The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire

A Critical Perspective on Entrepreneurship
Dark Sides of Entrepreneurship
Who is the “authentic” entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa?
Author: Koen Stam
Student number: 1942026
E-mail address: kwj.stam@gmail.com
Master: MSc Business Administration Entrepreneurship
Supervisor: Dr. Karen Verduyn
Date: December 19th, 2011

Contents
Preface ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5
2. Understanding entrepreneurship: the postmodernist perspective ................................................ 8
2.1 Entrepreneurship research .............................................................................................................. 8
2.2 Postmodernist movement ............................................................................................................... 9
2.3 Critical Entrepreneurship Studies ................................................................................................. 11
3. The narrative approach ................................................................................................................... 16
3.1 Story and narrative ....................................................................................................................... 16
3.2 The narrative approach ................................................................................................................. 17
3.3 The life-story approach ................................................................................................................. 18
4. The entrepreneurial identity ........................................................................................................... 21
4.1 The entrepreneur as subject .......................................................................................................... 21
4.2 Narcissism .................................................................................................................................... 22
4.3 Hero types ..................................................................................................................................... 25
5. Deconstruction analysis .................................................................................................................... 27
6. The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire ............................................................................................. 32
6.1 Early life experiences: the search for recognition ........................................................................ 34
6.2 Entrepreneurial life experiences: the American Dream ............................................................... 39
6.3 Life after experiences: the bankruptcy and beyond ...................................................................... 67
6.4 Who is the “authentic” entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa? ................................................................. 73
7. Discussion .......................................................................................................................................... 78
8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 86
Epilogue ................................................................................................................................................. 87
List of references ................................................................................................................................... 88
Dark Sides of Entrepreneurship - 2 -

Preface
The twenty-first century is characterized by an uncertain future caused by the worldwide financial
crisis. The increasing amount of bankruptcies and the rising unemployment, all create uncertainty
among the people. Still, many of these people still live and think according to the conventional
paradigm, in which maintaining security (i.e. job security) is the most important goal. They are stuck
to this old paradigm and therefore act in old fashion ways. But as the start of the twenty-first century
has showed, it seems that this way of living and thinking has become insufficient.
Therefore, to my opinion, people need to break with this conventional way of thinking and start
thinking more outside ‘the box’, like entrepreneurs do. They are the ones who pass beyond the
habitual, the passive and the docile, in which consumerism, work life, and education attempts rule us
out. They are considered to be the saviours of the economy, as they are able to create economic
growth and employment by thinking differently. They are embraced by the entire society for their
extraordinary capabilities and achievements and are considered to be the neo-romantic heroes of the
twenty-first century.
I do not want to endorse the ideological assumption that entrepreneurs are extraordinary people or
different compared to non-entrepreneurs. This assumption has often been endorsed, since
entrepreneurs are seen as people who possess unique psychological and personal traits. Still, it may
often seem that entrepreneurs are really different, especially in the way they think. But in fact, they are
no different:
“When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life
inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun and
save a little money. That is a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple
fact, and that is: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter
than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people
can use. Once you learn that, you will never be the same again.” – Steve Jobs
So as Steve Jobs argued, everyone is in fact able to break with their conventional life. It is only that
we should change our thinking paradigm and start to think differently in order to break with this
conventional life.
It was philosopher Allan Bloom who moreover argued that the great democratic danger is the
‘enslavement to public opinion’. Much of what characterizes a liberal democracy conspires to ‘blind’
us from critical issues in thought and fundamental principles. He therefore argued: ‘universities do not
need to concern themselves with providing their students with experiences that are available in
democratic society. They must provide students with experiences they cannot have in society.’ (1987:
256)

Throughout the years, I have become more and more interested in entrepreneurs. ‘People who see things
differently; who are not fond of rules and who have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree
with them, glorify or vilify them. The only thing you cannot do is ignore them, since they are the ones who
change things.’ (Appl. Inc)
However, all this positive span of attention towards entrepreneurs made that society started to eulogize
them. It is not wrong to glorify them, but we may certainly also vilify them, or at least critically
analyze them. This critical analysis of one particular entrepreneur, Dirk Scheringa, will be the main
focus of this thesis.
To end this preface, I would like to say some words of thanks. First of all, I would like to thank my
sister Josine Stam for her endless support and contributions to my thesis. Without her help, I would
never have been able to present my thesis in such a satisfied way. Thank you very much! And
secondly, I would like to thank my supervisor dr. Karen Verduyn for her support and suggestions
along the way.
I consider the time that I have spent on my thesis, although it took awhile, as very valuable. It has
certainly offered me many new insights. But the most important thing that I have learned is that we are
all able to think differently, if only we try to see the world through different (critical) eyes.
Koen Stam
December 19th, 2011
‘Your time is limited, so do not waste it by living someone else's life. Do not be trapped by dogmas —
which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Do not let the noise of other people’s opinions
drown out your own inner voice. And most important: have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.’ –
Steve Jobs

1. Introduction
‘Back in my old days, my security team would always escort me everywhere. It always seemed like an entire
ceremony. But besides this, nothing has changed. I have remained authentic. The older you become, the more
you will find your true identity.’ – Dirk Scheringa (Autobiography: 240)
Entrepreneurs are often willing to tell their stories to a wider audience (Pitt, 1988), especially when it is
about their own successes. These entrepreneurial success stories lie at the heart of every society. The
popular press, academic scholars and business magazines are constantly publishing articles, in which
they endorse the exceptional success stories of unique individuals like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson,
Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg (Beaver and Jennings, 2005). These men achieved celebrity status and their
outstanding reputation contributed to society’s heroic view on entrepreneurship (Schoonhoven and
Romanelli, 2001). Their prominent status in society makes them into the heroes of contemporary Western
society; admired for their ability to accumulate wealth and create economic prosperity (Whelan and
O’Gorman, 2007). It seems that entrepreneurship is embraced as if it is the new “goodness”, since it
promises to resolve problems, whether these have an educational, governmental, cultural,
environmental, urban or social character (Steyaert and Katz, 2004).
However, in this study we will not spend our valuable time endorsing the ideological assumption that
the “more entrepreneurs, the merrier” (cf. Weiskopf and Steyaert, 2009). On the contrary, this study will
critically counter this assumption, along with other ideological claims on entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurs. To give criticism is not a goal in itself, but ‘a critical theory on entrepreneurship will
seek to call into question the dominant and ideological claims on entrepreneurs’ (ibid: 13). So far, any
critical evaluation of the field of entrepreneurship has hardly been noticed in the mainstream of
entrepreneurship research (ibid). It is therefore interesting to start reviewing entrepreneurial stories, and
more specifically entrepreneurial life stories, in a more critical way. Entrepreneurial life stories are a
good source for exploring what entrepreneurs have to say about what they do (Gartner, 2007), to find out
what their entrepreneurial motivations have been and how their identity has evolved over the years
(Johansson, 2004: 285).
While we live in a world that offers a variety of stories by and about entrepreneurs, it seems that
entrepreneurship research lacks recognition and discussion of entrepreneurial stories (Steyaert, 2007:
624). For this reason, this thesis will be dedicated to the discussion of the life story of eccentric Dutch
entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa: The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire. The story line of this particular
entrepreneur seems to correspond with the common plot of other entrepreneurial biographies: the
entrepreneur is born in modest circumstances and by virtue of his own guts and talent fights his way
up to greatness. But, unfortunately in the case of Scheringa, his entrepreneurial dream fell apart as his
company, founded in 1975, went bankrupt on October 19th, 2009.
Scheringa’s entrepreneurial story captivated me. But soon the question started to arise: Who is this
entrepreneur? In order to try to find an answer to this question, I started to read his autobiography.

When we read an entrepreneurial story, we must bear in mind that we should always be and remain
sceptical towards their claims. A story told through the single perspective of an individual should
never be considered the whole story (Steyaert, 2007). This one-sided view may contain a certain
hierarchy, in which the individual is seen as the humble one, as the good guy. Written stories can be
misleading and deceptive of nature and can make the reader believe that the story is the “single-sided
truth”.
Therefore, in order to truly unravel Scheringa’s identity in this thesis, I will not solely use non-critical
writings such as an autobiography, but also more critical writings. To my opinion, it is only in this
way that I will be able to present a more authentic representation of his true identity.
My aim is to contribute to the existing entrepreneurship research literature in two ways. First of all, by
contributing to the critical mess theory, by looking at a wider variety of sources that are available in
the entire spectrum on entrepreneurship. And second of all, by contributing to the Critical
Entrepreneurship Studies by looking at the dark sides of entrepreneurship.
This thesis will focus upon two perspectives: 1. To explore how dark sides are played out in an
entrepreneurial identity and, 2. To explore how dark sides are played out in an entrepreneurial process.
Both questions will help us in order to find an answer to the main research question: How did the
transforming identity of the entrepreneur influence the entrepreneurial process in this particular story?
In order to give an answer to the main research question, I will try to present a critical and more
balanced representation of the entrepreneur’s true identity. Therefore, I will not solely concentrate on
the entrepreneurial life, but will focus on three different life stages in total: early life, entrepreneurial
life and later life. The analysis of an entire entrepreneurial life story makes it possible to present a
more authentic image and, besides, will show to what extent an entrepreneurial identity has evolved
throughout the years.
In this thesis, I will make use of the narrative analyse and more precisely the deconstruction method
(which will be discussed more thoroughly in chapter 5). The deconstruction method makes it possible
to find “hidden-meanings” in a text and in this way makes the text the object of its own inquiry.
‘Language is seen as a reference in that it seeks to connect with something other than itself, and in
doing so, becomes an object to be interpreted’ (Ogbor, 2000: 606). Deconstruction concentrates upon
recognizing the oppositions inherent in all texts. In this way, reality is seen as something that has been
taken from the text.
The analysis of Scheringa’s life story will not focus on the positive identity of the entrepreneur, but
will in fact rather focus on the dark sides of entrepreneurship. Why have these dark sides always been
ignored in entrepreneurship research? Why do researchers, the press and policy makers only underline
the positive sides of entrepreneurship? Do they serve a certain interest by talking purely positively
about the entrepreneurial identity and the entrepreneurial process? I highly recommend to every

