Bourdieu's sociology: a structured approach for entrepreneurship studies

This paper offers a sociological framework that doubles as a practical guide for the study of entrepreneurship based on Bourdieu's theory of practice. Bourdieu’s lens has been applied in organizational studies, and has strong potential in entrepreneurship studies. There is, however, a dearth of robust frameworks to guide its application. The result is a number of Bourdieu-based entrepreneurial studies with solid ontological vigour, yet lacking in methodological rigour. This paper bridges this gap by offering a framework that guides the application of Bourdieu's key concepts (Forms of Capital, Social space, Habitus, Fields of practice, Field of power, Homology and Opposition) to entrepreneurial studies. The framework offered in this paper emphasises the ‘spatial power distances’ between agents as the basis of choices, preferences and actions, and stimulates Bourdieu’s sociology as tool for explaining the dialectic between entrepreneurial agency and agents’ social environment. Using Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘homology and opposition’, this paper provides researchers, opportunities and tools for accounting for the conflicts and tensions, struggles and negotiations, agreements and disagreements that arise between agents, agential groups, and their environment, struggles and negotiations that give rise to, and shape their entrepreneurial practice. The framework provides for Bourdieu-based researches, guidance for conceptualization, data gathering and interpretation of the data, a guidance structured in such a way that all research methods and processes rigorously conform to Bourdieu’s ontological and epistemological implications.