdiscursivity (relation between discourses) that exists in the discursive formations allowed us to identify three ideological developments or discourse orders: 1) a consensus regarding the centrality of companies; 2) the exemplarity of the neoliberal capitalist entrepreneurial model and 3) the absence of feasible alternatives for the contemporary capitalist model.

The first order of discourse refers to the consensus regarding the centrality of companies in terms of the thinking and acting of a given individual in the world (Du Gay, 2000). At the same time as the hegemonic discourse derived from the discursive formations proclaims the search for autonomy by an individual, this concept is not detached from the labour universe, the company being a central element in such a process. The entrepreneur is considered an autonomous and proactive individual who, motivated by his vocation, pursues opportunities without ever freeing himself from the company.

The entrepreneurs’ discourses bestow the hegemonic discourse through recurring examples: parents, colleagues, former junior members, as well as successful executives who make the pages of business magazines. Such discursive formations constitute the second order of discourse: the exemplarity of neoliberal capitalist entrepreneur models. The discursive formations produce and reproduce the hegemonic discourse, which rely on models that legitimate an entrepreneurial spirit (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007). There is an exaltation of an entrepreneur who knows how to innovate, who is flexible, capable of adapting himself to the market and work relations changes, while always remaining persistent and unequivocal so as to overcome barriers and obstacles. Obstacles and barriers which, it is worth pointing out are created by the very companies that recurrently seek an increase in their profits. As Meszaros states (2000: 34), ‘the real obstacles faced at work … that synthesize the most aggressive anti-work and political aspirations of neoliberalism, oddly intend to be advisable for every rational creature, just like maternity or apple pie’.

The third order of discourse refers to the discourse that ignores alternatives to the capitalist system. The Western neoliberal model, consolidated by the discourses regarding entrepreneurial practices is a consensus, which allows for its transposition to other societies as inevitable and benefic. As a result, criticism of such a model is rare, for ‘the logic of profit and the respect for people are not perceived in the same way … on one side, there is the ‘harsh reality’ to which one must adapt; on the other, the ‘moods’ which one should ‘overcome’’ (Gaulejac, 2005: 25). Since the hegemonic powers involve a complex articulation of discourses that incorporate efforts to consolidate the meanings of particular discursive forms, entrepreneurship becomes a sort of ‘entrepreneurial capitalism’; a discursive representation of the world which justifies the adoption of an instrumental and utilitarian approach, so as to mediate, through profit, the relations among men, as well as among them and the business environments.

Nevertheless, just trying to avoid the danger of slipping into determinism, we should highlight what Foucault (2010a) suggests as a distinctive trait of power relations: some people can more or less determine the conduct of other people, but never in an exhaustive or coercive way, as you cannot have power without some potential for refusal or revolt. In other words, ‘there is necessarily the potential for resistance, because if there was no such possibility for resistance—violent resistance, flight, subterfuge, strategies to invert the situation—power relations would simply not exist’ (Foucault, 2010b: 277). Thus, by taking this view that you cannot have power relations without resistance (which means that the exercising of power does not always result in the absorption of the full individual potential), it was possible to identify, in the interviews, some occurrence of certain alternatives discourses that may be understood as manifestations of a degree of questioning the predominant ones.

Although they do not appear in explicit and textual form as resistance, these speeches could corroborate both the argument of Fournier and Grey (1999: 116) that the ‘enterprise does not have the monopoly of representations’ as the point of view of Foucault (2010b: 277) that power is not a ‘system of domination that controls everything and that does not leave any space for freedom’. Just in order to illustrate this point, we can highlight as examples of emergency contexts of ‘resistence’ discourses: (1) the discussion about the financial remuneration of the members of Junior Enterprises, where some respondents argued in favour of non-remuneration of the members emphasizing the preponderance of basic values such as volunteering and knowledge acquisition in relation to market practices and values; (2) the discussion about the ‘junior slavery’, a controversial discursive categorization attributed in a ironic way to define the student who works hard in a Junior Enterprise and receive no money for that, but also used by own members to talk about their day-to-day practices of management and (3) the discussion about the ‘ghosts’ around the Junior Enterprises, i.e. the students formally included in the organizational structure who do not play the role expected: nobody knows who they are or what they really do in the company (when they appear, they do not talk with the other members and do not get involved with the main projects).