Envisioning entrepreneurship

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Linnaeus University Dissertations

No 404/2021

Katarina Ellborg

Envisioning entrepreneurship

Using photographs to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship

linnaeus university press Lnu.se

isbn: 978-91-89283-30-5 (tryckt), 978-91-89283-31-2 (pdf)

Envisioning entrepreneurshipUsing photographs to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship Katarina Ellborg

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Envisioning entrepreneurship

Using photographs to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship

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Linnaeus University Dissertations

No 404/2021

E

NVISIONING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Using photographs to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship

K

^ATARINA

E

^LLBORG

LINNAEUS UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Envisioning entrepreneurship: Using photographs to elicit students’

preconceptions of entrepreneurship

Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Organisation and Entrepreneurship, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, 2021

Cover image: Las Meninas

ISBN: 978-91-89283-30-5 (tryckt), : 978-91-89283-31-2 (pdf) Published by: Linnaeus University Press, 351 95 Växjö

Printed by: Holmbergs, 2021

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Abstract

Ellborg, Katarina (2021). Envisioning entrepreneurship: Using photographs to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship, Linnaeus University Dissertations No 404/2021, ISBN: 978-91-89283-30-5 (tryckt), : 978-91-89283-31-2 (pdf).

Nowadays, entrepreneurship is taught on a ‘university-wide’ basis, implying that the subject is introduced to multiple students from a diversity of backgrounds. At the same time, a student-centred movement has been noted in the field, focusing on tailored education based on students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship. However, studies of students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship are scarce. Thus far, entrepreneurship education literature has primarily examined what to teach or how to teach. This has taken place in accordance with the Anglo-American didactic tradition in which ‘didactics’ is a form of instruction rather than a way of combining

‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions from various perspectives. As a consequence, distinguished authors in the field are calling for more advanced theoretical links between entrepreneurship education research and education science.

This study develops and examines a visual-based exercise as a means of studying students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship and as a novel educational tool. This is conducted in accordance with the German didaktik tradition that presumes that students, the learning content and the teacher are interdependently related. The purpose is to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship using a visual-based exercise, as well as to offer knowledge of how this affects didaktik relationships in entrepreneurship education. To address this purpose, phenomenographic didaktik is used to discuss a subject-specific ‘entrepreneurship didaktik’, characterised by a student-centred perspective.

Photographs were used in a visual-based exercise to elicit students’

preconceptions and interviews with teachers and students were conducted in order to evaluate the exercise from a didaktik perspective.

The results of the study show that students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship are multifaceted and that there are both similarities and differences between students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship and established understandings of entrepreneurship. From a practical perspective, the study introduces a visual-based exercise that contributes to both students’ and teachers’ understandings of where entrepreneurship education starts from a student perspective, thereby helping students to link new knowledge to their contemporary understandings and helping teachers to base their education on students’ preconceptions in order to enhance their learning. On a theoretical level, this work contributes to the student-centred movement in entrepreneurship education by demonstrating how the relational perspective in the German didaktik tradition can advance the link between entrepreneurship education and education science.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship didaktik, Entrepreneurship education, Student- centred education, Phenomenographic didaktik, Visuality

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Sammanfattning

Entreprenörskapsutbildning ges numera på bred front inom högre utbildning.

Detta innebär att en mångfald av studenter med olika utbildningsbakgrund möter begreppet entreprenörskap. Samtidigt har en inriktning inom forskningsfältet för entreprenörskapsutbildning växt fram som betonar behovet av att skräddarsy utbildning med hänsyn till studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap. Studier som undersöker studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap är dock sällsynta.

Forskningen inom fältet har främst fokuserat på lärares uppfattning om vad som skall läras ut eller hur det skall läras ut. Detta i en anglo-amerikansk didaktik- tradition där didaktik behandlas som en fråga om undervisningstekniker snarare än som ett sätt att kombinera de didaktiska frågorna om ’vad’, ’hur’ och ’varför’ ur olika aktörers perspektiv. En konsekvens av detta är att allt fler forskare efterlyser ytterligare och djupare kopplingar mellan entreprenörskapsutbildning och utbildningsvetenskap.

