Why am I so successful? Self-presentation and deliberative attributions of success in entrepreneurship

Abstract

This study explores the complexities of causes of success mentioned in entrepreneurs' narratives in a broadcasted context. Building on strategic self-presentation and attribution theories, we employed inductive methods to map the configurations of public narratives explaining entrepreneurial success. The data analyzed were gathered from 173 reflective interviews featuring entrepreneurs on the United States' National Public Radio, using machine learning techniques for semantic content analysis. The results show that entrepreneurs can adopt three strategic presentation narratives to explain success in entrepreneurship. Significantly different patterns emerge in the three strategic narrative configurations. First, “lucky charming” narratives reflect an ingratiation strategy, mentioning external and uncontrollable causes of success to increase the entrepreneurs’ likability for the audience. Second, “work striving” narratives use self-promotion strategies to push for recognition of accomplishments, efforts, and intellectual abilities. Third, “social connecting” narratives simultaneously make use of ingratiation and exemplification strategies, including capitalizing on the positive signals given by the social support attracted during their entrepreneurial journey. These three discourse patterns have implications for influencing reputation and driving business- and personal-related outcomes. The findings provide a better understanding of deliberate appearances by entrepreneurs in broadcast contexts and tools for nascent entrepreneurs to leverage their role models among those with acclaimed entrepreneurial success.