Chasing and Stretching: How Entrepreneurs Reproduce the Rags-to-Riches Plot

Abstract

Entrepreneurs substantially increase job growth, social mobility, and economic development.
Yet, many potential entrepreneurs never start a business due to the fear of failure
and the perceived difficulties. Entrepreneurs may unleash their potential and contribute to
their societies if we better understand how and when entrepreneurial resilience develops.
I examine how three entrepreneurs reproduced the rags-to-riches plot, a revelatory plot
for entrepreneurial resilience when the protagonists are businesspeople, over their life
courses. I use the positive deviance sampling strategy, and select Vitali Hakko, İdris Yamantürk,
and Ataman Özbay to conduct a multiple case study to address this research question.
I follow the abstractionist narrative paradigm to analyze these entrepreneurs’ autobiographies
and archival data, and offer an actor-centered and analytically generalizable
theoretical framework. According to this analysis, the generating mechanism ‘chasing
and stretching’ enables entrepreneurs to reproduce the rags-to-riches plot without walking
down a dark path. While trauma memories, awareness of limitations and voluntary self-
restriction constitute the aggregate dimension ‘stretching’, emphasizing trauma, love of
work, embracing difficulties, and setting grand goals shape the other aggregate dimension
‘chasing’. The interwoven mechanism ‘chasing and stretching’ helps entrepreneurs to
improve their own and the world’s living conditions while embracing strong work ethics.