Den här avhandlingen utvecklar och prövar en visuellt-baserad metod, dels som ett sätt att utforska studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap, dels som en nyskapande undervisningsmetod. Studien görs i enlighet med den tyska didaktik- traditionen vilken betraktar relationerna mellan studenter, lärare och ämnet som ömsesidigt beroende. Syftet med avhandlingen är att undersöka studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap med hjälp av en visuellt-baserad metod samt att bidra till förståelse om hur detta kan påverka de didaktiska relationerna i entreprenörskapsutbildning.

I enlighet med syftet föreslås Kroksmarks fenomenografiska didaktik som ett fält inom vilket en ämnesspecifik entreprenörskapsdidaktik kan utformas med ett student-centrerat perspektiv. Fotografier har använts i utformandet av den visuellt baserade metod med vilken studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap har undersökts. Därtill har intervjuer genomförts med studenter och lärare för att utvärdera metoden ur ett didaktiskt perspektiv. Resultaten visar att studenters förförståelse av entreprenörskap är mångfacetterad och delvis skiljer sig från etablerade förståelser.

I ett praktiskt perspektiv tillför studien en visuellt baserad undervisningsmetod som bidrar till såväl studenters som lärares förståelse av var entreprenörskaps- utbildning startar i ett studentperspektiv. Metoden hjälper därmed studenterna att knyta ny kunskap till sin befintliga förståelse och lärare att förankra sin undervisning i studenters förförståelse för att bättre kunna stödja deras lärande. I ett teoretiskt perspektiv bidrar studien till den student-centrerade rörelsen inom fältet genom att visa hur en relationell förståelse av didaktik knyter entreprenörskapsutbildnings- fältet närmare utbildningsvetenskapen.

Nyckelord: entreprenörskapsdidaktik, entreprenörskapsutbildning, fenomeno- grafisk didaktik, student-centrerad undervisning, visualitet

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To Martin, Maja and Melker

You show me every day that life is so much more than a thesis.

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Acknowledgements

To be a doctoral student is to be on a journey were new paths must be trodden through known, and sometimes unknown, terrain. My steps have shaped new patterns on the map and will hopefully contribute to how we understand our world. Now, I have reached a glade in the forest where I can rest before I continue my journey. Now is the time to look back. Now is the time to thank all of those I have met and who have walked with me.

First of all, I want to thank Kalmar Handlande Borgares Donationsfond for believing in me and for always being so curious and supporting. You made it all possible.

Lars Lindkvist, my motivator and examiner, thanks to you I resumed my studies after 15 years of work in the arts and culture sector, and became interested in developing as a doctoral student.

Nils Nilsson, my friend and mentor, thanks to you I got the chance to work for the School of Business and Economics and eventually apply for a PhD scholarship.

Before I started my PhD journey I thought, and even feared, that my hike would be very lonely. On the contrary, it has been exciting, fun and challenging, and I have not been alone. All throughout this work I have had the support of my supervisors, William B. Gartner and Tomas Karlsson. You have guided, encouraged and offered resistance. I have learned so much from our discussions.

Every meeting with you have made me feel strong and convinced that I will make it.

My thesis route has passed three crucial milestones during the way, at which the text has been reviewed by insightful colleagues and researchers: Karen Williams Middleton, Erik Rosell and David Calås, thank you for reading and responding to my Research Proposal. Mats Lundqvist, Marina Jogmark and Elin Esperi Hallgren, thank you for your valuable feedback at my midway seminar. Diamanto Politis, Anna Alexandersson and Oskar Hagvall Svensson, at my final seminar you gave me the new perspectives and insights I needed in order to complete my work.

I also want to thank all my colleagues at the platform Entrepreneurship and social change and our research leader Malin Tillmar, as well as doctoral student colleagues at the other platforms. Not least Aira Ranta and Pär Vasko for reading and providing feedback. And a special thank you to Niklas Åkerman, for assisting me in some troublesome statistical matters.

