Drömmen om den perfekta entreprenören : en studie av en svensk tidskrift före och efter #metoo

Abstract: Recent research has found that entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur’s personality traits have been coded as having a male gender. Research with a gender perspective of entrepreneurs has historically been focused on women as an deviation from the norm. This study aims to focus on the norm and who he is and how the norm affects him. In the wave of the #metoo movement a request for a new type of man arouse, the new and improved man. To research whether the #metoo movement has had an impact on the identity of male entrepreneurs we have looked into the biggest Swedish weekly business journal, Affärsvärlden. The chosen period was six months before and six months after the #metoo movement. From each issue of the magazine relevant articles were chosen in accordance with our definition of an entrepreneur. The articles were decoded and each paragraph was given a keyword, later got grouped into seven identified themes. The seven themes was discovered to function as success factors for the male entrepreneurial identities. The study results show that Connells (2008) masculinities use themselves of different success factors to legitimize their entrepreneurial identity and be legitimized and accepted by the other masculinities. These success factors are the different themes that have been contrived from the decoding of the empirical data; Growth, Family, Revenue, The world, Personality, Hobby and Environment. The hegemonic masculinity has access and uses himself of all the success factors with a main focus on personality, growth and the world to legitimize his status as a successful entrepreneur. The other masculinities legitimize and accept the hegemonic masculinity as superior since the hegemonic hierarchy is co-created by all masculinities together. Thereby the hegemonic masculinity is who is considered to be the successful masculine entrepreneur.