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International Small Business Journal (ISSN 0266-2426 e-ISSN 1741-
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Citation for the version of the work held in ‘OpenAIR@RGU’:

ANDERSON, A. R. and WARREN, L., 2011. The entrepreneur as hero
and jester: enacting the entrepreneurial discourse. Available from
OpenAI R@RGU. [online]. Available from:http://openair.rgu.ac.uk

Citation for the publisher’s version:

ANDERSON, A. R. and WARREN, L., 2011. The entrepreneur as hero
and jester: enacting the entrepreneurial discourse. International
Small Business Journal, 29 (6), pp. 589 – 609.

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1
Forthcoming in the International Small Business Journal

The entrepreneur as hero and jester; enacting the entrepreneurial discourse

Alistair R Anderson (corresponding author)
Centre for Entrepreneurship
Aberdeen Business School
The Robert Gordon University
KaimHouse
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen
AB10 7QE

Tel: +44 (0)1224 263883
Email: [email protected]

Lorraine Warren

School of Management
University of Southampton
Highfield campus
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
UK

Tel: 44 (0) 2380 598972
Email: [email protected]
2

The entrepreneur as hero and jester; enacting the entrepreneurial discourse

Abstract

Employing a social construction perspective, we argue that entrepreneurs are uniquely
empowered by entrepreneurial discourse to bring about creative destruction. Analysis of the
representation of entrepreneurship in the media suggests that entrepreneurs have a distinctive
presence in society that is shaped by cultural norms and expectations. These images create
and present an entrepreneurial identity. Yet identity has two facets; the general, identified as
“what” but also a distinctive individual identity as “who”. We explore the identity play of one
flamboyant entrepreneur, Michael O’Leary, to show how he deploys the rhetoric and
rationality of the entrepreneurial discourse but shapes it through emotional games to establish
his unique entrepreneurial identity. We find that strong evidence that entrepreneurs are
cultural stereotypical and that this is amplified by the press. But we also found how O’Leary
employed this typification to engage with the rational and the emotional. We explain how this
is used for strategic advantage.

Keywords: entrepreneur; discourse; narrative; entrepreneurial identity; media; creative
destruction

Introduction

This paper examines how entrepreneurship discourse is employed to produce entrepreneurial
advantage. We consider the narratives and exploits of a colourful entrepreneurial airline
entrepreneur, Michael O’Leary, to see how he uses entrepreneurial identity to create
competitive advantage. Our theoretical framework is the socially constructed parallel, but
potentially contradictory, concepts of identity; the social identity as an entrepreneur coupled
with O’Leary’s personal identity, which we see as a very personalised enactment of self.
Identity can be seen as about sameness to others; yet identity is also about distinctiveness, the
ways that we can “identify” someone as unique and hence different and distinctively self. As
Watson (2009:426) suggests, “the notion of identity has enormous potential as a bridging
concept between individual agency, choice and creation of self, on the one hand, and history,
culture and social shaping of identities on the other”. In this way we are able to show how
O’Leary’s clowning and jesting is not simply paradoxical with his identity as a successful
airline entrepreneur, but how it emotionally engages with the rational appeal of the
entrepreneurial discourse. Rindova et al (2006:51) puts this well, “celebrity is an intangible
asset of the firm. How a firmmay benefit from differential levels of public attention and
positive emotional responses is a question that has not been widely considered”. Moreover,
we see a contribution in how this identity play adds to our understanding of the socially
situated entrepreneurial actor.

The paper is located in what Cope (2005) describes as the growing interest in interpretative
approaches to entrepreneurship, reflecting the appreciation that entrepreneurs can be
understood better in their social milieu (Drakopoulou Dodd and Anderson, 2007). In this
milieu social networking (Neergard, 2005; Shaw, 2006; J ack et al, 2008) and social capital
(Bowey and Easton, 2007; Anderson et al, 2007; Cope et al, 2007) all try to conceptually
locate the entrepreneur in their social context. One element in the burgeoning interest is the
socialised meanings of entrepreneurship (Thorpe et al, 2006; Anderson, 2005).
Methodologically, social construction has proved useful in explaining how meanings
(Fletcher, 2006) inform what we understand to be entrepreneurship. Thus, metaphor
3
(Anderson et al, 2009; Drakopoulou Dodd and de Koning, 2002), narratives (J ohansson,
2004; Smith and Anderson, 2004) and discourse (Ogbor, 2000; Anderson and Smith, 2007)
have been employed in exploring the social constructions of entrepreneurship. A development
has been the examination of how the press has engaged with reproducing the entrepreneurial
discourse (Radu and Redien-Collet, 2008). This paper employs similar methodology to
examine entrepreneurial identity work played out in the media. In this context, identity is
particularly interesting because it reflects entrepreneurial meanings and as Hermans
(2004:305) explains, media functions as “machineries of meaning”.

The paper addresses what Down and Reveley (2004, p. 236) describe as the underdeveloped
research topic, “the social formation of the entrepreneurial self”. Employing social
construction, we explore the production of an entrepreneurial identity. We juxtapose two
different levels of analysis, the collective entrepreneurial identity and individual identity,
through the study of the practices of the flamboyant entrepreneur, Michael O’Leary, CEO of
Ryanair. Our argument is that there is a “social” identity of entrepreneurs which reflects the
enterprise discourse. Atherton (2004) notes how representations of entrepreneurs tend to be
stereotypes and caricatured, but Goffman (1959) suggests they become institutionalised as an
abstract stereotype. This then is a cultural identity attributed to those who enterprise. But
there is also an individual identity which is about difference; how we know an entrepreneur as
a unique individual. As Paul Ricoeur’s (1992) philosophy argues, identity has two aspects:
ipseite and memete: sameness and selfhood. Newspapers seem to play an important role in the
production, even the combining, of both elements. Hannerz (1992) talks about the linking of
culture and self. Rindova (2006) found considerable evidence that mass media play a
powerful role in directing the public’s attention toward particular actors, whilst Hermans
(2002) argues that some individuals are more easily heard. Moreover, by increasing the
attractiveness of their news reports to readers, journalists create dramatised representations of
these individuals. Boyle (2008) argues that this is a cultural shift in the media to place
business and business people more central stage. In so doing, they “find” strong figures such
as O’Leary. Guthey et al (2008) go further and argue that such figures are not “self-made
men”, but are made by media exposure.

Consequently, the first part of the paper examines newspaper coverage of entrepreneurs. We
find that O’Leary has a very strong presence, appearing some three times a day. Moreover,
the newspaper narratives reflect what entrepreneurs are expected to do, the social identity. But
interestingly the reportage also presents a very individual identity of O’Leary; one which
presents narratives of a rough tongued brawler who is the people’s champion. Our
sociological analysis of this data shows how O’Leary engages emotionally by his clowning,
yet concomitantly produces a rational appeal. On this basis we argue that this strong
entrepreneurial identity raises the profile of O’Leary’s business and in turn, produces
competitive advantage.