entrepreneurial scholar to follow the path of the critical entrepreneurial scholars and in this way bring
the Critical Entrepreneurship Studies more into the mainstream of entrepreneurship research.
Table 1.2 Theoretical foundations of this thesis
2. Understanding
entrepreneurship:
the postmodernist
perspective
2.1 Entrepreneurial research
2.2 Postmodernist movement
2.3 Critical Entrepreneurship
Studies
What is the particular aim of this thesis?
To gain insight into the question: “who is the
entrepreneur?”
What are the foundations for this study?
“Non-scientific” postmodernist movement; “Verstehen”
(understanding); interpretive perspective.
Which criticism on the entrepreneurial discourse will be
endorsed by this thesis?
To counter the ideology on entrepreneurial identity:
(i) The uniqueness of psychological and personal traits;
(ii) The entrepreneur as a positive dimension
3. The narrative
approach
3.1 Story and narrative
3.2 The narrative approach
3.3 The life-story approach
What do we know about narrative analysis?
Knowledge derived from narratives is claimed to be a more
valuable source than scientific knowledge.
What are the contributions of the narrative approach?
Considering entrepreneurship as “local complexities”
without claiming direct relation to other context.
What makes the life-story approach valuable?
It provides insight into the heart, mind and motivations of
the entrepreneur.
4. The
entrepreneurial
identity
4.1 The entrepreneur as subject
4.2 Narcissism
4.3 Hero types
What do we currently know about the discourse on
entrepreneurial identity?
The entrepreneurial discourse only endorses the positive
sides of the entrepreneurial identity.
What do we know about the entrepreneurial identity?
There is no unique entrepreneurial identity. Rather there are
differences in identity among entrepreneurs.
Which heroic archetype fits the entrepreneur?
The neo-romantic hero seems to resemble the entrepreneur
of the current age, such as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson.

2. Understanding entrepreneurship: the postmodernist perspective
2.1 Entrepreneurship research
Throughout the relatively short history of entrepreneurship research, there have been different
attempts trying to define entrepreneurship. One of the earliest attempts was made by economist
Richard Cantillon who focused upon the economic role of the entrepreneur. According to Cantillon,
entrepreneurship contains the importance of the risk of buying and selling at an uncertain price. His
view was extended by economist Jean Baptiste Say who added the factors of production in the
definition of entrepreneurship. The definition was further extended by economist Joseph Schumpeter
who considered entrepreneurship as the process by which the economy as a whole goes forward.
Herewith Schumpeter considered even the ‘dependent’ employee of a company as a possible
entrepreneur (Schumpeter: 1934). Following Schumpeter, most economists accepted his identification of
entrepreneurship (Stevenson and Jarillo, 2007), except for a few people like economist Israel Kirzner for
example. Kirzner had a different interpretation of entrepreneurship. He believed that entrepreneurs
possess superior knowledge of market imperfections and will use this knowledge to their own
advantage.
The definition of entrepreneurship has long been debated and discussed and therefore it does not seem
surprising that entrepreneurs became a subject of interest. If entrepreneurship creates economic
development, then we need to understand those who provide it. Early on, economists already classified
entrepreneurs as unique individuals: ‘they have to be able to break through the resistance: to change
what exists in any society’ (Knight, 1921, Schumpeter, 1934). They started to consider entrepreneurs as
those people who have the strength and courage to challenge the accepted ways of doing things and to
break with traditional forces. As a consequence, Schumpeter described entrepreneurs as those with
‘super-normal qualities of intellect and will’ and ‘essentially more masculine than feminine’ (1934: 28),
whose ‘values and activities have become part of the character of America and have intimately been
related to general ideas of personal freedom, success and individualism’ (Collins and Moore, 1964: 6).
Ever since, economists started to focus on the entrepreneur as a unique individual and have tried to
uncover the entrepreneur’s masculine psychological and personality traits. Even the popular press
started to write extensively about these particular traits. This concentration led to the development of
studies that started to focus on particular entrepreneurial psychological traits, such as the need for
achievement (McClelland, 1961), locus of control (Brockhaus, 1980a), risk taking (Brockhaus, 1980b), values
(DeCarlo and Lyons, 1979) and age (Cooper, 1973). With the help of these studies, which were mostly
functionalist of nature, economists have tried to find the answer to the question: “Who is the
entrepreneur?”

In trying to answer this question, most economists have followed the footsteps of the scientific
modernist movement. This movement focuses on finding objective and accurate truth. However, as we
will discuss in the next paragraph, not every economist presumes that an objective truth exists.
2.2 Postmodernist movement
It was the postmodernist movement, the counterpart of the modernist movement, which became
sceptical of this one-truth science perspective of the modernists. According to the postmodernists, the
individualistic “trait” approach would not contribute to the understanding of the complex phenomenon
of entrepreneurship. One of the first economists who expressed his dissatisfaction towards researchers
who focused upon the entrepreneur’s psychological and personality traits was economist William
Gartner (1988). He believed that such an approach ‘will neither lead us to a definition of entrepreneurs
nor help us understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurship’ (ibid: 12). According to Gartner, we need
to perceive entrepreneurship as the creation of new ventures and need to reject the functionalist
perspective. In this latter perspective, economists consider the entrepreneur as ‘a fixed state of
existence’ or as an “existing entity” (Carland, Hoy, Boulton and Carland 1984: 355).
Besides Gartner, it was economist Richard Swedberg (1999) who moreover emphasized that
psychological studies have ‘a fairly low status among social scientists who study entrepreneurship’.
He argued that the attempt to single out psychological traits is considered to have failed: that such a
personality exists in the first place has also been seriously doubted’ (p. 32). In today’s theory, it should
be taken into account that the singular traits of isolated individuals, no matter how impressive, are
insufficient in helping to understand entrepreneurship (Schoonhoven and Romanelli, 2009: 228).
Already earlier on, Gartner had criticized the functionalist perspective when he suggested that: ‘It has
been consistently pointed out in reviews of literature on entrepreneurship […] that variables that are
assumed to differentiate entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs […] do not bear up frequently under
close scrutiny. Yet the search for these elusive variables continues, and entrepreneurs and prospective
entrepreneurs are subjected to batteries of psychological tests in order to isolate the single spring that
makes them think differently from others’ (Gartner, 1985: 697). This approach to entrepreneurship
research remains understandably persistent (Gartner, 1988) because entrepreneurs are often portrayed as
exceptional people who achieve unique things that most of us do not achieve. These achievements, as
we assume, must be based upon exceptional inner qualities. However, Gartner was of the opinion that
it would be highly necessary to step outside this specific way of thinking.
Gartner’s counterintuitive thought was at first not recognized. But fifteen years after his 1988
publication, the focus on the individual in entrepreneurship research was declared a myth after all
(Schoonhoven and Romanelli: 2001). But surprisingly to this very day, ‘this myth of the lonely only
entrepreneur’ (ibid: 385) still persists in popular culture, in many entrepreneurial biographies and

educational programmes (Warren, 2005), and even in ‘academic arguments that seek to legitimize
entrepreneurship as an academic field’ (Steyaert, 2007: 738).
Lessons learned from social sciences
Gartner encountered resistance when expressing his point of view in 1988, because he was writing in a
time in which individualism was particularly rising (Steyaert, 2007). Quotes by public figures, such as
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, provoked this kind of individualism. Both figures emphasized
the rise of the entrepreneurial individual and the individualized lifestyle, particularly in America. It
was a culture of narcissism and me-first attitude that flourished (Hjorth and Steyaert, 2006; Steyaert, 2007).
This celebration of the cultural narrative of heroic individualism in the eighties contrasted vigorously
with a particular development that occurred within the social sciences, the so-called narrative turn
(Hjorth and Steyaert, 2004). In the social sciences, a discussion started to arise whether the individual
should be replaced as the central theme of research.
Whereas this debate was discussed in the humanities and social sciences, it was up till then never
mentioned in entrepreneurship research. This particular debate can be traced back to philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche (Steyaert, 2007). Nietzsche conceived both “the world” and “the self” as becoming;
not related to being or any presence of stability’ (2007: 740). Because it was Gartner who criticized the
functionalist perspective as one of the first, he unconsciously coincided with both Nietzsche and the
postmodernist movement (Steyaert 2007). Economists wondered what would have happened if Gartner,
instead of his behavioural approach in which he concentrated upon the creation of organizations, had
chosen the narrative approach already in 1988. But this particular debate never came to the limelight
in entrepreneurial research and therefore economists moved their attention from “the individual” and
“organization creation” towards “the opportunity”. The notion of opportunity started to become a key
term in most entrepreneurship research (Krueger, 2003), but it was soon criticized and discussed. On the
one hand, economists considered “the opportunity” as “existing”, where others perceived it as
something that “emerges” or “becomes” (Fletcher, 2006).
Processual approach
It is this “becoming” perspective of Nietzsche that became a serious European research approach in
entrepreneurship research starting in the late nineties, the so-called processual approach. Through this
approach, researchers attempted to perceive entrepreneurship as an ongoing process: a process of
becoming (Steyaert, 1998). As economist Chris Steyaert stated, ‘entrepreneurship is always going on, a
journey more with surprises than with predictable patterns. As such, every entrepreneurial endeavor
follows and writes its own story’ (ibid 15). With this claim, he argued to see entrepreneurial endeavors
as “local complexities”. Herewith he invalidated the scientific method. The processual, non-scientific,
approach was seen as a more appropriate way to develop knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship,
since it is able to address the highly dynamic entrepreneurial reality more closely than when using the
functionalistic approach (Stevenson and Harmeling, 1990).

