Where did interpretivism go in the theory of entrepreneurship?

doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2017.05.004

Journal of Business Venturing

Volume 32, Issue 5, September 2017, Pages 536-549

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2017.05.004 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Interpretivism may be more appropriate for studying entrepreneurship than realism.
•
Realism runs into problems of paradigm incommensurability, whereas interpretivism does not.
•
Entrepreneurship is the intentional pursuit of new economic value.
•
An interpretivist research program for entrepreneurship is introduced.

Abstract

I argue that an interpretivist philosophic approach has been neglected in modern entrepreneurship research, but that such an approach may be most appropriate to the individualist nature of entrepreneurship. Realist meta-theories suffer from issues of paradigm incommensurability that may be at the heart of the present difficulties in defining and delineating the field of entrepreneurship. Interpretivism offers a potentially groundbreaking philosophical alternative that highlights the source of entrepreneurship in individuals rather than in abstract markets, emphasizing emergence rather than presuming opportunity existence. In this paper I defend interpretivism against its critics and revisit the nature of entrepreneurship through this lens. I show that process theories of entrepreneurship are aligned with interpretivist meta-theory, and that their explicit adoption of an interpretivist foundation may better facilitate theoretical progress.

Section snippets

Executive summary

Interpretivism is the scientific philosophy that social order—including markets and the entrepreneurial processes within them—emerges from intentional action and interaction at the individual level. This view has been overlooked as management scientists continue to try to employ natural scientific philosophy to social concepts. These predominant functionalist approaches have so far been fruitless in producing a robust general theory—a framework that captures all types of entrepreneurship.

Prevailing philosophies of entrepreneurship

Contemporary entrepreneurship theory, like social science more generally, is predominantly realist. Whereas the social sciences took a “post-modern turn” toward subjectivism, they stopped short of interpretivism, the prevailing realist frameworks taking a middle-ground, spanning, pluralist, or stratified stance between functionalism and interpretivism. Realism positions itself heavily on the modernist (functionalist) side but reaches into the postmodern interpretivist domain for explanations of

An interpretivist alternative

King (1999) asserts that the fundamental missteps of stratified realism can be avoided through an interpretivist philosophic approach. Because realist theories insert opportunities into the contemporary social structure, they require such opportunities to “exist” and therefore be recognized within that structure by alert entrepreneurs. Thus entrepreneurship's origins, for realism, are socially derived. An interpretivist approach instead suggests that individuals are the source of opportunities.

Interpretivism and entrepreneurship process

For functionalism, the question “What is entrepreneurship?” has been difficult to answer. Early modern entrepreneurship researchers raised this question often (e.g. Davidsson, 2003, Gartner, 1990, Gartner, 2001; Low, 2001, Low and MacMillan, 1988). Entrepreneurship has been defined in terms of self-employment (e.g. Parker, 2009), as the founding of new, small firms (e.g. Acs and Audretsch, 1990), and as a function—as something individuals do. What this function is, specifically, that is

Intentionality and emergent entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship research generated from within the functionalist paradigm investigates the causes of entrepreneurship, both at the individual (micro) and the environmental (macro) levels (Garud et al., 2014). Such nomothetic research implies that entrepreneurship is a necessary result of various preconditions. For example, research in the discovery tradition seeks to understand and predict how, why, and under what conditions individuals come across, recognize, and exploit existing market

Conclusion

Modern entrepreneurship theory has been roundly criticized for its specious foundations, which have led to multiple theories of the nature and source of entrepreneurship. Such issues, I have argued, are the result of a problematic dualist ontology embedded in its realist meta-theory, attempting to stratify concepts of realist structure and individualist agency, rather than employing a more workable dualist epistemology, as found within the interpretivist paradigm. Because of the individualist

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View full text

Where did interpretivism go in the theory of entrepreneurship?

Highlights

Abstract

Section snippets

Executive summary

Prevailing philosophies of entrepreneurship

An interpretivist alternative

Interpretivism and entrepreneurship process

Intentionality and emergent entrepreneurship

Conclusion

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Manag.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

Res. Policy

J. Financ. Econ.

J. Bus. Ventur.

J. Bus. Ventur.

Innovation and Small Firms

Production, information costs, and economic organization

Am. Econ. Rev.

Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action

Strateg. Entrep. J.

Entrepreneurship and epistemology: the philosophical underpinnings of the study of entrepreneurial opportunities

Acad. Manag. Ann.

Epistemology, opportunities, and entrepreneurship: comments on Venkataraman et al. (2012) and Shane (2012)

Acad. Manag. Rev.

Forming and exploiting opportunities: the implications of discovery and creation processes for entrepreneurial and organizational research

Organ. Sci.

Realism in the study of entrepreneurship

Acad. Manag. Rev.

Generating research questions through problematization

Acad. Manag. Rev.

Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach

Russian and Georgian entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs: a study of value differences

Organ. Stud.

The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge

The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (M. L. Andison, Trans.)

A Realist Theory of Science

The Possibility of Naturalism: A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences

In Defense of Pure Reason

The market as a creative process

Econ. Philos.

Sociological Paradigms and Organisational Analysis: Elements of the Sociology Corporate

The Rational Imagination

Evolutionary epistemology

The nature and experience of entrepreneurial passion

Acad. Manag. Rev.

From modern to postmodern organizational analysis

Organ. Stud.

Beyond creative destruction and entrepreneurial discovery: a radical Austrian approach to entrepreneurship

Organ. Stud.

Dynamic creation: extending the radical Austrian approach to entrepreneurship

Organ. Stud.

The philosophical foundations of a radical Austrian approach to entrepreneurship

J. Manag. Inq.

Entrepreneurship as process

The Firm, the Market, and the Law

Modern Social Theory

Preserving theoretical divergence in management research: why the explanatory potential of qualitative research should be harnessed rather than suppressed

J. Manag. Stud.

Realism, empiricism, and fetishism in the study of entrepreneurship

J. Manag. Inq.

Fear and loathing of the imagination in science

Daedalus

The domain of entrepreneurship research: some suggestions

What is Entrepreneurship?

Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior

Beyond the single-person, single-insight attribution in understanding entrepreneurial opportunities

Enterp. Theory Pract.

Grappling with the unbearable elusiveness of entrepreneurial opportunities

Enterp. Theory Pract.

Towards a design science of entrepreneurship

Evolutionary realism: a new ontology for economics

J. Econ. Methodol.

Autogenesis: a perspective on the process of organizing