A social construction approach helps us to explore the paradox of identities; sameness and
otherness. As socially constructed, any entrepreneurial ‘identity’ is the outcome of active
perceptual constructions (Handley et al 2006; Berger and Luckman, 1966), an ongoing project
of construction (Lash, 1999). According to Somers (1994), people construct identities
through a repertoire of interlinked, but partial, fragmentary and sometimes contradictory
narratives over time. For Holland et al (1998), this is not about experiencing scripted
positions, but engaging with cultural worlds as knowledgeable and committed participants.
This engagement is important because being identified as ‘entrepreneurial’ enables specific
forms of actions; it acts as a licence to challenge the status quo and bring about
entrepreneurial change. Thus, the construction of a convincing entrepreneurial identity may
have strategic advantages. We demonstrate how social construction has explanatory value
beyond an abstract conceptualisation of meaning; it helps to explain what entrepreneurs are
expected to do. Our analysis shows the role expectations that exist in the macro of
4
entrepreneurial discourse, and how these are agentially enacted at the micro level of practices.
At a practical level we note how discourse becomes ideologically empowering and how this
can be used as a strategic and marketing tool. Moreover, we see how the explanatory power
of Schumpeter’s creative destruction can apply beyond new products or services displacing
the old. Creative destruction, as a purposeful revolutionary process, can also explain the
deployment of narrative in the entrepreneurial unsettling of the stability of established
practices.

This theoretical framework accords entrepreneurial agents their due (Downing, 2005), but
also allows us to recognise that the social structure, and entrepreneurs’ relationships with that
structure, its meanings, norms, beliefs and values, are an intrinsic part of the entrepreneurial
process (J ack and Anderson, 2002; Drakopoulou-Dodd and Anderson, 2007). In this way we
can avoid the problems of methodological individualismwhere too much explanatory power
is attributed to an entrepreneurial agent at the cost of underestimating the constraints (and
opportunities) of structure (Elster, 1989). Moreover, we can also avoid the pitfalls of the
“over-socialised” entrepreneur (Granovetter, 1985) where structure or society is given
theoretical priority.

Social constructions, discourse and entrepreneurial identity

Radu and Redien-Collot (2008) explain how social representations such as press reports, are
the result of cognitive constructions of reality. These transform social objects, such as people,
contexts and situations into symbolic categories of values, beliefs and ideologies. Social
constructions are thus underpinned by the powerful influences that pervade our political and
social culture. Such discourses become relevant when they produce meanings that are widely
accepted (Ogbor, 2000). The ‘enterprise culture’ is an example. Since the economic
turbulence of the 1980s, the enterprise discourse has emerged as a powerful meta-narrative of
the free market capitalist system(Ogbor, 2000; Doolin, 2002). Indeed, Lewis and Llewellyn
(2004) suggest that the enterprise culture is a moral crusade that validates the power and
capacities of individual entrepreneurs to change institutions and organisations. Nonetheless,
the idea of an all embracing culture remains problematic (Drakopoulou-Dodd and Anderson,
2001). Atherton (2004) argues that representations influence and shape our views of the
world. How people, events and phenomena are presented informs and reflects shared values
and views; but these representations are not objective or factual, they are “values-driven”.

Consequently, entrepreneurial meanings are not free floating (Nicholson and Anderson,
2005), but are anchored in a modernist project that somehow tomorrow will be
entrepreneurially made better than today. In this discourse, the entrepreneur emerges as a
‘new cultural hero of the Western world’ (Carr and Beaver, 2002; Ogbor, 2000). Lustick and
Miodownik (2002) suggest that the processes institutionalising discourse can produce
collective identities that take on an aspect of immutability, thus reflecting stereotypification.
Boyle and Magor (2008) argue that this process helps legitimise entrepreneurship. Media
stories and representations are inevitably an influential part of that cultural discursive milieu,
shaping, reinforcing and legitimising a stereotypical entrepreneurial identity, something that
is ‘like an entrepreneur’ in the public imagination. This heroic entrepreneur emerges with
attractive sets of characteristics that mirror the discourse, albeit sometimes contested
(Drakopoulou-Dodd and de Koning; 2004).

Tourish and Vatcha (2005) suggest that organisations can be viewed as narrative spaces, but
Downing (2005) points out that identity and power can be manipulated through discursive
processes. As Down (2006) puts it, identity is a mutable achievement in time, space through
relationships with others. Following the epistemological foundations laid by Steyaert and
Bouwen (1997), narrative resources have been used to illuminate the processes of
entrepreneurial self-identity formation. Discourse, for us, is how social actors articulate their
5
meanings (Hytti, 2000). Discourse is beyond any one individual and is a mode of action as
well as a mode of representation (Fairclough, 1992). Foucault (1972) described how
discourses produce patterns of meanings, but also construct a version of reality embodying
ideology (Cohen and Musson, 2000). At root, we thus argue, that the entrepreneurial
discourse has become a legitimising frame of entrepreneurial meaning. Cohen and Musson
(2000), Mallon and Cohen (2001) and Warren (2004) have utilised the ‘discourse of
enterprise’ to examine the relation of entrepreneurial identity to the wider environment.
Lounsbury and Glynn (2001) and Downing (2005) link self-identity and organizational
identity formulation Moreover, Drakopoulou-Dodd and de Koning (2002, 2004) and
Nicholson and Anderson (2005) provide convincing evidence that media texts emphasise the
entrepreneur as a mythical or heroic figure valorized to effect economic betterment for all.
As such, this discourse produces the entrepreneur as an ideal type (Shutz, 1962), a caricature
or stereotype that reflects a social constructed reality. The discourses are based on ‘commonly
accepted definitions’ (Blumer, 1962), or public and cultural narratives (Somers, 1994), or a
scripted role (Goffman, 1959; Anderson, 2005). Thus, in the public imagination, by and large,
an entrepreneur is a good thing to be, an exciting collective identity for the individual to
aspire to become (Down and Warren, 2008).

