Agenda

26 Mar 2025 10:00

BEH Workshop | Work at the Margins: A Conceptual Exploration of the Entrepreneurial Hustle

Campus San Giobbe - Aula Saraceno | Online

This seminar is part of the workshop series "BEH - Business & Economic History - BEH," organized in partnership with the Department of Historical and Geographic and the Ancient World (DiSSGeA) at the University of Padua.

Work at the Margins: A Conceptual Exploration of the Entrepreneurial Hustle
With Nicolai Jepsen, Copenhagen Business School

Zoom Meeting
ID: 820 3086 7543
Passcode: jhxcq8

The event is aimed at professors, students, and PhD candidates from the Universities of Venice and Padua, and the interested public.

Abstract
Entrepreneurs are hustlers. The notion of individuals hustling to reach their goals and the contemporary phenomenon of the “hustle culture” have permeated entrepreneurship rhetoric. In this article, we explore the challenges that come with appropriating hustle for research without reflecting on its roots in everyday language. Employing conceptual history methodology, we trace the evolving meanings of hustle in the twentieth-century United States, demonstrating how hustle describes a type of work ‘at the margins’ of formal employment. We find that the conventional portrayal of hustle as urgent individual action overlooks its reliance on the fluid boundaries of what is perceived as mainstream work. These boundaries have been repeatedly reconfigured by changing societal contexts or purposeful alteration through what we call margin manipulation. Our analysis advocates for a better understanding of the historical trajectory of entrepreneurial concepts, which enables more incisive critiques of entrepreneurship culture and ideology.

 

Language

The event will be held in English

Organized by

Venice School of Management

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