Still, this non-scientific method also has its implications (Steyaert, 1998). At first, research on
entrepreneurial companies is there to represent an objective and accurate depiction of reality, in order
to explain and predict entrepreneurial action (the scientific method). But by using the processual
approach, researchers do not consider entrepreneurship as a fixed entity, but rather as a constructionist
view of reality. Secondly, where science focuses on a single truth, the processual approach presents a
diversity of paradigmatic perspectives to study entrepreneurship. Therefore, researchers need to be
skeptical of the one-truth science and rather focus on multi-perspective realities. At last, when using a
processual approach, the question arises whether researchers should aim at an overall theory of
entrepreneurship or whether they should focus on producing “locally valid” theory. The latter involves
holistic studies that focus on creating “local knowledge” and “fragments” of entrepreneurial reality,
without claiming any direct context to other texts (Steyaert, Bouwen, and Van Looy, 1996).
The processual approach coincides with sociologist Max Weber’s view, as he considered science as
“Verstehen” (“understanding”), as an interpretive approach (Steyaert, 1998). Because entrepreneurship is
always in movement and cannot be understood through static models, it was argued that
entrepreneurship would be better understood when an interpretive perspective, such as the processual
approach, would be applied. It would lead to the full potential of the qualitative method when research
will be considered from an interpretive perspective (ibid: 26).
2.3 Critical Entrepreneurship Studies
An important characteristic of the postmodernist movement is their aversion towards universal truth.
Postmodernists view ‘scientific truth and knowledge as merely a construction/reconstruction of
language within localized contexts’ (Ogbor, 2000: 606). They consider truth more as an account of social
experiences than as a larger universal truth. As a consequence, researchers should be sceptical about
beliefs concerning universal truth, grand narratives and knowledge (ibid). Therefore, some
postmodernists argued that in order to see the ordinary we have to free ourselves of conventional ways
of thinking that blind us to the strangeness of the familiar (Cooper and Burrel, 1988: 101).
An example of such an unconventional way of thinking in postmodernist theory is Derrida’s
deconstructionist method (1976, 1978). With deconstruction, one tries to find a secure meaning in a text
and seeks to unsettle the taken for granted meaning and assumptions of the same text. According to
the postmodernists, in order to find “hidden” meanings in a text, the reader has to use a range of
techniques, including deconstruction, to be able to make language the object of its own scrutiny.
‘Language is seen as a reference in that it seeks to connect with something other than itself, and in
doing so, becomes an object to be interpreted’ (Ogbor, 2000: 606). Deconstruction concentrates upon
recognizing the oppositions inherent in all texts. It identifies the opposite, the dichotomies and then
moves to reverse the opposition. Reality is seen as something that has been taken from the text. In this
way, postmodern deconstruction makes it possible to examine “hidden-meanings” that are silenced in
the discourse on entrepreneurship (ibid: 607).

It took a while before the postmodernist way of thinking started to influence entrepreneurship
research. Still, it was Schumpeter’s discourse on entrepreneurship that was already used to reflect
existing biases and knowledge claims about entrepreneurship. His statements about entrepreneurship
have made such an indelible impression that they have remained the most quoted (or misquoted)
sources in the discourse on entrepreneurship (ibid: 610). According to him, we have a tendency to
rationalize events, “to comfort ourselves and impress others by drawing a picture of ourselves, our
motives, our friends, our enemies, our vocation, our church, our country, which may have more to do
with what we like them to be than with what they are” (Schumpeter, 1934: 34-35).
Therefore, Schumpeter argued that scientists do not work with ideological neutral problems. ‘We start
from the work of our predecessor, our contemporary or else from the ideas that float around us in the
public mind’ (ibid: 350). He continued by arguing that ‘scientific ideas belong to the social
circumstances given to scientists and that analytic work begins with material provided by our vision of
things. These scientific ideas are almost ideological by definition’ (Schumpeter, 1954: 42). Taking
Schumpeter’s point of view into account, the essential problem is not necessarily when it can be
recognized that there is a presence of ideological control in entrepreneurship research, ‘but when it
exists as part of what is taken for granted and of what is unreflectively reproduced. As a consequence,
the status quo is constantly reinforced’ (Alvesson, 1991). Ideology thus has an influence on whether a
theory is accepted or rejected (Ogbor, 2000).
As most of these theories are based on quantitative research, it was again Gartner who contributed to
the postmodernist criticism, as he found himself in the position of considering the value of qualitative
research in a field that appeared to be turning more and more towards quantitative studies as the
standard for offering acceptable evidence about the nature of entrepreneurship (2004: 200). He argued
that the difficulty of generating and reporting the findings of a qualitative research effort seems to
stem from the experience of getting overwhelmed with too much information, rather than too little.
However, some researchers argued that the best way to become a connoisseur in a particular field is
exactly to work in this entire spectrum of what is available. ‘If you’re going to spend your time
looking only at the best, you are not going to have a critical eye’ (Singer, 2001 in Gartner, 2004: 201) So
according to Gartner, qualitative researchers are likely to be the connoisseurs of entrepreneurship
scholarship, only because they are more likely to immerse themselves in a greater depth and a wider
variety of situations in which entrepreneurship occurs (ibid: 201). Herewith, he refers to the “critical
mess theory”.
The critical mess theory contains all scholarly and non-scholarly contributions to the field of
entrepreneurship research. Imagine all the journal articles, monographs, books, working papers and all
the other paraphernalia generated by entrepreneurship academics, as well as all the other material on
entrepreneurship that has been generated by government agencies, magazines, newspapers, television

programs, biographers, non-fiction writers, fiction writers and by entrepreneurs. This is what Gartner
calls the “critical mess” (Gartner, 2004: 201).
The fear of Gartner is that many entrepreneurship researchers may be willing to create a small “critical
mess” and herewith determine the scope of their ideas which in the end will lead to less engaging
ideas about entrepreneurship. New knowledge will only be attributed to the field of entrepreneurship
research when a broad critical mess will be used. Only those theories that will truly matter in the field
of entrepreneurship will be derived from those individuals who really have developed a critical eye
(ibid: 212). According to Gartner, this critical eye will only occur when there is a willingness to look at
a wider variety of sources of information: the critical mess in entrepreneurship. It is only in this way
that a true understanding of entrepreneurship could be established.
Contributions to the critical mess theory
One of the contributions to the critical mess theory was the call for an emancipatory perspective in
entrepreneurship research. The emancipatory perspective concentrates on the entrepreneurial efforts to
bring about changes in relevant economic, social, institutional and cultural environments, rather than
focusing solely on the entrepreneurial efforts to create wealth. Therefore, they introduced the notion of
“entrepreneuring” which refers to the efforts to bring about new economic, social, institutional, and
cultural environments through the actions of an individual or group of individuals (Rindova, Barry and
Ketchen, 2009: 477) The fact is, that despite the abundance of evidence that exists about the diversity of
entrepreneurial intensions, entrepreneurship researchers have paid little attention to how certain
entrepreneurial motivations such as the wish for “autonomy”, “expression of personal values”, and
“making a difference in the world” can be seen as real motives for becoming an entrepreneur. (Baker
and Pollock, 2007).
Rindova et al. criticized the fact that researchers explicitly or implicitly share an underlying
assumption that wealth creation is the fundamental goal of entrepreneurial efforts (2009: 477). They
were the ones that argued that anecdotal evidence exists which can tell us that entrepreneurs are often
engaged in “entrepreneuring” for other motives than wealth. The purpose in their attempt to
understand the field of entrepreneurship is to give closer consideration to entrepreneurs’ dreams for
autonomy and change and for the process through which these dreams, as opposed to the pursuit of
wealth, may be accomplished (ibid: 479). In order to understand their emancipatory potential, the
emancipatory perspective emphasizes that entrepreneurship research should closely consider the social
change that is embedded in many entrepreneurial projects. Therefore, they suggested that a distinction
between regular (focus on wealth creation) and social entrepreneurship should be seen as an
unnecessary, and even potentially invalid, distinction, since most entrepreneurs seek to improve their
economic positions by creating a broader social change. (Lounsbury, 2001; Rindova and Fombrun, 2001;
Weber, Heinze, and DeSoucey, 2008).