Hjorth & J ohannisson (2003) see entrepreneurship as an enacted collective identity often
portrayed as the individualised practice of singular individuals. Hence entrepreneurial
practices are a rich mediumto explore identity (Hytti, 2000). Like entrepreneurship itself,
identity is mundane, extraordinary and paradoxical. Firstly, identity incorporates two parallel
but contradictory concepts, sameness and difference. Identity, as in “identical”, or identifying
with, is about sameness; yet identity is also about distinctiveness, the ways that we can
“identify” someone as unique and hence different. However, identity is a contested concept in
the literature (J enkins, 1996; Bauman, 2004), but there is an emerging consensus across
disciplines that identity is constituted through interaction between the individual, society and
culture. Giddens (1991) sees identity as a process of becoming, where narratives of the self
are negotiated and re-crafted over time, through and within the sense-making systems of the
surrounding cultural milieu that delineate sameness and difference (J enkins, 1996). Fromthis
perspective, we argue that identity is related to social and cultural forms, but is not
predetermined by them (Goffman, 1959; Holland et al., 1998; Lash, 1999; Creed et al., 2002).
Goffman (1959) was influential in developing this line of thought, placing an emphasis on
roles in shaping identity. He argues that roles become institutionalized sets of social
expectations, with stereotypes emerging as a more fixed formof meaning and stability. Thus
identity, in this light, is a product of internal-external dialectic (J enkins, 1996), the self is an
ongoing synthesis of self definition and external definition by others (Mead, 1934; Cooley,
1962). Symbolic interactionists explain this process by placing emphasis on roles in shaping
identity, expectations for behaviour and obligations to other actors (Merton, 1957). Goffman
(1959) calls these ideal typifications; social fronts, which become institutionalised as an
abstract stereotyped expectation which takes “on meaning and stability apart fromthe specific
tasks which happen at the time to be performed in its name” (1959, p. 37). As Atherton (2004,
p. 122) notes, “representations of entrepreneurs, and hence of entrepreneurship, tend to be
stereotypes and caricatured”. It seems then that enterprise rhetoric privileges entrepreneurs
as change masters to challenge the power of established elites; to be the architects of
Schumpeterian creative destruction.

Entrepreneurs in the media

We have argued an entrepreneurial identity has two elements, identity as “what”, the
categorical identity; and personal identity, “who”, which serves to differentiate one fromthe
other. Identity thus provides a means for calling up similarities and for social negotiation in
delineating difference (J enkins, 1996). The process can be understood as the juxtapositioning
of culturally available meanings and an enactment of these meanings. Clegg (1989, p. 151)
captures this rather well, “Identity is seen as always in process, as always subject to
6
reproduction or transformation through discursive practices which secure or refuse
particular posited identity.” The press plays an important role in discourse, the daily records
of entrepreneurial endeavour not only reflect, but shape society’s attitudes, understandings of,
and interests in the entrepreneurial phenomenon. Hall (1980) suggests that although
journalists typically present a news account as an ‘objective’, ‘impartial’ translation of reality,
this can be understood as an ideological construction of contending truth claims about reality.
It seems reasonable to argue that press accounts, although inevitably caught in the double
hermeneutic of our interpretation of journalist’s interpretation, do present a socially
constructed version of what it means to be entrepreneurial. This public arena thus offers scope
to capture any interplay between identification and identity; and to reflect on processes, to
informus of what might be going on here.

Airline entrepreneurs offer an interesting example of identity work through discourse and
narrative. Grint (2000) reports how Richard Branson wore a leather flying helmet for Virgin
Atlantic’s maiden flight; dressed as Peter Pan for the inaugural flight to Miami and dressed as
a pirate for the first departure from Heathrow. Indeed, much of the narrative history of
Branson was, like Michael O’Leary, enacting a colourful role and challenging the
establishment. Grint also talks about Freddie Laker, another pioneering airline operator
(2000:14) and describes how he “learned to speak in headlines and would do whatever was
necessary to get into the newspapers or on television”. Thus our choice of Michael O’Leary
seems to offer a suitable entrepreneurial subject and our “data” of press reports appear
justified.

METHODS, MISTAKES AND EMERGING CONSTRUCTS

Michael O’Leary is well recognised as an entrepreneur by the press, he has legitimised his
epithet by entrepreneurial actions. As CEO of the low-cost airline Ryanair, he is credited with
the dramatic turnaround of the company (Calder, 2003; Lawton, 2000). In 1991, O’Leary
reorganised Ryanair as a low-cost ‘no frills’ operation. By the end of 2003, Ryanair had
progressed from being a loss-making regional carrier to Europe’s 8
th
largest airline with profit
margins (over 20%) that are without precedent for European airlines (DG TREN, 2003).
O’Leary’s personal fortunes have prospered alongside the company, which was established
by the Ryan family, hence ‘Ryanair’. Although O’Leary did not found Ryanair, he has a
major shareholding worth in excess of £250m. We studied newspaper reports to examine
presentations of Michael O’Leary’s entrepreneurial identity. Our objectives were fourfold.
First, to establish if entrepreneurs have a newspaper presence; second to see if we could
determine what entrepreneurial roles were played out; and thirdly, to try to ascertain what was
going on, and why. Finally we hoped to develop some way of conceptualising relationships
between discourse and identity to provide an explanatory account.

Overview

We looked at newspaper articles published between J anuary 1, 2001 and 31 J anuary, 2005
using Lexis-Nexis Professional. The Irish Times archives were searched separately. Our first
trawl was a straight count of the number of articles mentioning O’Leary in comparison with
other entrepreneurial figures. Table 1 shows that this approach yielded 4213 articles.

Insert table 1 here please

Remarkably, Michael O’Leary, on average, appeared in the press three times a day,
establishing that he had a strong press presence. We also looked at two other airline
entrepreneurs, Richard Branson and Stelios Haji Ioannou. They too had a strong newspaper
presence, Ioannou appearing about twice a day and Branson almost ten times each day. J ames
Dyson, the famous inventor, appeared less than twice a day. In table 2 we looked only at the
7
national UK press to establish national presence. A very similar pattern emerged, but with
Dyson presented considerably less often. This seems to indicate that airline entrepreneurs are
considered newsworthy and that both Branson and O’Leary were national figures.

Insert table 2 here please

Given that Michael O’Leary is well recognised as Irish and a “character”, we looked at the
serious Irish press, the Irish Times, to gauge frequency in the purely Irish context. Table 3
confirms O’Leary’s significant Irish presence, appearing six times more often than Branson
and some thirty three times more often than Ioannou.

Insert table 3 here please

This suggests that if frequency is important, something interesting was going on. Goffman
(1959) talks about how in the dramatic realization of roles, the individual typically infuses his
activity with signs that dramatically highlight and portray confirmatory facts. If done well,
notes Goffman, these exemplary practitioners “become famous and are given a special place
in the commercially organized fantasies of the nation” (1959, p. 41). This seemed to be the
case for the flamboyant Michael O’Leary.

Problems

Our original method was to individually scan the material to discern descriptive themes.
Three jointly agreed themes readily emerged fromthe data:

1. The rational manager, at home with facts, figures and rational analyses;
2. The entrepreneur, leading the company by introducing new routes and new flight
innovations, such as the proposal of in-flight gambling;
3. The challenger of bureaucracy, leading other airlines fromthe front in challenging
governments, industry agencies and supra-national regulatory bodies such as the EU.

