Abstract
While cultural entrepreneurship research has highlighted how entrepreneurs craft stories to legitimize their ventures, we know much less about how entrepreneurs gain legitimacy for a novel organizational form. Drawing upon a detailed, historical examination of Japanese family mottos from the Edo period (1603–1868), we show how stories embedded in family mottos enabled legitimation by symbolically leveraging two core socio-cultural institutions of Edo Japan (religion and family), advancing our understanding of how broader cultural resources can be leveraged to legitimate a new organizational form. We discuss implications for scholarship on family business and cultural entrepreneurship.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 889-930 |
| Number of pages | 42 |
| Journal | Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 2 Jan 2026 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 May 2026 |
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback. They would also like to thank Mrs. Mitsue Masuhiro, who translated the mottos. We are also grateful to all friends and colleagues who have provided comments and encouragement along the research journey!Keywords
- Edo Japan
- cultural entrepreneurship
- family business
- historical study
- legitimacy
- religion
- spirit of capitalism
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Business and International Management
- Economics and Econometrics
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Spirit of Japanese Capitalism'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Cite this
- APA
- Standard
- Harvard
- Vancouver
- Author
- BIBTEX
- RIS