Besides the emancipatory perspective, the criticism on the consistent and congenital failure to identify
the entrepreneur positively (Jones and Spicer, 2005: 235) can also be seen as a contribution to the critical
mess theory. It was noticed that most researchers are ‘obsessed with quantitative data that tend to
maintain consistency with the dominant ideology’ in which the entrepreneur is constantly seen in a
positive way (Ogbor, 2000: 624). The consequence of this approach in entrepreneurial discourse is that,
for plausibility’s sake, new hypothesis must coincide with established theories, including their
normative biases and corresponding methodologies. In doing so, the conventional “empirical”
evidence about entrepreneurship is produced and reproduced by what philosopher Paul Feyerabend
(1975: 35) called a ‘procedure that quotes as its justification the same very evidence it has produced’.
Therefore, economists have argued for more critical perspectives in entrepreneurship research; to
bring it more to the “mainstream” rather than only alongside the mainstream (Weiskopf and Steyaert, 2009:
13). For now it is still the “struggle of a critical theory that like “David” intimidates and surprises the
“Goliath” of the mainstream (ibid: 8). A critical theory of the entrepreneur will seek to call into
question the dominant ideology concerning the entrepreneur (ibid: 13). Criticism can invalidate the
often over-optimistic and one-sided attributions to the positive dimension on entrepreneurship.
Studies in the field of entrepreneurship need to be more critical, creative and innovative if we want to
understand entrepreneurship (Jones and Spicer, 2009). This “entrepreneurial” approach was also
mentioned by economist Chia (1996), as he called for an upstream way of thinking instead of the
conventional, scientific approaches (i.e. downstream approaches). He argued that while the traditional
scientific mentality emphasizes the simplification of the complex multiplicity of our experiences into
manageable “principles”, “axioms”, etc., it is the literature and the arts, which have persistently
emphasized the task of complexifying our thinking processes, for example by applying the
deconstructionist narrative approach (Chia, 1996: 411).

Table 2.1: Overview of postmodern ‘critical’ contributions to entrepreneurship research
Author(s) and Titles Criticism Method Conclusions
Gartner (1988)
“Who is the entrepreneur?”
is the wrong question
The psychological and personality
traits approach is inadequate to
explain the phenomenon of
entrepreneurship. (p. 48)
Behavioural
approach
Moving forward on organization
creation by applying the
behavioural approach.
Chia (1996)
Teaching paradigm shifting
in management education
The ‘entrepreneurial imagination’ is
the most important contribution that
university business schools can
make to society.
Deconstruction
method by Derrida
Cultivating the entrepreneurial
imagination in the academic
discipline; applying the “weak”
upstream way of thinking.
Steyaert (1998)
A qualitative methodology for
process studies of
entrepreneurship
Scientific theory of
entrepreneurship will never emerge
(p. 22); distinction between
exploration and explanation should
be rejected. (p. 26)
Paradigm of
“becoming”
Develop local knowledge through
narratives; consider qualitative
research from an interpretive
perspective.
Ogbor (2000)
Mythicizing and reification in
entrepreneurial discourse
Revealing the dysfunctional effects
of ideological control both in
research and in practice. (p. 605)
Discourse analysis,
Deconstruction
Draw attention to the effects of
ideological control in
entrepreneurship research.
Gartner (2004)
Achieving “critical mess” in
entrepreneurial scholarship
Entrepreneurial scholar looking at a
small mess of information. As a
result, their contribution is limited.
They should be pay more attention
to more source of information.
The critical mess
theory
Theories that matter in the field of
entrepreneurship will be derived
from those individuals who have
really developed a critical eye about
entrepreneurship.
Jones and Spicer (2005)
The sublime object of
entrepreneurship
Jones and Spicer (2009)
Unmasking the entrepreneur
Cultural criticism on the positive
identity character of the
entrepreneur. (p. 234)
Lacanian
conception
Prefer to see subjectivity as
complex and fragmented. Question
of the entrepreneur as subject is
now beginning to be posed in
organization studies.
Rindova (2009)
“Entrepreneuring” as
emancipation
They explicitly or implicitly
question the underlying assumption
that wealth creation is the
fundamental goal of entrepreneurial
efforts.
“Entrepreneuring”
as emancipator
Entrepreneurship research needs to
give closer consideration to
entrepreneurial dreams for
autonomy and change; potentially
destructive and exploitative aspects
of entrepreneuring with respect to
human and natural resources.
Weiskopf and Steyaert
(2009)
Metamorphoses in
entrepreneurship studies
Moving from the optimistic and
hegemonic allure given to
entrepreneurship.
Politics of
entrepreneurship
A more critical and reserved
consideration of the concept of
entrepreneurship to an affirmative
politics of entrepreneurship.
Gartner (2010)
A new path to the waterfall:
A narrative on a use of
entrepreneurial narrative
Paradigmatic mode of thought fails
to offer insights to the
intension/action/circumstance
condition (IACC) in
entrepreneurship.
Narrative gambit for
studying
entrepreneurship.
“The critical mess.”
Other researchers must have the
opportunity to undertake their own
analyses of the data and to make
their own judgements regarding a
researcher’s findings and insights.

3. The narrative approach
3.1 Story and narrative
Stories lie at the heart of every society. Everywhere we go, stories are being told. We live surrounded,
suffused and saturated by stories, some of which we have created ourselves through the conversations
with others. Individuals are constantly created and lived through personal stories. It is through such
stories that human experience is made meaningful (Polkinghorne, 1988). Storytelling is the most natural
way to describe experiences (Johansson, 2004). Besides social and personal narratives, there are other
kinds of stories, such as: histories, myths, fairy tales, novels, and the everyday stories which we use to
explain particular events. Narrative meaning is a cognitive process that organizes human experiences
into temporally meaningful episodes (Rae, 2000).
Because of its influence on everyday life and on human experiences, it seems logic that “the narrative
approach” started to be embedded in academic disciplines. The narrative approach was first applied in
linguistic and literary studies and was later on, in the eighties, extended to the disciplines of
psychology (Bruner, 1987; Polkinghorne, 1991), sociology and anthropology (Cortazzi, 1993). It took well into
the nineties until management research became familiar with this particular discipline. (Boje, 1995;
Czarniawska, 1998). It was in this same period that storytelling finally became accepted as a source of
knowledge for scholars in the social science (Boje, 2001).
After the increasing use of the narrative approach in the social sciences, it was suggested that
entrepreneurship research might also be able to benefit from the use of this same approach (Johansson,
2004). Knowledge derived from stories and narratives was seen to be a more valuable source than
traditional, scientific knowledge (Bruner, 1986). It was moreover suggested that a narrative approach
would be able to make a more constructive contribution to entrepreneurship research (Steyaert and
Bouwen, 1997). Individuals, and especially entrepreneurs, are often willing to tell their stories to a wider
audience (Pitt, 1988). In this way, storytelling can allow the reader to gain insight into the
entrepreneur’s heart, mind and motivations (Lodge, 1992: 182-183). It was Mitchell (1997) who was the
first economist who started to make use of narratives in entrepreneurship research. He emphasized that
‘apparently no “typical” entrepreneur exists’ and that psychological and personality traits only add to
the mythical status of entrepreneurs (Mitchell, 1997: 123).

3.2 The narrative approach
Narrative studies started to become increasingly prominent and tremendously used in entrepreneurship
research, when economists found out that this approach could offer many new perspectives for (re)
conceptualizing entrepreneurship (Johansson, 2004). Even though it had taken a while before the
narrative approach was finally adopted by entrepreneurship researchers (Hamilton, 2006; Hjorth and
Steyaert, 2004; Johansson, 2004; Pitt, 1998; Steyaert, 1997). According to Hosking and Hjorth, narrative is seen
as a process of creating reality in which the self/storyteller is clearly part of the story (2004: 265).
Narratives are relational socially constructed realities, since they are contextualized in relation to
multiple local, cultural and historical acts/texts.
Narrative studies can therefore help us consider the cultural, social and political construction of the
entrepreneur. It helps us to consider the limits and possibilities of agency, self and identity, without
reinstalling a self-containing and autonomous individual. ‘Rather than assuming an almighty subject
behind any given individualized agency to entrepreneurial acting, storytelling makes us understand
how narrative identity construction is effected by continuously balancing complexity and coherence’
(Steyaert, 2007: 734). As a result, Steyaert suggested to give some coherence to the complexity that
everyday life brings to us and that we bring to everyday life. The purpose of narrative analysis is then
not to dissect the story but to make it more complex (Steyaert refers to the notion of “complexifying”, 2007:
747). According to Steyaert ‘narrative analysis is then a way of explaining the universe while leaving
the universe unexplained’ (2007: 746). Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just because
everybody interprets it differently. This is the same when reading a story. Everyone is able to interpret
a story in his/her own way. Steyaert argued therefore to interpret a text (i.e. to play with it), to try to
knot it up a bit (i.e. bring coherence) and in the end to leave it even more complex than before.
However, it is mostly assumed by readers that there is only one way in which a story, also an
entrepreneurial story, will be told. In this way, certain assumptions and believes will be strengthened
(Gartner, 2007). In the case of entrepreneurial stories, these assumptions and beliefs have formed the
foundation of the “conventional” economic perspective that is mostly applied in analysing
entrepreneurial stories. On the other hand, the deconstructionist narrative approach makes it possible
to analyse entrepreneurial stories through different perspectives, such as cultural, social and political
perspectives (so-called “larger voices”).
It is therefore suggested, that an economic perspective should not be solely applied when analysing an
entrepreneurial story. A broader perspective is necessary in order to understand the complex
phenomenon of entrepreneurship. Gartner therefore introduced the notion of “the science of the
imagination” (2007: 623). Herewith he refers to the use of narrative approaches and the necessity of
asking “what if”-questions. With these questions, researchers could generate hypotheses about how
the world might have been and how the future might look like. Thus, rather than the scientific
approach, which coincides with Poper’s point of view (1959): ‘for an idea to be a scientific idea, it