These seemed to fit well with a framework of entrepreneurial identity. The rational manager,
for example, indicated the enactment of superior business skills; the entrepreneur as doing
things differently and better; and the challenger of bureaucracy seemed to encapsulate the
stereotype of challenges as enterprising; all echoed the discourse of the stereotypical
entrepreneur. However, when we tried to fit examples into the themes, we disagreed about
which fitted into each category. Moreover, many of the articles contained contradictions and
overlaps, so that a convincing categorisation proved difficult and we lost confidence in the
validity and reliability of this analysis. We had found a multifaceted, contradictory bricolage
of style, content and processes including:

• Entrepreneurial business pronouncements typical of a high profile CEO of a fast-
growing innovative company;
• Incisive analyses of complex legal and financial situations;
• High profile media ‘stunts’ often aimed at competitors, such as turning up in a
military tank at Luton airport to jest with low-cost competitor Easyjet; but also-
• Vituperative, highly personalised, long running feuds with powerful figures such as
Bertie Ahern; but oddly, also an enthusiasmfor aggressively confronting Ryanair’s
customers.
• A willingness to actively engage the public in his jests.
• A verbal style peppered not only with humour, sometimes backed up by scathing (yet
comical) cartoon attacks on individuals, but often couched in profane and uncouth
language.

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Nonetheless, we were convinced that identity was presented in the data and that we were
simply analysing it badly. We saw a complex figure emerging from the data, someone rough,
sharp and aggressive, but a man of the people, locking into their ordinary everyday concerns
about air travel, cost and convenience but engaging through humour and straight-talk.
O’Leary is a charismatic man of action, ready and willing to battle to get cheap air fares for
the masses. Yet one who knows the routine business of Ryanair down to the last penny; a man
who taunts, teases and jests, using playground humour to lampoon and subvert authority by
drawing opponents into battles at a time and place of his choosing. An entrepreneurial
identity indeed, and one informed by the collective discourse, but with diverse, contradictory
and distinctively individual playful elements. As Barbara Cassani, the founder of low-cost
airline Go, (Calder, 2003, p. 96) had noted:

“It’s interesting that Michael O’Leary has this image as a rough-and-tumble profane Irish
farm boy. He’s a trained accountant who went to one of the finest universities in Ireland”.

The incongruity identified by Cassani gave us the clue we needed. O’Leary’s identity is
complex and his presentations of self reflected that complexity. Our attempt to categorise by
the content of what he presented was flawed because of the intrinsic ambiguity, what matters
was how he projected; in what ways and how did he manage the paradoxical roles. After some
trial and error, we shifted fromdescriptive categories to conceptually richer units for analysis.
Two ‘mechanisms’ emerged fromthe data, his appeal to the rational and his appeal to the
emotional. By presenting himself in these two modes, sometimes simultaneously, he
mobilises essences of the discourse to be identified with the rational entrepreneur, yet also
employs emotional appeal to identify himself as a particular individualistic entrepreneur, by
using the aesthetic appeal of humour, jest and clowning. Unfortunately this more abstract
categorisation does not lend itself to simple tabulation or counts. Instead we present our
analysis in examples explaining our reasoning and showing how O’Leary mobilises discourse
in his identification of self.

Method

Our method, a sociological analysis (Ruiz, 2009), is a type of discourse analysis. Discourse
analysis is heterogeneous with a multiplicity of models of analysis and endless possibilities in
the study of discourses (Alonso and Hyde, 2002). But the point of departure is almost always
the manifestation of some characteristics which play an explanatory role in the text. Despite
the bewildering range of methods for discourse analysis, there are some fundamentals across
approaches. Some forms take the discourse (or text) as the object of study, for example
content analysis. In this textual analysis, which is rooted in a positivistic tradition, what is
being said is the focus. But more interpretative approaches, seeking explanatory power, argue
that this is only a preliminary formand that we should use discourse as thesubject of study.
So questions about what the discourse does, lead us towards understanding the discourse.
Consequently, this type of analysis, a sociological discourse analysis, sees discourse as
informational or even ideological and as a social product. The analysis directs us towards an
interpretation of what is implied and invoked by the discourse.

Our analysis works iteratively across these three levels. Our first level, the textual analysis, is
concerned with the object in the newspaper articles, the entrepreneurs; how many, how often.
This allows us to establish that the airline entrepreneurs have a significant presence, and are
presented as a reality in the press. The second level is more interpretative and treats the
discourse itself as the subject. This is because discourse not only reflects meanings; it is an act
as well as being an object. Language both mediates and constructs our understanding of
reality and identity (Watson, 2009). Moreover, it is intentionally used to accomplish some
personal, social, political or business project. Here we are interested in meanings, what
meanings are constructed and how are they constructed. This then is contextual analysis; our
interpreting what is said to why and how it is said and how it is socially situated. This second
9
level has greater conceptual purchase because we are primarily interested in inter subjectivity.
In this case we want to know how the socially produced identity as an entrepreneur engages
with the idiosyncratic and individualist identity of O’Leary and to what end. Moreover, we
want to investigate how this is accomplished. It is also inter subjective in that our role of
researchers engages with these discourses, we interpret them in our subjective way. But inter-
subjectivity extends even further in that, to have meaning, a text has to be read or seen. In this
way meanings are thus coproduced by the speaker and the listener and importantly this
dialogue of meanings is itself socially situated. This inter-subjectivity is important because all
discourses, texts and the like, not only use, or represent, socially constructed meaning but are
involved in their creation.

Thus, to put this in another way, we are taking the content of the texts as our problematic.
This is, of course, very different fromcontent analysis where the text is the unit for analysis.
We problematicise this by asking what is going on here? Meanings are not taken for granted,
but questioned, so that our overarching enquiry is how are these meanings produced and used.
We ask what is the logic and what is the rhetoric in this discourse; how are we persuaded; and
how are we impressed? Underpinned by the assumption that discourse has an intentional
dimension, we enquire about the strategies that are employed to realise intentions.

Solutions

We decided to first focus on one example; probably O’Leary’s most significant battlegrounds
over the last 5 years, his feud with Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister (or Taoiseach) over
the break-up of Aer Rianta and the second terminal at Dublin airport. This was particularly
useful on several counts: the subject matter was Irish, thus reflecting our finding about
O’Leary’s strong Irish presence and the topic had a distinctive national narrative theme; it
was relatively contained; and, significantly, both O’Leary and Ahern as characters, are almost
ideal typifications of entrepreneur and politician. Figure 1 presents some key features of the
entrepreneurial discourse and provides us with a guide to the nature of an identity, especially
in contrast to bureaucracy. Moreover, the articles contained some of the most lively and vivid
interchanges between O’Leary and others. These 153 articles are characterised in Table 4,
showing the mix of reportage.