Along the way I have had the honour to be part of national entrepreneurship education networks where I have gotten so much inspiration and encouragement. Thank you all! I have also met colleagues from other fields who generously have shared their knowledge. Thank you Per Dahlbeck for your thoughts on learning processes and interaction, Anna-Carin Bredmar for all our intense and valuable discussions on education science, Ann-Katrin and Jan Perselli, for taking the time to “fenomenografi-fika” with me, and Maria Stam

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for the rewarding discussions on the meaning of images and important reading tips on visuality.

Cesilia Ekroth, my inspiring and creative friend! You have been a reliable companion during the whole process. Your photographs constitute the base for my visual exercise, and our collective playfulness has set the stage for my dissertation. And, of course, I feel a special gratitude for all the students and teachers who have engaged in the visual-based exercise, and shared their experiences and perceptions with me. You gave my work meaning.

To be able to do this kind of journey, I have also needed a lot of practical support, which I have had from Åsa Lindström - who literately cleaned my calendar - and from Malin Madestam, Helena Mallin, Terese Nilsson and Christoph Tiedke, without whom I would have stood unequipped on this hike.

I want to thank you and all my other colleagues at the School of Business and Economics.

Lastly, I turn to my family and friends. Thank you for following and cheering on my journey both close and at a distance. Especially you, mamma, pappa and Bente - you are my most important critics and always on my side.

Kalmar, 25 November, 2020

Katarina Ellborg

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Finally, we exist in the world, a world which is impregnated with human purposes and concerns, and in some other ways we mirror our world, so that facts can only have value when they have meaning and objects only have meaning when we are aware and conscious of them. The resolution of these dualisms is crucial to our understanding human learning.

Jarvis (2012, p. 7)

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Compilation of papers

This thesis is based on the following papers:

Ellborg, K. (2020). Where Entrepreneurship Education Starts – Students’

preconceptions of entrepreneurship in educational settings. Abstract accepted at Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference in June 2020.

Presented at Academy of Management Conference in August 2020. To be submitted for publication.

Ellborg, K. (2018). Visualizing Entrepreneurship – using pictures as ways to see and talk about entrepreneurship in educational settings. Published in Matthews C. H. & Liguori E. (Eds.), Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy – Vol. 3. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 79–98

Ellborg, K. (2021) “Aha, so that’s how you see it!” Educators’ experiences of using a visual exercise as a student-centered educational approach. Published in Matthews C. H. & Liguori E. (Eds.), Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy – Vol 4., Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 94-115

Ellborg, K. (2020). In the Eye of the Beholder – Students’ experiences of using a visual-based exercise when exploring implicit entrepreneurship theories.

Presented at ECSB Entrepreneurship Education Conference in May 2019. To be submitted for publication.

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Prologue

In August 2011, I became involved as a teacher and project coordinator in a comprehensive initiative for entrepreneurship education at a Swedish university.

A broad, action-orientated definition of entrepreneurship based on opportunity recognition and organisation creation was presented to me. My primary task was to meet with the course supervisors from the different departments. I was expected to gain an understanding of how entrepreneurship could represent meaningful content in their various fields of education. This would enable me to organise entrepreneurship education that contributed to their students’ overall education and encourage the students to actively use their knowledge in future societal development. Thus, as an educator from a business school, I was expected to teach entrepreneurship in all kinds of educational programmes at the university.

I realised that the students would attend my classes with diametrically opposed academic backgrounds. I also assumed that they would have various experiences and understandings of entrepreneurship. With the intention of embracing this expected diversity and learning more about their preconceptions, I decided to attempt to invite the students to be co-creators in the learning processes.

My interest in the student perspective is rooted in years of experience from the arts and culture sector, in which I have witnessed a movement of audience interaction and spectator focus. I have conducted many interactive theatre events in Boal’s tradition, as well as countless theatre analyses. I have taken courses called ‘Participation Culture’, ‘Aesthetic learning processes’ and ‘Talking about performing arts’, which all pointed to a future in which spectators would be assigned a more pronounced role as co-creators. Thus, based on this experience, and my acquired insight into how interactions with artistic expressions can create commitment and reflections, I became curious as to whether a concept such as entrepreneurship could be explored and interpreted through aesthetic representations in the classroom.