must be testable’, the narrative approach is as Latour (1987) emphasized “science in the making” (in
Chia, 1996: 418). The narrative approach thus comes with its own epistemology (Gartner, 2007: 614).
Criticism on the narrative approach
Besides positive contributions, the narrative approach also seems to have its implications. Anyone
interested in entrepreneurship should be aware of the power of a good story about entrepreneurs and
their entrepreneurial acts. The tremendous variety of personal stories and accounts of entrepreneurship
in bookshops, airport lounges, the business press, television dramas or documentary programs is
evidence of the popular readership of entrepreneurial topics (Fletcher, 2007: 649).
‘But on the other hand, these narrative entrepreneurial accounts are often criticized for their anecdotal
character and inability to say anything significant beyond the person telling his story’ (Fletcher, 2007:
649). Those listening to the entrepreneurial story are often more interested in the person behind the
story than in the act of storytelling itself (Steyaert, 2007). So, where entrepreneurship research tries to
move away from the individual approach, the danger becomes that the focus will not be upon the
storytelling, but solely upon the entrepreneur telling his story. The story then ‘becomes admired and
attributed with sometimes mythical capabilities’ (ibid: 734). As a result, we might re-introduce the
individual entrepreneur again to the foreground of the analysis (ibid: 735). We are listening to the
entrepreneur telling “his” or “her” personal story, instead of analysing “his story”.
3.3 The life-story approach
By focusing again on the individual entrepreneur, the narrative approach brings back to life a long
debated issue, whether or not the entrepreneurial individual should be placed at the centre of
entrepreneurial inquiry. Although this debate was introduced by Gartner in 1988, it was never
mentioned again until the introduction of the narrative approach in entrepreneurship research. Ever
since Gartner’s 1988 publication, most entrepreneurial scholars moved away from focusing solely
upon the individual entrepreneur. These scholars started to redirect their attention towards more
complex process models, and as a consequence, never took into account the debate concerning the
entrepreneur as subject (Steyaert, 2007: 741). However, the narrative approach is able to recall the
entrepreneur as subject, without bringing the self-contained individual back to the foreground of the
analysis.
Gartner’s question “who is the entrepreneur” is then not the right question to ask (ibid). But if we want
to take narrative approaches seriously, the necessity of asking the question how to conceive, think and
understand the entrepreneur as subject and its relationship to the construction of identity, self, and
narrative identity will be high (ibid: 742).
While academic entrepreneurship scholars currently live in a world that offers a variety of stories by
and about entrepreneurs, it still seems that entrepreneurship research lacks recognition and discussion
of entrepreneurial stories (ibid). Therefore we need to consider Steyaert’s words when he argued, that

we might need to re-examine the disappearing act of the entrepreneur, which Gartner had introduced
in 1988, and to ask ourselves again: ‘where has the entrepreneur been in entrepreneurship research?’
(ibid)
In order to bring the entrepreneur back to the centre of entrepreneurship research, we need to introduce
a different approach within qualitative entrepreneurial research. The traditional way of doing this kind
of research is to conduct an interview in which a researcher asks the questions and a respondent
answers them. In such a way, it is almost impossible to avoid problems (Silverman, 1985), which can
distort the outcome of the interview. Whether structured or not, interviews are traditionally considered
to be interrogations (Johansson, 2004). On the contrary, the narrative approach can offer an alternative
option in which the interview situation can be regarded as a storytelling arena. This is especially the
case when the life-story approach is applied. The life-story approach refers to the totality of the
undergo experiences of an individual.
When conducting a life-story approach, the interaction between researcher and narrator can take
different pathways. Therefore, it is interesting to find out what the researcher can obtain from a
collected life story. Our experiences are coupled with our actions. Therefore life-stories can be
regarded as identity constructions (Polkinghorne 1988). In this way, a personal identity can be seen as a
construction of an emerging story. Life stories are a way of articulating and explaining who we are,
not only to others, but also to ourselves. Besides, there appears to be a close connection between how
entrepreneurs tell their life story and the way they run their businesses. The life-story approach offers
a convenient way to explore the diversity of entrepreneurial motivations and identity constructions
(Johansson, 2004). Observing entrepreneurs in an in-depth way is more likely to generate insights
concerning the inherent uniqueness and variation among individuals, than to generate insights
concerning significant differences between entrepreneurs and other “types” of individuals (Johansson,
2004).
Rae and Carswell (2000) were one of the first economists who started to apply the life-story approach
in the narrative field of entrepreneurship. They were of the opinion that a narrative approach would be
a productive and valid method, both in researching and facilitating entrepreneurial learning. On the
one hand, entrepreneurial learning can be seen as a process in which entrepreneurs learn from their
own experiences, and on the other hand as a cognitive process of acquiring and structuring knowledge
(ibid: 220). People are in a constant process of evolving and reshaping their identity and to try to make
sense of what they do and how they talk about it (Bruner, 1990; Weick, 1995). Watson and Harris (1999)
therefore argued that the notion of “emergence” could help to explore how people continually learn
through acting, experimenting and redefining their sense of how they work in a whole-life process of
development.
The life-story approach became accepted as a research method (Atkinson, 1988) and was seen as a useful
tool to gain new and deeper insights into the entrepreneurial process (e.g. Mitchell, 1997; Gibb Dyer, 1994:

Steyaert and Bouwen, 1997). Nonetheless, Steyaert (2007) tried to warn us for the personal character of the
story when using life-stories as data. Success stories make us believe whom entrepreneurs are and why
society needs entrepreneurship. These stories are especially reproducing the hard-working individual
who tries to make his way to success. Even when researchers use the “critical eye” in interviewing
these individuals, and when we try to give an authentic representation of the story, we should still
wonder whether or not the life story is really authentic (Atkinson and Silverman, 1997: 41-42). We should
take this notion into account when applying a life-story approach.
Because the entrepreneur takes part in an ongoing process (entrepreneurial process), we should
consider the entrepreneur as a dimension, which has a huge influence on the entire organizational
framework (referring to the framework of organization creation, Gartner, 1985: 698). As Gartner
highlighted: “We cannot see the dance without seeing the dancer”. The entrepreneur is not a fixed
state of existence; rather entrepreneurship is a role that individuals undertake to create organizations
(1988: 64).

4. The entrepreneurial identity
4.1 The entrepreneur as subject
In today’s entrepreneurial discourse, most stories are still positive of nature. The exceptional success
stories of unique individuals like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg are
still greatly endorsed in the popular press, in the academic world and within business publications.
(Beaver and Jennings, 2005). These men achieved celebrity status and their prominent status in society
made them into the heroes of contemporary Western society; admired for their ability to accumulate
wealth and create economic prosperity (Whelan and O’Gorman, 2007). Entrepreneurship is seen as the
“engine” for economic growth, competitiveness and employment (Audretsch, Keiblach and Lehman, 2006;
Miles, Miles and Grant, 2005). Entrepreneurship seems to be embraced by the public, since it holds the
promise of resolving problems whether these have an educational, governmental, cultural,
environmental, urban or social character (Steyaert and Katz, 2004). This dominant idea has shaped
society’s perception on entrepreneurship (Schoonhoven and Romanelli, 2001).
Entrepreneurial success stories are reinforcing the myth of the entrepreneur as an archetypical white
Western masculine hero (Ogbor, 2000), who is looking for dominance and wealth creation (Aldrich, 2005).
Still, I wonder why this positive attitude towards entrepreneurship is still so dominant in the discourse
on entrepreneurship? Why have the dark sides been ignored? It was the ancient Greek philosopher
Heraclitus (500 B.C.) who suggested that “good” and “evil” are both represented in each of us. He
emphasized that without contradiction there is no reality. Equally, Du Gay (1996) noticed that
contradiction and resistance are inherent in any social system. The social is always an inconsistent
field structured around a constitutive impossibility, as a fundamental antagonism (ibid: 71). And as
economist Kets de Vries (1977) reminds us, ‘just as in Greek myths, success may lead to excessive
pride, and then comes to fall’ (ibid: 39). These examples confirm the fact that it seems to make sense to
also start considering the dark sides of entrepreneurship.
Influence of the postmodernism
The postmodernist stream has influenced the way in which we analyse organizations and
entrepreneurial actions. Philosophers like Michel Foucault and to a lesser extent Jacques Lacan have
formed the foundation for several studies on organizations (Jones and Spicer, 2005). From both
philosophers, it was Lacan who started to focus extensively on language and how individuals,
consciously or unconsciously, construct the self in discourse (Lacan, 2001). This approach provides
crucial insights into how identity is constructed (Driver, 2010). Lacanian psychoanalysis suggests that
our identity, or more precisely the real image of our self, is always constructed in and through
discourse and that what we consciously claim to know about who we are and what we want is just an
illusion (ibid). ‘This illusion is constantly undermined by our unconscious’ (ibid: 562). Therefore, what

