Very intriguing material as I am seeking best EA practice in business starting currently.
These seem to be the main points:
- EA has faced criticism due to unethical business practices by some prominent adherents.
- The "dark triad" traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are increasingly studied in entrepreneurship research. There is evidence they can motivate entrepreneurial intention.
- The researchers investigated if there was a connection between the entrepreneurship discourse in EA and dark triad traits, using discourse analysis of EA literature over 10 years.
- They found evidence that EA may have promoted dark triad behaviors like aggression, rule-breaking, and pursuit of power/control, which can lead to financial success but also unethical practices.
- The EA discourse on entrepreneurship progressed in phases from encouraging some risk-taking, to promoting "smart and illicit" traits, to focusing on aggressive risk-taking.
- More awareness, training, psychological support, oversight, and policy changes may help mitigate dark triad behaviors among entrepreneurs.
Ha, if only!
Unfortunately, this methodology of "collect some texts; extract themes that we say are salient" seems very common in the social sciences. Fixing the method is unlikely, but pointing out concrete errors still seems prosocial.
I'd give you 100 epistemic hygiene points to contact the authors and point out this error.