Insert table 4 here please

Michael O’Leary and Bertie Ahern: an entrepreneurial identity in action

Michael O’Leary of Ryanair is an ‘exemplary practitioner’ in the Goffman mould. He has
earned acclaimas a skilled entrepreneur, winning the CNBC Entrepreneur of the Year award
in 2005 and features in the Irish Business Press, as a ‘Father of Entrepreneurship’. But Bertie
Ahern is a formidable opponent; elected Prime Minister and influential in EU affairs. A
recognised statesman, winning the European Statesman of the Year in 2004, when in the same
poll, O’Leary won European Businessman of the Year. Their feud originated in the Dublin
Baggage Handlers strike in 1998, a bitter dispute where Ahern famously accused O’Leary of
'tooth-and-claw capitalism’ (Observer, 16
th
J une 2002). Ahern introduced a parliamentary bill
in 2004 to break up Aer Rianta, the state owned monopoly that ran the 3 major Irish airports.
The bill, eventually successful, was supported by Ryanair, but Ahern did not move at the
speed O’Leary wanted and animosity flared up. Alongside this debate was a heated exchange
about a new terminal at the notoriously overcrowded Dublin airport: who owns it, builds it,
where exactly is it to be built, who uses it and when. Fromthese data, we show how O’Leary
enlists and manipulates the power of an entrepreneurial identity; how he sets himself up as the
heroic entrepreneur, employing a rhetoric that resonates with enterprise and how he sets up
Ahern as anti-entrepreneurial. In so doing, O’Leary ignores alternative views, sometimes
even logic! For example:
10

“With a low-cost second terminal in place, Ryanair has confirmed it will base another 10
aircraft here in Dublin, open up 20 new low-fare routes to Europe, guarantee an additional
five million passengers a year, and this will create 5,000 new jobs here at Dublin Airport as
well as over 25,000 spin-off jobs in the wider tourism industry in Ireland.” The Sunday
Tribune, J une 13, 2004

The statement by O’Leary is obviously one of entrepreneurial promise but with
entrepreneurial conditions strongly attached. “If a low cost terminal is built…” suggests that
a) it has to be low cost, a reflection of Ryanair’s business model and only suited budget
airlines; b) but if you do it my way, as an entrepreneur I will create 30,000 new jobs. So the
presentation here is one of entrepreneurially wrought value generation with the implication,
assertion even, that only he as an entrepreneur could make this work in this way. It is a bold
entrepreneurial statement, strongly founded in the discourse about the generation of values. It
emphasises O’Leary as the entrepreneur who will make this happen.

"As the largest airline in Ireland, we are deeply concerned at the Government leaks over the
weekend which suggest that the Dublin Airport Authority will be allowed to build a second
terminal…..Competition has already proven effective in forcing improved services and lower
prices out of other State monopolies such as the ESB [Electricity Supply Board], Eircom and
indeed Aer Lingus. Two terminals run by the DAA [Dublin Airport Authority] will not be
competition." The Irish Times, October 22nd, 2005.

Beginning with a statement about how well Ryanair has done in the past, this polemic draws
heavily on the danger of monopoly. In particular, it emphasises Ryanair’s record compared to
state run enterprises. Here we see O’Leary carefully selecting his ground to challenge; the
logics of scale and the obvious advantage of the entire airport being run by one organisation
are ignored. He completely shifts the argument to one based on how well he has done in
running an airline, overlooking the significant issue that this is a terminal and not an airline.
It’s as if he is saying, “look at what I have already done for you as an entrepreneur, so let me
do more”. This presentation of entrepreneurial achievement is O’Leary associating himself,
identifying with, the entrepreneurial discourse. He subtly calls up his entrepreneurial identity
to strategically shift the debate into his own chosen grounds.

In Figure 1 we see the contours of entrepreneurial identification based on Hendry (2004) and,
in contrast with, Grey’s (2004) of contra-entrepreneurial indicators. This presents a template
for recognising the entrepreneurial qualities presented by O’Leary and the qualities he vilifies
in Ahern. In the following quotes, see how O’Leary shifts the debate to present Ahern as
contra-entrepreneurial and himself as enterprising.

Insert Figure 1 about here please

"In the first half of next year Ryanair will open two new bases in Rome and Barcelona. Why
does Ireland continue to mismanage its airport policy so that it forces all of this rapid traffic
growth to other lower cost airports in Continental Europe? Why are Ireland's airports so
uncompetitive? Isn't it time for change?" Irish Times, October 22, 2005

Here again Ryanair is identified as doing well, acting entrepreneurially and thus helping
Rome and Barcelona. In this way O’Leary is mobilising the entrepreneurial discourse. But he
also draws our attention to Ireland where the government is presented as resisting
entrepreneurial change and by implication identified with the contra-entrepreneurial list.

“Ryanair, Ireland's largest airline, has not been consulted on the location, design or cost of
these facilities. It is ridiculous that the second terminal and other planned facilities will cost
€1.2billion -which must be funded by passengers. There is a better way. Allow the private
11
sector to build a competing terminal. Charges would not rise for the next four years, if at all.
The Dublin Airport Authority would respond by lowering charges in advance of some much-
needed competition, just as Aer Lingus did when Ryanair first entered the market”. Sunday
Times, September 25th, 2005

This is another appeal to let the entrepreneurial O’Leary get to work. Passengers have to pay
dearly for bureaucratic management. Later, he begins to develop themes of risk bearing and
initiative linking unimaginative management to disadvantages for passengers.

“If the DAA is to proceed with a second terminal at Dublin, then force it to fund the project
from its own resources instead of gouging hard-pressed passengers. …Only in "Bertie's
Blunderland" are passengers faced with queuing to get into Ireland's main airport, as well as
to get out of it….

Here we see a shift from the rationality of entrepreneurial action into a more humorous mode
with emotional appeal, “Bertie’s Blunderland, queuing to get in and out”, this seems to
ridicule Ahern, but is entertainingly portrayed.

“Passengers would have a choice of airlines, terminal facilities and car parks. Competition
would have delivered these facilities by 2006, reduced costs to passengers, and improved
services. Competition works. Ryanair works. Ahern's transport policy clearly doesn't. From
the M50, where the cars don't fit, to the port tunnel, where trucks don't fit, to Dublin airport,
where sadly nothing fits, this government has repeatedly failed the Irish people. We have a
first-rate workforce suffering a Third World transport system. Unless we get rid of these
clowns and end the protected civil-service monopolies in the transport sector, then we will be
doomed to long queues and higher costs for many years to come” Sunday Times, September
25, 2005

Again entrepreneurial rhetoric is employed, holding up Ryanair as an example of competitive
excellence, but he turns much nastier. His aggressive language denigrates the lack of
commercial ability; he castigates his opponents as nameless ‘protected civil service
authorities’ that have to be got rid of, but he presents his arguments as an entrepreneurial
spokesman for the people. These are strong words, making much of bureaucratic failures;
inflexible and lacking competition, especially Ryanair’s entrepreneurial touch. O’Leary’s
statements are couched in the terms of entrepreneurial rhetoric and identify O’Leary as the
entrepreneur who will get things done- enactment. These resonate with the discourse and
make a rational appeal. It also presents his case as the creative destructor, attempting to
destroy the old and create the new.