may seem real on the surface is for Lacan our fantasy designed to cover up a lack that is impossible to
get rid of.
The theory of Lacan draws our attention to everyday speech and to the question how we construct the
self in conversations and discourse with others. Nearly everything we say is consciously designed to
present the self as a definable, knowable and stable object. This self knows whom he is, what he wants
and he can obtain what he wants in order to fulfil his desires. However according to Lacan, this self is
an imaginary construction: an illusion or fantasy of the ego, due to the fact that the constructed self is
always constrained by language. When we try to articulate in an authentic way who we are and what
we want, we are always using language, which consists of words, structures and conventions made by
others” (Driver, 2010: 563). Therefore, the language through which we construct the self is not authentic
in the sense that it does not reflect who we really are or what we really desire. If we review Lacan’s
interpretation, the question starts to arise how it affects the “authentic” identity of the entrepreneur?
Many researchers have tried to define the identity of the entrepreneur. Still, most of these attempts
have never fully succeeded (Cole, 1969: 17). Brockhaus and Horwitz even claimed that ‘no generic
definition of the entrepreneur exists’ (1986: 42). This failure to define the identity of the entrepreneur
has, according to Jones and Spicer (2005) something to do with the failings of earlier researchers and
not with the object of enquiry itself (ibid: 234). They believed that this failure has led entrepreneurship
research instead towards an inquiry of “structural” factors without focusing exclusively upon the
entrepreneur.
It was Ogbor (2000) and Armstrong (2001c) who moreover pointed out their criticism on the defining
feature of entrepreneurship discourse. According to them, it is a consistent failure to identify the
entrepreneur in a positive way (Jones and Spicer, 2005) and this has been the case with all previous
entrepreneurial research attempts in trying to find the entrepreneurial identity. Actually, Jones and
Spicer argued that entrepreneurship research has not failed in trying to find this specific identity (ibid).
Instead, they identified something critically important, something significant about the underlying
structure of entrepreneurship discourse: the entrepreneur is indefinable; the entrepreneur is an “absent
centre”. Jones and Spicer emphasized, in reference to philosopher Slavoj Žižek (1989), that a certain
truth comes to light through the repetition of failure and that this has also been the case for
entrepreneurship research (ibid). According to them, the search for the subject’s character has
constantly failed, because researchers seem to have overlooked an important fact, specifically the fact
that entrepreneurship should not be seen as a coherent and stable discourse (ibid: 236).
4.2 Narcissism
Entrepreneurial scholars have not being able to define a universal entrepreneurial personality. Still,
according to Sigmund Freud, we are able to distinguish several different personality types in general.
Freud distinguished three main personality types: the erotic, obsessive and narcissistic personality

(Maccoby, 2000: 2), of which we can say that the narcissistic personality seems to have the most
resemblance to entrepreneurs (ibid). Narcissism is often seen as the driving force behind the desire to
obtain a leadership position. Moreover, individuals with strong narcissistic personality features seem
to be more willing to undertake the process of attaining a position of power (Kets de Vries and Miller,
1985).
Maccoby (2000) argued that leaders closely resemble the narcissistic personality type that Sigmund
Freud had described. The narcissist is an independent type and is not easily impressed. He is an
innovator and is driven to gain power and glory. He is an expert in his industry (ibid: 2). He is eager to
learn everything about what affects the company and its products. He wants to be admired and is very
aggressive in pursuing his goals. Narcissistic leaders have a great vision and are able to attract a great
amount of followers. Still, from all the personal types, the narcissist runs the greatest risk of isolating
himself at moments of success. Because of his independence and aggressiveness, he is constantly
looking out for enemies and sometimes sinks into paranoia when he faces extreme stress. At the same
time, the narcissist is very sensitive to criticism, is a poor listener, has a lack of empathy, a distaste for
mentoring and he has an intense desire to compete (Maccoby, 2000).
Narcissism can be divided up into three types: reactive, self-deceptive and constructive narcissism
(Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985). The first signs of all these types come into existence in the early life stages
of the individual. Reactive narcissists react upon negative experiences from their childhood. These
negative experiences take two spheres: the grandiose self and the idealized parental image (Kohut, 1978:
826). The grandiose self refers to the sense of omnipotence felt by the individual. As a child, he wished
to show his evolving capabilities and wished to be admired for them by his parents. But from the
beginning on, he was ignored and neglected. The second type refers to the illusory wishes of the
individual to obtain the idealized powers that he attributed to his parents, and the desire to experience
a sense of merger with his idealized parents. In contrast to the reactive, the self-deceptive is loved and
considered as perfect by his parents, regardless of his actions and in spite of any basis of reality. He
probably suffered from what Kohut and Wolf (ibid) described as “an overstimulated or overburdened
self”. At last, there is constructive narcissism. This type does not behave in a reactive or self-deceptive
manner and does not feel the same need to distort reality in order to deal with life’s frustrations. Nor is
he so prone to anxiety. Actually, constructive narcissists generate a sense of positive vitality that
derives from their confidence about their own personal worth (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985).
Taking these different narcissistic types into account, two questions start to arise. First, which of these
types have the most resemblance to entrepreneurs? And secondly, how do the early life experiences
affect the entrepreneurial identity if we relate these experiences to the professional life of the
entrepreneur?
Despite that the life of an individual is a unique gathering of experiences, we have seen that early life
experiences occur in vast patterns. If we relate this observation to common entrepreneurial stories, we

often recognize familiar themes. In most of these stories a person is introduced with an unhappy
family background. The individual feels displaced and seems to be a misfit in his particular
environment. These kinds of entrepreneurial stories therefore seem to have the most resemblance to
the life story of the reactive personality type.
This type can be an extremely demanding taskmaster (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985: 595). He ignores other
arguments if they run counter to his own ideas and it is only the solicitous subordinate who seems to
be tolerated; all others are “expelled”. Likewise, he cares little about hurting and exploiting others in
the pursuit of his own advancement. The employees or followers then only play politics in order to
survive. The reactive leader is characterized by his total lack of empathy. He totally ignores the needs
of subordinates and peers alike and he only keeps his attention to matters that concern him. As a
consequence, the turnover of employees will be very high.
The reactive leader’s personality makes him dysfunctional to make important decisions for the
organization. He hardly analyses the internal and external environment before making decisions. He
feels that he can manipulate and act upon his environment, so that he does not need to explore the
decision making part very closely. The environment seems to be ‘benign’ to him and his employees do
not object him when making decisions. Moreover, his grandiosity, exhibitionism and preoccupation
with fantasies about unlimited success cause him to undertake extremely bold and venturesome
projects. These projects are undertaken on a grand scale and are often doomed to fail. Their overblown
scale often reflects the desire of the leader more than they reflect the realities of the situation; too
many resources are placed at risk for too little reason. He does not reflect upon other people’s opinions
or advices. He thinks that he is the only one who is sufficient enough to make decisions and when
those decisions turn out to be wrong, he starts to blame others. He will never consider himself to
blame for any negative event (Kets de Vries and Miller, 1985: 596).
According to Kets de Vries (1996), the entrepreneur who possesses reactive narcissistic traits has a
feeling of low self-esteem, inferiority and helplessness, which are caused by his excessive control and
activity (ibid: 857). He argued that this kind of entrepreneur could not function in structured situations,
due to the fact that he has an aversion for authority because he wants to be in control himself. The
entrepreneur is, according to Kets de Vries, constantly in search of an admiring audience in order to
support the fragile sense of himself. He is surrounding himself only with “yes-man” and is expelling
the critical thinkers. His business career could turn out to be a rollercoaster ride, with both successful
and/or failing episodes. His success is considered by others as not deserving and as something that
arose from support of higher power. Still, failure is always expected to occur (ibid: 858).
All these characteristics are a consequence of the negative experiences from the entrepreneur’s
childhood, in which the father appeared to be the main villain. The father was in that period often
blamed for deserting, manipulating and/or neglecting the family (Kets de Vries, 1977: 50). As a result, the
entrepreneur started to become distrustful and suspicious of those who are in a position of authority.

The entrepreneur therefore starts to seek for non-structured situations in which he can assert control
and independence. He tends to deny his hostile experiences, but starts to project them on the outside
world (ibid: 55). The entrepreneur starts to express the same manipulative style of his father, in his
reaction to particular authority figures (ibid: 56). The company becomes an instrument to demonstrate
his ability to create a new reality derived from confused internal images centred upon conflict and
upon frustration with authority figures. This unrealistic dreaming will lead the successful company
into decline.
So, where narcissism in the entrepreneurial discourse is mostly approached positively (Rosenthal and
Pittinsky, 2006), we should also bear in mind its negative traits. Although being able to possess a great
vision and to be able to attract followers, narcissistic entrepreneurs are arrogant, feel inferior, have an
insatiable need for recognition and superiority, are often hypersensitive and angry, have a lack of
empathy, amorality and are often irrational, inflexible and paranoia (ibid).
4.3 Hero types
In the discourse on entrepreneurship, we have seen that the entrepreneur is often portrayed as the new
hero of the Western world. Throughout history we have had several heroic archetypes, such as the
Celtic hero (King Arthur) and the romantic hero (Robin Hood). Criticism on this latter type caused the
introduction of two new heroic types, which have become more common in today’s society: the neo-romantic
hero (Steve Jobs) and the postmodern anti-hero (Charley Chaplin). It is this first type of hero, the
neo-romantic, which resembles the narcissistic entrepreneur of the current era the most. The neo-romantic
hero is extraordinary, charismatic, gifted, talented, and attractive; recognized as an
exceptional individual, an extraordinary oddity (Kavanagh and O’Leary in ‘Myths, stories and organizations’,
2004).
The neo-romantic type can be divided up into two types: the “prosaic” and the “phenomenal”. The
prosaic or “low” neo-romantic hero is neither an exceptional nor a remarkable person, nor fits the
concept of the “great man”. He is an “ordinary” man, who can nonetheless be called a hero because of
the many struggles he encounters in his ordinary life. In contrast, the phenomenal “high” neo-romantic
hero is seen as an exceptional, singular person. This neo-romantic hero is benign and is mainly to be
found in the world of commerce and administration. It is mainly these kinds of entrepreneurs who are
loved and praised in the entrepreneurial discourse. Because they are the ones that have received the
most attention, it seems to be more interesting to start considering the underexposed heroic types, such
as the postmodern anti-hero. Even though this type has some resemblance to the prosaic neo-romantic
type, it should be considered as a totally different kind of hero. The postmodern anti-hero type can be
seen as the “ordinary” human being and thus as the antithesis of the archetypical phenomenal neo-romantic
hero. Although the anti-hero type can be divided up into the apathetic, cynic and egoist anti-hero,
we will only discuss the latter since this type resemblances the negative traits of the narcissistic
entrepreneur the most.

