Constraints and Opportunities of Stigma: Entrepreneurial Emancipation in the Sex Industry
- 1 August 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Academy of Management in The Academy of Management Journal
- Vol. 64 (4), 1049-1077
- https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2018.1166
Abstract
Entrepreneurs work not only in socially accepted and valued domains, but also in highly contested, stigmatized industries. Despite the extreme constraints of working in stigmatized domains, entrepreneurs manage to thrive. The fact that entrepreneurs in these industries appear to overcome the constraints of stigma raises questions about the actual impacts of stigma on entrepreneurs and their ventures. Our qualitative study of entrepreneurs in the sex industry in Canada reveals that the many constraints faced by entrepreneurs in stigmatized industries also create opportunities. Actualizing such stigma-based opportunities loosens the constraints of stigma and enables entrepreneurs to experience structural, cognitive, and emotional emancipation. However, such emancipation is confined to the context, and thus threatened by interactions with those outside the industry. Based on our findings, we develop a model of entrepreneurial emancipation in stigmatized industries.Keywords
This publication has 82 references indexed in Scilit:
- Toward a theory of transformative entrepreneuring: Poverty reduction and conflict resolution in Rwanda's entrepreneurial coffee sectorJournal of Business Venturing, 2013
- Time and the Entrepreneurial Journey: The Problems and Promise of Studying Entrepreneurship as a ProcessJournal of Management Studies, 2013
- Stigmatized Categories and Public Disapproval of Organizations: A Mixed-Methods Study of the Global Arms Industry, 1996–2007The Academy of Management Journal, 2012
- Enterprise and Inequality: A Study of Avon in South AfricaEntrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2012
- Normalizing Dirty Work: Managerial Tactics For Countering Occupational TaintThe Academy of Management Journal, 2007
- Moral Emotions and Moral BehaviorAnnual Review of Psychology, 2007
- Cultural entrepreneurship: stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resourcesStrategic Management Journal, 2001
- Organizational Mortality: The Liabilities of Newness and AdolescenceAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1990
- Of Other Spacesdiacritics, 1986
- The Liability of Newness: Age Dependence in Organizational Death RatesAmerican Sociological Review, 1983