But O’Leary does not rely on rationality in his role enactment, he enthusiastically shifts into
a singularly personalised entertaining identity with emotional appeal. We found himinvolved
in media ‘stunts’ to embarrass Ahern, such as being photographed with a giant copy of his tax
cheque; humorous advertising campaigns that tease and hold Ahern up to ridicule; engaging
the public in his jests, such as offering free tickets for emailing Bertie Ahern with requests to
keep his promises, often peppered with profane language. Goss (2005) suggests that
entrepreneurs shortcut to the emotional: to engage with, or become a follower of, an
innovative, unconventional leader is to gain the ‘emotional energy’ of entrepreneurship
vicariously through processes of identification. Goss points out that such entrepreneurs are
exciting to those who live within the constraints of social convention. This is emotional
contagion, an exhilaration of associating with a prime-mover. According to Goss, momentum
is thus created for new combinations to be embedded in social practice.

We argue that O’Leary’s distinctive self-identity play, his jesting and bullying, shifts debate
to unexpected ground. He pulls the rug out fromopponents, decentring and repositioning
debates. His identity play discomfits his opponents, and, we argue, is creatively destructive.
12
The Ahern debates resonate with the collective understanding of the heroic entrepreneur. Yet
threaded through the rational rhetoric are themes of clowning, lampooning, jesting and
bullying that suggest that O’Leary’s particular bricolage is distinctive indeed (Lash, 1999).
These themes are not separate identity categories; they intertwine with the identities of being
entrepreneurial and being the entrepreneurial self.

Ahern has been the subject of a number of cartoon campaigns by Ryanair, notably the ‘Bertie
the Builder’ campaign, which lampooned Ahern as a failed building project manager of
Terminal 2. This was O’Leary’s play as a jester. Boje and Smith (2005) argue that Bakhtin’s
(1973) carnivalesque, where the hero turns into a jester, is to be expected in entrepreneurial
identity. Entrepreneurs are ambivalent caricatures and the freedomof the clown’s cap allots
licence. The jester is “a universal character, more or less interchangeable regardless of the
time or culture in which he happens to cavort – the same techniques, the same functions, the
same license” (Otto, 2001, p. xvi). Thus, jestering offers wit and insight across cultures and
can then therefore be employed to challenge in new ways. Moreover, Oswick et al (2002)
note the power of the jester’s toolset, tropes that privilege dissimilarity, acting to suggest
ground-breaking change and decentring of conventional identities and meanings. In adopting
his jester-ish mask, through the subversive potential of laughter (Kuschel, 1994), O’Leary
takes a distinctive turn in his identity play. Through clowning, he engages and sustains public
interest in debates which are central to the growth of Ryanair, but might normally be of
marginal interest to the public, thereby enacting emotional enlistment (Goss, 2005). The
rationalist project of economic betterment, the heart of the collective understanding of
entrepreneurship, remains central, but the debate is decentred and subverted by humour to the
discomfiture of his opponents and competitors. We see this humour in advertising as Ryanair
employs cheeky, “end-of-the-pier” fun in its advertisements. But this goes beyond a quick
laugh, it can also be an attempt to draw out an opponent into seemingly playful battles – with
a hard commercial edge - in the media. These advertisements throw down a gauntlet and use
entrepreneurial identity to make play, to create a theatrical presentation of what was in many
ways a somewhat dry legal comparison of fares, times and conditions of local flights, again a
process of enlistment. The example below, a ‘knock British Airways (BA)’ campaign (Calder,
2003) shows precisely how this jesting, mocking, juxtaposes tomfoolery and logic.

‘EXPENSIVE BA----DS’ was the strapline of a 1999 Ryanair advertisement in the London
Evening Standard. BA were accused of greed, claiming that travellers would save by flying
Ryanair. BA complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the headline was
‘likely to cause serious or widespread offence’. The ASA upheld the complaint and Ryanair
undertook not to repeat it. BA then took the case to the High Court, claiming trademark
infringement and malicious falsehood, that Ryanair had not compared like with like. The
judge ruled in favour of Ryanair, but added that it was ‘immature’ for two large companies to
fight such a dispute in court. Outside the court, O’Leary cheekily accusing BA of adopting
bully-boy tactics, stating “Today’s a victory for the small guy, it’s a victory for Ryanair and
it’s a victory for the consumer”. So far, an airline industry spat, with O’Leary playing the
‘people’s champion’. But O’Leary went further in his humorous ‘play’ by placing an
advertisement, ‘IT’S OFFICIAL – BA ARE EXPENSIVE’. Identity was not only used to
promote Ryanair’s ‘brand’, it was used to shape debate, challenge established airlines, to pick
a fight that inflicted damage beyond the court ruling. We see how O’Leary jester’s cap
mobilised discursive resources, yet subverts it in a profane, but humorous manner, and all
playing out the heroic entrepreneur. His highly individualistic identity play draws this out
quite splendidly in the final advertisement. The mocking, the lampooning, the holding up to
ridicule, the inversion of conventional logic, through jesting and clowning is at the expense of
his opponents, and to the benefit of Ryanair. Thus, identity plays out a process of creative
destruction.

13
Another vivid example of self-identity play is O’Leary’s use of his entrepreneurial licence by
swearing, itself part of his bullying and jesting behaviour, but demonstrating his man of the
people credentials:

“Screw the travel agents – take the fuckers out and shoot them. What have they done for
passengers over the years?” The Observer, November 7, 2004.

In the same article, O’Leary also attacks the competition:

"Weber [Chairman Lufthansa Supervisory Board] says Germans don't like low fares. How the
fuck does he know? The Germans will crawl bollock-naked over broken glass to get them".

