Entrepreneurship within social and health care: A question of identity, gender and professionalism

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to look first at how entrepreneurial identity fits into the picture we currently have of social and health care professionals who most often work in paid employment in the public sector, and second, how entrepreneurial identity is constructed. We discuss whether professional identity and entrepreneurial identity can be separated, and how meaningful that question is. Is the role of entrepreneurship limited in the context of health and social care professional services, or can we see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneurial identity with special features related to the complexity within the provision of services in social and health care?

Design/methodology/approach

The materials from two previous studies by the authors are used in the article as empirical data to investigate the questions of identity and professionalism. The methodology is based on re‐reading and re‐interpretation of both empirical studies and theoretical literature.

Findings

There are differences and different logics of work‐related identity building among the entrepreneurial groups and among professional groups. Despite this and even if part of the research tradition emphasizes this difference and the separateness of these identities, we argue that identities are fluid, changing, layered and overlapping. As identities cannot be predetermined or classified according to economic earnings logic only, but that they are malleable, evolving, interconnected, and intertwined. In addition, the paper raises the contradiction of stereotypically “masculine” entrepreneurial goals and the stereotypically “female” ideology of care existing as tension within entrepreneurship in social and health care.

Research limitations/implications

The research limitations relate to the research design of not using ethnographical data.

Practical implications

The article has no direct practical implications. The results might have relevance to education.

Social implications

The article has social implications in the ways the identities are discussed through various discourses in the societies.

Originality/value

The article has both originality in the settings and value in bringing different discussions together, as well as in its ability to widen the theoretical discussions and empirical studies on identities, paid employment and entrepreneurship.

Citation

Kovalainen, A. and Österberg‐Högstedt, J. (2013), "Entrepreneurship within social and health care: A question of identity, gender and professionalism", International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 17-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261311305193