Entrepreneurship and the struggle over order and coherence : a thematic reading of Robert Musil’s 'The Man Without Qualities'

Loacker, Bernadette (2021) Entrepreneurship and the struggle over order and coherence : a thematic reading of Robert Musil’s 'The Man Without Qualities'. Culture and Organization, 27 (5). pp. 403-422. ISSN 1475-9551

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Abstract

This paper is grounded in a thematic reading of Robert Musil's (1933/1997) novel The Man Without Qualities. Combining literary, social, and economic theory, the discipline-spanning novel engages with some of the central questions and conflicts of our age, such as the search for order and coherence, seeking to overcome the fragmentation of life. Specifically, we suggest that Musil refers to the advent of entrepreneurship and the ‘enterprising spirit’ as an example evocative of these pursuits, as well as their concomitant ambiguities and frictions. Our analysis therefore engages with the role of Austrian economic theory in consolidating entrepreneur/ship as an ideal socio-economic model and order. By discussing the complexities inscribed in seemingly unifying orders such as entrepreneurship, the paper contributes in particular to critical and process entrepreneurship studies in MOS. It responds to calls for further literary, inter-disciplinary, and historical analyses in entrepreneurship research.