We found that he used obscenity regularly: “fuck” appeared 16 times; “bastard”, 24 and
“bollocks” 15 times. This unusual language adds verve to O’Leary’s projection of self, where
this distinctive identity manifestations formpart of O’Leary’s repertoire of shock tactics.
Ruddock (2007) describes O’Leary’s move from being a dull accountant to an exciting,
charismatic figurehead. He has earned a place in the hall of fame of exemplary
entrepreneurial practitioners and can be understood as identifying with entrepreneurship. Yet
his idiosyncratic practices are also central to his purposeful use of entrepreneurial identity to
gain strategic advantage for Ryanair. The dynamic entrepreneur, seen this way is not
inconsistent with the foul mouthed clowning. As Goss (2005) and J ones and Spicer (2005)
argue, harking back to Schumpeter; enlistment, the ability to draw other in, is central to
entrepreneurship. Goss notes how the attractive qualities of ‘the entrepreneur’ in our cultural
milieu taps into the emotional. The clowning, jesting and shock tactics may not fit an
entrepreneurial stereotype, instead it forms a statement of who O’Leary is, a personal and
unique identity. The plays on emotion, in conjunction with entrepreneurial rhetoric, create a
singularly unique entrepreneur.

Significantly, as the head of Ryanair, O’Leary has been responsible for the disruption of an
industry, operating as the disequilibrating force that has dislodged the protected market of the
traditional carriers fromthe somnolence of equilibrium(Kirzner, 1999). We can see Ryanair’s
part in pioneering the low cost revolution in the Single Market for Air Transport. DG TREN
(2003) contends that there is evidence of structural change in the European air transport
market. Indeed Ryanair now carry more passengers than British Airways, low cost fares are a
norm, weekend overseas trips to regional airports unheard of 10 years ago are commonplace;
creative destruction indeed.

Discussion and conclusions

So what does this all mean and how might we use it to further our understanding? We have
drawn on a diverse literature to problematicise entrepreneurial identity and to propose an
explanatory perspective combining collective and individual identity. We have shown what
patterns exist in the press and attempted to theorise what these mean and why they occur. By
employing a social constructionist stance, we find that entrepreneurial discourse presents an
assembly of entrepreneurial virtues. These qualities, characteristics and actions are valorised
as constituents of the enterprise culture to invent and fashion an entrepreneurial ideal type.
Thus we can see an identity category emerging formthe discourse, an entrepreneurial self.
The media, an integral player in discourse production, takes up and makes this recognisable
as it animates and personifies a collective identity by ascribing it to entrepreneurial
individuals. Thus we find the typifications of the entrepreneur, and their behaviours, are
amplified in the press. This entrepreneurial identity becomes a framework of the attributes
and qualities deemed desirable in changing environments.

In our analysis of Michael O’Leary’s presence in the press we see how he enacts the
entrepreneurial self. His presentations draw upon the rhetoric of competition but are
14
expressed in the vocabulary of enterprise (Figure 1). He legitimates his opinions, views and
actions by recourse to the logic and desirability of the entrepreneurial metaphor. This is
particularly vivid when he lambastes regulators and authorities as the very antithesis of
enterprise. But O’Leary’s presenting of his entrepreneurial self seems to go far beyond a
virtuous re-enactment of entrepreneurial credentials. He is not afraid to vulgarise in his rough
tongued polemics. His ostentatious displays are brash, uncouth invectives; his tirades employ
obscenity tempered with saucy humour. O’Leary plays with the collective identity to produce
an idiosyncratic but dramatic personal identity as a champion, a people’s champion, of
enterprising values. This is his identity, this is who he claims to be. He does so in his own
unique and colourful terms but couched and underpinned in the logic of enterprise.

In exploring entrepreneurial identity, we have found that identity is rather more than simply
something we have, or just about who we are. What we have done is to “defamiliarize”
(DiMaggio, 1995) notions of identity to show that is not well explained as a passive ascription
of qualities or personal attributes. Rather, identity seems to be something that we do identity
work to acquire. Once acquired, it can be worked to considerable advantage. Although
entrepreneurial identity is a relatively complex social construction, it can be usefully
explained by deconstructing into the two aspects of collective and personal identity. We
engaged with paradox and incongruity, paradox in the notion of identity as categorising with,
and identity as different; but also the incongruities at the micro level of O’Leary’s identity.
We explained the inconsistency of how someone educated first at a public school, considered
to be the “Eton of Ireland”, then at one of Ireland’s best universities as an accountant,
becomes identified as a rough tongued entrepreneurial jester. Thus identity, conceptually, and
in entrepreneurial use, provides a useful explanatory framework to help understand the social
constructions and applications of the entrepreneurial self.

In narrative terms, we can explain this example of entrepreneurial identity production and use
as primarily enacting a story line. The story line is an animation of the enterprise discourse as
a role enactment. But the performance of this role is not simply replicating stereotype, instead
the donning of the jester’s cap allows O’Leary to idiosyncratically play out, to considerable
advantage, his own scripts. The story line chimes with enterprise discourse to weave a plot of
enterprising challenge, but the acts, lines and even the costumes are O’Leary’s skilled
accomplishments.

These findings allow us to extend Goffman’s ideas about the presentation of self. Goffman
(1959) talks insightfully about impression management, how we act out the social roles that
people expect of us. Goffman captures an understanding of the complexity of identity; that in
particular contexts people may play out different roles. For Goffman, this acting out lubricates
social interaction, role expectations lead to understanding particular actions in context.
Goffman stops short of telling us much about what these roles are, and how they may be
enacted. What we are able to show is how entrepreneurial role expectations are socially
constructed from the entrepreneurial discourse. We show the congruence between what is
expected of an entrepreneur, role enactment, and what O’Leary does. Thus we are able to link
the micro of Goffman to the macro of entrepreneurial discourse. Within the milieu of the
press, we noted how role enactment and role presentation operated in a self perpetuating
spiral of amplification. How the newsworthiness of being entrepreneurial led to greater media
cover; in turn this may lead to a strengthening of entrepreneurial identity at the collective
level and most clearly at the level of an individual identity. This is what Tourish and Vatcha
(2005) call the poetic trope of attribution of agency. Indeed O’Leary’s acting provides
reportable news, thus sustaining his media presence. But the application of our perspective
showed that whilst the macro of discourse provides a stereotypical role expectation, the micro
enactment involved a repertoire of presenting to produce a unique individual identity.

For us, what makes O’Leary’s identity unique is his skill at combining rational and emotional
appeal in his presentation of self; providing both “bread and circuses”. The bread is the
15
rational appeal as a good businessman, offering cheap flights, increasing competition to
benefit consumers. This logic appeals to the rational and set in the context of the
entrepreneurial discourse, mobilizing ideas about value, competition and entrepreneurial
benefits. But the circus is entertainment, his jesting, his clowning, his undeferential acting out
of the rough tongued protagonist are set up to capture emotional attraction which seems to
overcome ennui about political squabbles. In classical rhetoric terms, as a reviewer pointed
out, this pattern is explained (Erickson, 1974) in Aristotle’s Rhetoric – the Ethos, which is the
ability of the speaker to convince the audience that he or she is qualified (credible) to speak
on the particular topic, the Logos, which is an appeal based on logic or reason, and the
Pathos, which is an appeal based on emotion.

