Category: publications

2018 Updates

Angela Martinez Dy

onetech

Hey everyone,

Lots of good news to share with you for 2018, including a recent publication (and more on the way), a new research project, and some excellent events to come in the fall!

Please get in touch if you would like more information!

Love,

Angela

PUBLICATION

Martinez Dy, A., Martin, L., Marlow, S. (2018) Emancipation through digital entrepreneurship? A critical realist analysis. Organization (online first)

Abstract
Digital entrepreneurship is presented in popular discourse as a means to empowerment and greater economic participation for under-resourced and socially marginalised people. However, this emancipatory rhetoric relies on a flat ontology that does not sufficiently consider the enabling conditions needed for successful digital enterprise activity. To empirically illustrate this argument, we examine three paired cases of UK women digital entrepreneurs, operating in similar sectors but occupying contrasting social positionalities. The cases are comparatively analysed through an intersectional feminist lens using a critical realist methodological framework. By examining the relationships between digital entrepreneurship, social positionality, and structural and agential enabling conditions, we interrogate the notion of digital entrepreneurship as an emancipatory phenomenon producing liberated workers.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Earlier this week (19 June), Capital Enterprise announced the launch of OneTech, a new programme supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, that looks to double the number of female and BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) founders accessing investment by 2020. I am leading the participation of Loughborough University London by conducting a longitudinal study related to the Diversity in Tech activities.  The research will also provide lessons learnt for the programme leading to the development of a toolkit for the sector to support future strategies.

EVENTS

Human Relations: A Web of Opportunity or the Same Old Story?

Angela Martinez Dy

hr_cover

I am extremely pleased to share that I have had an article, co-authored with my PhD supervisors, accepted in the 4* organisation studies journal, Human Relations.

The abstract of the article is below, and it will be published online in 3-4 months. Watch this space for updates!

ABSTRACT

This article critically analyses the manner in which intersectionality and related social positionality shape digital enterprise activities. Despite popular claims of meritocratic opportunity enactment within traditional forms of entrepreneurship, ascribed social characteristics intersect to influence the realisation of entrepreneurial potential. However, it is purported that the emerging field of digital entrepreneurship may act as a ‘great leveller’ due to perceived lower barriers to entry, disembodiment of the entrepreneurial actor and the absence of visible markers of disadvantage online. Using an interpretivist approach, we analyse empirical evidence from UK women digital entrepreneurs which reveals how the privileges and disadvantages arising from intersecting social positions of gender, race and class status are reproduced online. This analysis challenges the notion that the Internet is a neutral platform for entrepreneurship and supports our thesis that offline inequality, in the form of marked bodies, social positionality and associated resource constraints, is produced and reproduced in the online environment.