Discursive threads in entrepreneurship policy texts: A comparative analysis between The Netherlands and Kosovo

ABSTRACT Because entrepreneurship is socially embedded and influenced by societal discourses, this study combines content and discourse analysis to analyse entrepreneurship policy texts in The Netherlands and Kosovo. These discursive threads, as portrayed and produced by policy texts, reveal discursive nuances across these two contexts that each accommodate entrepreneurship in their own ways. Discursive threads within entrepreneurship policy texts, pertaining to (economic) power, protectorates, and enterprises, reveal constraints on entrepreneurial agency by enforcing a limited view of entrepreneurship. In a transitioning economy (Kosovo), discursive threads seem more rigid than in an advanced economy (The Netherlands). Policy texts in the former setting attribute entrepreneurial achievements to government intervention; in the latter, the role of government appears diminished and complemented by other explanatory factors. Policy texts in the advanced economy also exhibit a broader understanding of entrepreneurship, such that they link it with societal issues, instead of reducing the phenomenon to an economic logic, as is the case in the transitioning economy. These findings advance a more nuanced understanding of the relations among discourses, ideology, entrepreneurship, and policymaking, by bringing differences across social contexts to the surface, as well as linking policymaking to a contextual view on entrepreneurship.