Suntae Kim
University of Michigan
Entrepreneurial Imagination in Detroit: Discovering Birthing Processes of Post-Corporate Alternatives
This paper proposes ethnographic field research on the entrepreneurial process within the historical context of declining corporate dominance and increasing organizational diversity. Specifically, this research focuses on the emerging alternatives to shareholder-centered corporations – new organizational forms whose purpose is not limited to maximizing profits – and documents their early-stage “birthing process” whereby a germ of an entrepreneurial idea is transformed into the initial foundation of the business. In a sustainable business incubator in Detroit, I am conducting participant observations of months-long business design processes for multiple businesses, as well as follow-up interviews with entrepreneurs and other participants. The outcome of this inquiry is expected to contribute to the entrepreneurship literature, by providing real time accounts of entrepreneurial process for businesses committed to non-economic values, and to the institutional work perspective, by examining the process whereby entrepreneurs create alternatives to taken-for-granted template for business development.
Biography
Suntae Kim is a doctoral candidate in the department of Management & Organizations at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. His research broadly focuses on the historical evolution of business organizations, specifically the emergence of novel organizational forms alternative to the public corporation model. He particularly focuses on the cultural phenomena of social entrepreneurship and technological advances in personal manufacturing, and investigates how these conditions contribute to the emergence of post-corporate organizational alternatives through everyday work of entrepreneurs. Suntae earned his master’s and bachelor degrees in business administration from Seoul National University in Korea. Outside work, Suntae enjoys exploring Michigan’s pure nature with his family, as well as discovering the seeds of revitalization on the streets of Detroit.