The egoistic anti-hero has a dark character and is motivated by a lower, primordial attribute and is not
willing to personally sacrifice himself. He is unable to resist temptation and engages in antisocial
behaviour, including bullying and tyranny. The selfish anti-hero’s life consists of greed, accumulation,
control and alienation. All these characteristics closely resemble the reactive narcissist, as discussed
by Kets de Vries and Miller (1985). Besides, the egoistic anti-hero also partially refers to Nietzsche’s
viewpoint on “the will to power”, which inspired Freud’s ideas. Nietzsche had argued that people have
a desire to feel powerful and that this desire originates from a weakness inside the individual, in which
men are not able to gain power over other objects and are therefore forced to bully a part of
themselves and others (through antisocial behaviour) in order to gain a sense of power. He described
these neurotic individuals as “weak” people and argued that such people could not maintain within the
real world (i.e. society).
So, taking into account the criticism of the postmodernists, the contributions of the narrative approach
towards entrepreneurship research, the negative traits of the narcissistic personality and the
postmodernist anti-hero type in stories, we can now turn to the story surrounding Dutch entrepreneur
Dirk Scheringa: The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire as start asking: who is the “authentic”
entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa?
Table 4.1: Narcissistic personalities and heroic archetypes
Narcissistic
personality Constructive narcissist Self-deceptive narcissist Reactive narcissist
Heroic
archetype
Celtic hero
(King Arthur)
Romantic hero
(Robin Hood)
Neo-romantic hero
(Steve Jobs)
Phenomenal
Prosaic
Postmodern anti-hero
(Dirk Scheringa)
Apathetic
Cynic
Egoistic

5. Deconstruction analysis
My aim in this thesis is to contribute to the existing entrepreneurship research literature in two ways.
First of all, by contributing to the critical mess theory by looking at a wider variety of sources that are
available in the entire spectrum on entrepreneurship. And second of all, by contributing to the Critical
Entrepreneurship Studies by looking at the dark sides of entrepreneurship. In Western society in
particular, the entrepreneur has been placed on a proverbial pedestal and is highly loved for his
contributions to society’s development and prosperity. However, not every entrepreneurial action
inevitably leads to success and prosperity. Entrepreneurial actions can equally so lead to a downfall of
a company or even worse, they can seriously damage a society. So when we bear this in mind, it
seems to me that entrepreneurship also has its dark sides and therefore should be a necessary subject
for inquiry in order to contribute to the critical mess theory and to Critical Entrepreneurship Studies.
Therefore, this thesis will focus upon two perspectives: 1. To explore how dark sides are played out in an
entrepreneurial identity and 2. To explore how dark sides are played out in an entrepreneurial process.
Both these sub-questions will help us try to find an answer to the main research question: How did the
transforming identity of the entrepreneur influence the entrepreneurial process in this particular story?
Peeling away the layers of the research onion
The epistemology in this thesis will be based upon interpretivism. Interpretivism is a critical view on
the positivist tradition. The interpretive perspective argues that the social world cannot be studied the
same way as the physical world. The ontology within this thesis will be based upon subjectivism, as it
relates to the philosophical stream of social constructionism. Social constructionists view reality as
socially constructed, subjective and dependent on social actors.
The first layer of the research design is defining the research purpose. In this thesis, the main purpose
is to try to understand the complex phenomenon of entrepreneurship. Within science, the most
common applied methods are exploratory, descriptive and explanatory methods. However,
postmodernists argued that entrepreneurship would be better understood when an interpretative
perspective, such as Max Weber’s notion of “Verstehen” would be applied. Therefore, I will use the
interpretive perspective myself in order to find an answer to my research question and will moreover
apply the inductive approach, since applying an interpretative perspective automatically leads to
conducting inductive research. In this way, I will aim at creating new insights rather than testing
existing theoretical claims.
The next layer is the research strategy. The most common research strategies are experiments, surveys,
case studies, action research studies, ground theory studies, ethnographical studies and archival
research. In the case of my thesis, I have chosen for archival research. Archival research makes use of
administrative records and documents. Although these data can be seen as secondary data, Hakim

(2000) argued that these data are a product of day-to-day activities and can therefore be seen as truly
valuable sources of knowledge.
The third layer is the research’s time horizon. Here, the researcher can choose between a cross-sectional
or longitudinal perspective. The latter implies a “diary” perspective, whereas the first can be
seen as a “snapshot”. In this thesis, I will focus on the longitudinal perspective.
The last layer contains the credibility and validity of the research. We can never guarantee answers to
be fully true, but what we can do is to reduce the possibility of getting answers wrong. Therefore, it is
important to focus on reliability and validity. Reliability refers, according to Saunders (2009) to the
extent to which your data collection techniques or analysis procedures will yield consistent findings.
However, the reliability and validity is less relevant for research that is based on secondary sources,
like my research. In this way, there is also no risk for generalizability.
Data collection
Whereas most students will choose to collect (new) primary sources, I will make use of secondary
sources. It has been claimed, that secondary sources can be seen as a useful source to answer research
questions, since they contain a wealth of data. Different researchers (Bryman, 1989; Dale et al., 1988; Hakim,
1982, 2000; Robson, 2002) have generated a variety of classifications for secondary data. Saunders et al.
(2007) built on three main subgroups: documentary data, survey-based data and multiple-source
secondary data. In this thesis, I will make use of documentary data. Documentary data include written
materials such as diaries, transcripts, speeches and administrative and public records. However,
written documents can also include books, journal articles, magazine articles and newspapers.
A total of four sources will be used and analysed:
1. Autobiography
The first source will be an autobiography that contains of the entire life story of entrepreneur
Dirk Scheringa. This source can be seen as a non-critical writing, since only Scheringa’s
perspective is included.
2. Biography
The second source will be a biography, which was written by journalist Frits Conijn from the
Dutch daily newspaper “Financieel Dagblad”. The biography contains data from newspaper
articles from two well-established Dutch daily newspapers: “de Volkskrant” and “Financieel
Dagblad”. Just like the autobiography, the biography contains the entire life story of
entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa. However this time, the story can be seen as a more balanced and
critical view, since it contains multiple perspectives.
While reading the biography and comparing it to the autobiography, it will become clear that the story
is told in two different ways in both books. The autobiography can be seen as a non-critical writing,
whereas the biography is written from a more critical perspective. Whereas both the autobiography

and biography are focused on exposing the entire life story of the entrepreneur, the other two sources
are more focused on the insolvency process of the company.
3. Report Commission Scheltema
The third source will be the autonomous Report Commission Scheltema. This report was
written on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Finance. They wanted to find out who was to blame
for the bankruptcy of DSB, since the bankruptcy had a huge influence on Dutch society.
4. Project Homerus
The fourth and last source will be the book “Project Homerus”. Author Kirsten Verdel was
able to witness the insolvency process from within, since Scheringa had approached her to
take charge of the media and communication activities of the company. Her book, although it
is according to herself subjective, can be seen as a different perspective that is able to give a
total new insight into the insolvency process. As she was able to witness all meetings,
conference calls and court judgements at close quarters, and was even able to speak with
almost every member of the Board of Directors and Supervision Board, she was able to
present a different side of the story from the company’s perspective.
Deconstruction
In order to fully analyse these four sources, I will use the deconstructionist method. Deconstruction is
one of the most popular used postmodernist methods in aesthetics. Deconstruction tries to expose and
undermine the frame of reference, and the assumptions and ideological underpinnings of a text.
Although deconstruction can be used for different methods and techniques, the process typically
involves demonstrating the multiple possible readings of a text and their resulting internal conflicts
and undermining binary oppositions (e.g. masculine/feminine, old/new).
In this thesis, I will refer to Boje’s deconstruction method, as he created eight guidelines in order to
deconstruct a story:

