This paper disputes the thesis that a self-reported mental condition of apparent genetic origin makes its carriers entertain entrepreneurial intentions and assesses its implications for entrepreneurship driven economic development. The findings are that the research in question mistakes true causative agents for superficial cause-hiding vectors, thus confusing a self-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) condition with the cause of entrepreneurial intentions. This is all the more so because ADHD was not properly accounted for, relying instead on the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey (GUESSS), self-administered without diagnostic evidence. Thus, entrepreneurship has been turned on its head, being misrepresented as a hardwired, innate human trait instead of a course of action that hinges on subjective preferences that can be influenced by the structure of rewards shaped by public policy. This misrepresentation may dwell in the so-called ‘hardness bias’, which underestimates the softer but crucial test of the quality of conjectures. The originality of this paper lies in the use of the harmful-dysfunction analysis, showing that the entrepreneurship research in question is based on a bogus notion of disorder.

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215 – 232
DOI
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Issues
Also in this issue:
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Agnes Horvath, Magic and the Will to Science: A Political Anthropology of Liminal Technicality
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Gibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and Friends, Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at our Universities
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Bas de Boer, How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice
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Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm
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How does innovation arise in the bicycle sector? The users’ role and their betrayal in the case of the ‘gravel bike’
Entrepreneurship, mental disorders and the saga of the adventure gene: debunking the fad of hardwired entrepreneurship
Paper