This book explores whether there is reason to be against entrepreneurship. From various perspectives such as lexical semantics, Marxism, philosophy of science and psychology, the contributors contemplate on why there may be reason to be against entrepreneurship discourse as well as entrepreneurship practice.

1. Background and introduction: how could anyone be against entrepreneurship?, Anders Örtenblad.- 2. Self-employment and entrepreneurship: not only productive but also unproductive and destructive, Dieter Bögenhold.- 3. Notes on a fetishist war machine, Daniel Ericsson.- 4. Keep the machine running: entrepreneurship as a practice of control in the neoliberal economy, Kenneth Mølbjerg Jørgensen and Ann Starbæk Bager.- 5. Fetishizing the entrepreneurship, Frederik Hertel.- 6. Entrepreneurship ad absurdum, Anna-Maria Murtola.- 7. Against entrepreneurship: unveiling social inequalities for minority entrepreneurship, Kiran Trehan, Priyanka Vedi and Alex Kevill.- 8. The fairytale of the successful entrepreneur: reasons and remedies for the prevalent ideology of entrepreneurship, Fabiola H. Gerpott and Alfred Kieser.- 9. From entrepreneurship to eco-preneurship, Ove Jakobsen and Vivi M.L. Storsletten.- 10. Entrepreneurial insouciance (or imperiousness), the big risk shift and the entrepreneurship interregnum, Philip Cooke.- 11. The dark side of entrepreneurial passion: restraining employee innovative behaviour?, Eeva Aromaa, Ulla Hytti and Satu Aaltonen.-12. In defense of the comfort zone: against the hegemony of creative destruction, Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and Monika Kostera.- 13. Entrepreneurship addiction and the negative mental health consequences of entrepreneurial engagement among some entrepreneurs, April J. Spivack.- 14. Against irresponsible entrepreneurship: a dual perspective on the impact of entrepreneurship on firm survival, Denise Fleck.- 15. The dark side of entrepreneurship: the role of the dark side of personality, Bekir Emre Kurtulmuş.

This book explores whether there is reason to be against entrepreneurship. Just like literature on the darker sides of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, the book is an answer to the one-sided, overly positive and uncritical image of entrepreneurship. The “twist” in this book, in comparison with literature on dark sides of entrepreneurship, is to explore being against entrepreneurship. From various perspectives such as lexical semantics, Marxism, philosophy of science and psychology, the contributors contemplate on why there may be reason to be against entrepreneurship discourse as well as entrepreneurship practice. Some chapters are based on first-hand empirical data, others are conceptual. The main overall conclusion is that there are some strong arguments for being against entrepreneurship discourse, as well as for being against certain aspects of entrepreneurship practice. Before it is reasonable to be against entrepreneurship practice in total, a convincing and practicable alternative needs to be developed. This book will be valuable reading for entrepreneurship scholars, as well as academics working in the fields of business ethics, (critical) management, and international business.

Provides a comprehensive, critical critique of the concept of entrepreneurship from an interdisciplinary perspective A counterbalance to the prevailing pro-entrepreneurship narrative Provides various perspectives against entrepreneurship such as lexical semantics, Marxism, philosophy of science and psychology