Table 5.1: Story deconstruction guidelines (Boje, 2001)
Stage Method Explanation
1 Duality search Make a list of any bipolar terms, any dichotomies that are used in the story.
Include the term even if only one side is mentioned.
2 Reinterpret the hierarchy A story is one interpretation or hierarchy of an event from one point of view. It
usually has some form of hierarchical thinking in place. Explore and reinterpret
the hierarchy so you can understand its grip.
3 Rebel voices Deny the authority of the single voice. Centres in narratives may even
marginalize or exclude. Which voices are not being expressed in this story?
4 Other side of the story Stories always have two or more sides. What is the other side of the story?
5 Deny the plot Stories have plots, scripts, scenarios, recipes and consists of a moral. Turn
these around.
6 Find the exception Stories contain rules, scripts, recipes and prescriptions. Break the rules and find
the exception included in the story.
7 Trace what is between the lines What is not said? Fill in the blanks.
8 Resituate Resituate the story beyond its dualisms, excluded voices or singular viewpoint.
The idea is to re-author the story so that the hierarchy is resituated and a new
balance of view is attained.
Each of these guidelines will be applied in this thesis, although mingled, in order to identify the
dualities, to localize other voices (than just the entrepreneurial voice), to turn the hierarchy of the story
and to deny the plot, and in this way create a new rendering of the story.
The deconstruction of Scheringa’s life story will not be presented in chronological order. Although I
will distinguish between early life, entrepreneurial life and later life, I do not tend to tell my side of the
story in a plotted way. Rather it should be seen as an antenarrative, as a fragmented, non-linear,
incoherent, collective, unplotted and pre-narrative speculation of how the story might have been.
Antenarrative
The notion of “antenarrative” was introduced by Boje (2001). Antenarrative is a narrative approach
and complies with Gartner’s notion of “science of the imagination”, with which he refers to the
necessity of asking “what if”-questions. With these questions, researchers could generate hypotheses
about how the world might have been and how the future might look like. The narrative approach can
therefore be considered as “science in the making”.
The narrative approach is seen as a sufficient method to understand and contribute to the field of
entrepreneurship research. I will focus upon the narrative method as described by Boje (2001). Boje
distinguished three stages of narrating: antenarrative, story and narrative. According to Boje, story has
traditionally been viewed as less than narrative. Whereas narrative requires a plot and some coherence,
the story is unplotted and simply tells the chronology. Boje therefore introduced the notion of
“antenarrative”: referring to a fragmented, non-linear, incoherent, collective, unplotted and pre-narrative
speculation. The “narrative” is the plotted story in which coherence is present. The “story”

thus refers to the account of events and facts as they happened. The antenarrative is the unplotted
“lived” experience. The antenarrative thus precedes the story, whereas the story precedes the narrative.
So far in this thesis, the notions of “story” and “narrative” have been used interchangeably, but from
now on, when I will talk about narrative, I will refer to the plotted story.
Table 5.2 Deconstruction, bringing the antenarrative back in (Boje, 2001)
Story
Accounts of events as they happened
II. “Dirk Scheringa, autobiography”
Deconstruction analysis
Another side of the story through deconstruction
‘Bringing the antenarrative back in’
Narrative
Plotted story, made more coherent
III. ‘Dirk Scheringa, biography’
IV. “Report Commission Scheltema”
V. “Project Homerus”
Antenarrative
Fragments of story,
incoherent, no plot
I. the Rise and Fall of the
DSB Empire”
The next table will give a clear overview of the perspectives and approaches that will be used in this
research:
Table 5.3: Understanding entrepreneurship
“Scientific”
Modernist movement
“Non-scientific”
Postmodernist movement
Purpose: To find an objective and accurate depiction of
reality; Overall theory of entrepreneurship
Multi-perspective realities;
Producing “locally valid” theory
Approach:
Entrepreneur’s psychological and personality
traits: to understand entrepreneurship through
static models
Process of becoming:
to understand entrepreneurship through dynamic models
Perspective:
Exploratory/explanatory;
Functionalist perspective
“Verstehen” / understanding;
Interpretive perspective
View:
Considering entrepreneurship as a fixed entity
and through an economic view
Considering entrepreneurship as “local complexities” and
through an economic, social, political view
Theory:
Conventional Entrepreneurship Studies;
Mainstream theory like “Goliath”
Critical Entrepreneurship Studies;
Critical theory like “David”
Dimension:
Positive dimension:
Identifying the entrepreneur in a positive way
Critical dimension:
Also identifying the negative consequences of
entrepreneuring
Thinking
paradigm:
Conventional, downstream way of thinking;
Simplification of the complex
Unconventional upstream way of thinking;
Deconstruction: complexifying our thinking process

6. The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire
Deconstructing the life story of entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa will provide us interesting insights into
his personal and professional life. In 1975 Scheringa founded his business empire. He took the risk of
becoming a full-time entrepreneur after experiencing a horrible car crash in which he as a policeman
had to render assistance. As entrepreneur, Scheringa started out as tax consultant but soon became
active in consumer credit activities, insurances and even in broker activities. From 1991, Scheringa
expanded his business further, as he started to focus more on banking activities. His company
transformed slowly from a financial intermediary into an official bank, which it eventually became in
2006. During its existence the name of the company did change a couple of times, merely because of
its developments. As it started out as “Frisia”, it turned into “DSB Group” in 1998 (where the first two
initials refer to its owner/president Dirk Scheringa), and finally turned into “DSB Bank” in 2006 (in
this thesis I will refer to Scheringa’s company as DSB). However unfortunately, the banking activities
took less than 4 years. On October 19th 2009, DSB was declared bankrupt.
Table 6.1: The life stages of entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa (so far): 1950-2010
Entrepreneurial life
experiences
(1975-2009)
Early life
experiences
(1950-1975)
Later life
experiences
(2009-2010)
“Who is the authentic
Prosperity entrepreneur Dirk Scheringa?”
Resistance
Downturn

Table 6.2: Chronology The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire (1975-2009)
Stage 1. Prosperity: From small towards medium enterprise (1975-1999)
1975 Established Buro Frisia
1976 Focused on consumer credits, insurances and
broker activities
1980 First acquisition: Nationaal Krediet Bureau
1983 Acquisition Crefinass
1986 Ended broker activities,
1991 Acquisition bank for advanced money
1991 Acquisition Nationale Geldservice
1992 Acquisition Postkrediet, Becam
1993 Acquisition Mohr en Van der Zee;
Frisia earned money as intermediary;
new credit regulations with respect to provisions
earned by financial intermediaries
1995 40 to 50 percent of all DSB credit loans kept on
own balance; Frisia became more a finance
company than an intermediary; Risks started to
increase;
Frisia acquired strong position in Dutch financial
sector
1997 Frisia started with securitisation of consumer
credits
1998 Frisia became DSB Group; acquired KFO
mortgages
1999 Preparation IPO
Stage 2. Resistance: From medium towards large enterprise (2000-2007)
2000 IPO cancelled;
DSB received small banking licence;
GE Financial interested in DSB
2001 Start selling subordinated debts and investment
mortgages
2005 Start offering second mortgage and single-premium
assurance policies
2006 Official banking licence
Commercial-, insurance- and bank division
merged into: DSB Bank
2007 Citibank offered 900 million euro
Appointment of Gerrit Zalm (June)
Not fraud-proof financial activities instigated by
van Goor and Scheringa
Sold two subsidiaries; improved solvability
Van Dijk fired (October)
Zalm new CFO (December)
Stage 3. Downturn: From large enterprise towards bankruptcy (2008-2009)
2008 74.6 million credit DSB Bank to DSB Beheer
Zalm left DSB and moved towards ABN AMRO;
Regular banking activities caused losses
Mismatch: long-term credits financed with short-term
customer savings
Project Homerus introduced by AFM and DNB to
dismiss Scheringa from his position as
owner/president (December, 11th)
2009 Zalm resigned, De Grave appointed (March)
Ended financial package deals, new business
model, DSB became Internet bank (April)
Paid out interim-dividend of 11.3 million to
shareholder Scheringa, total fixed assets to DSB
holding company 76.3 million (May)
Call to withdrawal DSB-savings (October, 1st)
Start first bank run (October, 1st)
Dismissal Scheringa (October, 3rd)
Scheringa signed covenant (October, 5th)
Second bank run (October, 5th)
Financial haircut introduced (October, 5th)
Agreement Emergence Liquidity Assistance, loan
obtained from DNB, all assets as collateral
(October, 6st)
Request for emergency regulation, refused by
court (October, 11th)
Follow-up request for emergency regulation,
approved by court (October, 12th)
Third en final bank run (October, 12th)
Bankruptcy DSB Bank (October, 19th)
- 33 -

6.1 Early life experiences: the search for recognition
Characters involved in early life: Dirk Scheringa, Scheringa’s family, former students, military servants, former members
Working Youth, Junior Chamber and Rotary club.
Born in 1950, it is Dirk Scheringa’s early life that will give us insight into how his entrepreneurial life
has evolved. As we have discussed in the theory part of this thesis (chapter 4.3 about narcissism), the
early childhood experiences of a narcissistic personality type can have a big impact on his entire life.
Therefore, we will start with deconstructing Scheringa’s early life, in which I will discuss the most
prominent events.
Move houses
The autobiography stated that Scheringa had to move houses frequently, as a consequence of his
father’s work. About these many removals during his childhood, Scheringa claimed:
‘I was raised in a sober and poor working-class family. […] The poor upbringing made that my father
had to work constantly. […] My father got promoted several times, which led to an increase of the
family income on the one hand, but on the other hand to the fact that my family had to move houses
frequently. […] As a result, I had to adapt each time to a new habitat and local language. It was hard
to learn these different languages, since they all had different dialects. […] I lost count completely. It
drove me crazy. From that moment I decided that later on, when I would be married with children, I
would move to a place that I would never leave.’ (Autobiography: 49-59)
Scheringa only reflected upon the negative consequences of the many removals during his childhood.
The biography on the other hand revealed that despite all the negative consequences, the removals also
have had a positive influence on Scheringa’s life:
‘Because of the many removals, Scheringa was able to develop skills that made it possible to scan and
estimate his environment. […] He compared himself with a rat, as he was constantly capable of
adapting himself to a new environment. […] He also created some assessment skills, which made it
possible for him to decide whether or not he should let other people come close by. He learned all these
skills as a consequence of the many removals.’ (Biography: 49)
It seems reasonable to assume that the many removals during Scheringa’s early life influenced him
positively as well as negatively. Whereas in his autobiography, Scheringa only expressed the positive
consequences, the biography presented a more balanced view. These statements weaken the
assumption that the many removals could solely have had a negative impact on Scheringa’s
entrepreneurial life.
Primary and secondary school
Another prominent event was his attendance at primary and secondary school. About this school
period, Scheringa claimed:
- 34 -

The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire

The Rise and Fall of the DSB Empire

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