We want to argue that this production and use of identity is purposeful. In terms of
construction, we see O’Leary’s transformation froma privately educated accountant to an
entrepreneurial hero ostentatiously championing air travellers’ rights as deliberate. Charlie
Clifton, an executive at Ryanair is cited in Ruddock (2007, p. 194), “…..who’s gonna run it?
Are you trying to say, we’re really like Southwest, but we’ve got a dull accountant running
the company?” It wouldn’t have washed. Michael knew he had to lead from the front”.
Boru (2006) also picks up on the influence of Southwest’s CEO Herb Kelleher, though
O’Leary claims to have modelled himself on Richard Branson (The Observer, J une 15, 2003):
“As Branson demonstrated, the way to punch above your weight is to shoot your mouth off”.
Whatever the model for O’Leary’s entrepreneurial self, his application of this identity is
purposeful. We see it as both strategic and tactical. We saw how he used the power and
license of his entrepreneurial identity to strategically shift and decentralise debate into his
chosen territory, to where Ryanair had strategic advantage. Indeed we saw identity employed
to attempt to disrupt institutions to Ryanair’s strategic advantage. Tactically, we argue that
such press exposure promotes Ryanair and O’Leary and markets their brand.

Our analysis helps explain the power of the entrepreneurial discourse. We see discourse
iterated as an urgent call to entrepreneurial arms, a mode of action and representation to
address some perceived need for change. But it uses a broad brush to sweep together a
miscellaneous grouping of attributes and actions as an entrepreneurial rubric. In this broad
economic and social scoping of the entrepreneurial, the emergent identity category identifies
with qualities, rather than whom, so the generic entrepreneurial identification is equally broad.
The label, an entrepreneurial identity, is thus sufficiently malleable to allow practicing
entrepreneurs to employ it to build their own individualised identity.

Schumpeter insightfully argued that creative destruction is what entrepreneurs do. But here
we can see how it is not limited to products; by taking a broader view we can see how identity
practices can be explained as an example of creative destruction in practice. The creative
destructor of established airline business models also aspires to be the creative destructor of
what he sees as the moribund establishment. Thus the idea of creative destruction has some
explanatory power outside its normal domain of the evolutionary replacement of product or
service. In this application, we can see how O’Leary employs his entrepreneurial identity to
destructively challenge the establishment in the hope of creating something new.

The contribution of this study is to extend our understanding of entrepreneurial identity
production and use. In so doing we have illustrated an approach for understanding the power
and application of the entrepreneurial discourse. By juxtaposing the notions of identity
category and personal identity, we were able to show that entrepreneurial identity and power
are not just to be read off the discourse. Whilst discourse locates entrepreneurs in a particular
entrepreneurial trajectory, it seems that entrepreneurial practices may be needed to mobilize
the constituent elements as enacted, or at least re-presented as enacted. It is in this way that
entrepreneurial action can become legitimised; an entrepreneurial identity becomes a licence.
We thus show how discourse can be put to work and can become a strategic tool in skilled
hands.
16

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Table I Mentions of leading entrepreneurs
(All UK newspapers including regionals and the Irish News tabloid)

Michael
O’Leary
Stelios
Haji
Ioannou
J ames
Dyson
Richard
Branson
J an-J une 2001 170 138 184 2052
J ul-Dec 2001 460 292 143 1830
J an-J une 2002 449 455 255 1526
J ul-Dec 2002 331 338 188 1407
J an-J une 2003 473 226 283 1627
J ul-Dec 2003 539 203 234 1492
J an-J une 2004 614 258 93 1522
J ul-Dec 2004 414 377 184 1687
J an-Dec 2005 360 284 193 1295
J ul-Dec 2005 403 241 124 1325
TOTAL 4213 2812 1881 15763

22
Table 2 Mentions of leading entrepreneurs in all UK national newspapers

Michael
O’Leary
Stelios
Haji
Ioannou
J ames
Dyson
Richard
Branson
J an-J une 2001 98 73 66 1027
J ul-Dec 2001 239 155 63 874
J an-J une 2002 267 266 93 776
J ul-Dec 2002 213 174 60 683
J an-J une 2003 317 122 91 767
J ul-Dec 2003 351 131 67 732
J an-J une 2004 377 146 33 719
J ul-Dec 2004 257 189 81 819
J an-Dec 2005 227 178 92 633
J ul-Dec 2005 249 148 61 711
TOTAL 2595 1582 707 7741

23

Table 3 Mentions of leading entrepreneurs in the Irish Times

Michael
O’Leary
Stelios
Haji
Ioannou
J ames
Dyson
Richard
Branson
J an-J une 2001 0 0 2 11
J ul-Dec 2001 0 2 0 13
J an-J une 2002 40 2 0 1
J ul-Dec 2002 26 2 1 4
J an-J une 2003 52 1 0 6
J ul-Dec 2003 50 2 0 7
J an-J une 2004 73 1 0 3
J ul-Dec 2004 58 2 3 10
J an-Dec 2005 76 0 3 8
J ul-Dec 2005 50 1 0 7
TOTAL 425 13 9 70

24
Table 4 Categorisation of the Ahern - O’Leary Interchanges

Ahern/O’Leary
Interchanges
Aer Rianta &
Terminal 2 issues
Type of articles about the
airport issues
J an-J une 2001 1 0 0
J ul-Dec 2001

29

13 Business analysis (1)
News reports (12)

J an-J une 2002

12

6 Business analysis (3)
News (3)
J ul-Dec 2002

9

2 Business analysis (2)

J an-J une 2003

17

11 News reports (7)
Business analysis (4)

J ul-Dec 2003

41

28 Business analysis (16)
News reports (10)
Quote of the week (1)
Company report/meeting (1)

J an-J une 2004

30

20 Business analysis (11)
News reports (6)
Self penned piece by O’Leary
(1)
Quote of the week/year
compilations (2)

J ul-Dec 2004

25

10

Business analysis (6)
News reports (4)
J an-J une 2005

63

56 Business analysis (26)
News report (27)
Private letter fromO’Leary (3
appearances)

J ul-Dec 2005

16

7 Letter frommember of public
General business analysis (3)
Piece penned by O’Leary
News report (2)

TOTAL 243 153

25
Figure 1 Identifying enterprise, contrasts with bureaucracy

Contra-entrepreneurial identifiers
Grey, (2004)
Entrepreneurial identifiers
Hendry, (2004)
bureaucratic management self-reliance
self-motivation
pedantic competitiveness
inert autonomy
unimaginative boldness, energy
uncreative creativity
inflexible initiative, innovativeness
producer focused productivity, efficiency
rule bound. willingness to take risks, personal
responsibility, self-regulation

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