I asked whether mediation between different linguistic expressions (for example, visuality and the spoken word) could constitute creative methods in the development of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, and invite students to

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discuss how they envision¹ entrepreneurship? Could abstract concepts such as

‘entrepreneurship’, ‘opportunities’ and ‘ideas’ be concretised and tested in relation to the students’ own experiences through the use of art-based methods?

In order to explore this, I applied proven visual techniques and exercises from the theatre improvisation tradition in my entrepreneurship classes. For example, the students created stories about the entrepreneurial process using waste material, they participated in improv games to encourage idea generation, and they portrayed and analysed the concept of opportunity using photos. In other words, I conducted unconventional teaching based on established aesthetic methods. As Haggren et al. (2008) state about the relationship between audience and actors,

“it is not enough to tell the audience that they are allowed to participate, it also requires you to provide concrete frameworks for how this can be done” (p 125, my translation).

What started out as teacher-driven curiosity about the students’ preconceptions shifted to research-driven data collection. I had an increasing desire to systematically describe and scientifically investigate how a dialogue with students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship could be organised through one of the visual-based exercises that I used. In this thesis, you will become familiar with this visual-based exercise as both an education design and as a scientific method for exploring the concept of entrepreneurship in educational settings. In the various sub-studies, you will meet students who enjoyed the visual-based exercise as they believed it improved their engagement and helped them envision entrepreneurship beyond what is taken for granted in syllabi and by teachers. You will meet teachers who appreciate the visual-based exercise for its ability to provide insight into students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship and help them to better adjust their teaching to the point at which the students begin their learning journey. The introductory chapter ties everything together by using the classic didaktik² triangle as a way of integrating the learning subject with the viewpoints of both the teachers and the students. In the didaktik triangle, the subject, in this case entrepreneurship, forms one corner of the triangle, the teacher another corner and the students the third corner. The sides of the triangle are the interrelated relationships between the corners, and they are connected by the model to an entity. As you will note in the introductory chapter below, I am suggesting that phenomenographic didaktik could be a field for integrating all these relationships using a student-centred perspective.

1en·vi·sion (ĕn-vĭzh′ən) tr.v. en·vi·sioned, en·vi·sion·ing, en·vi·sions To picture in the mind; imagine (American Heritage. Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company)

2 Based on the differentiated understandings of the (translated) English ‘didactics’, in relation to the original German didaktik, in the rest of this text I will follow the example of Kansanen (1999) and Hopmann and Riquarts (2012) and consistently use didaktik as it is spelt and used in the German tradition (as well as in Sweden and Denmark) in order to highlight the perspective that I apply. This perspective will be further outlined in Chapter 2.

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However, before we reach that point, let me continue my trajectory of visual representation by using a metaphor in my introduction to the different perspectives of my work. For this purpose, I have chosen Diego Velázquez’s (1599–1660) Las Meninas (Figure 1). This baroque oil painting was introduced to me during a course on aesthetic learning processes in 2009. It was presented as the ultimate example of how a visual image might broaden our horizons in terms of perspectives. Velázquez’s famous work has been the subject of debate ever since he painted it in 1656 (Jacobs, 2015; Searle, 1980). The painting is considered to be one of the most ground-breaking works in art history because of the way it involves the spectator and so obviously places them ‘in front’ of the canvas (Foucault, 1977).

What we see in the painting is the interior of a royal residence in Spain. In the centre of the painting is the princess, surrounded by her entourage, i.e. the royal court. To the left, the artist, Velázquez himself, is in the process of completing a canvas. His canvas can be seen to the left of the painting, facing away from the viewer. If we follow the gaze of these central characters in the painting, we note they are looking at something outside the painting. But what are they looking at?

Is it the King and Queen, whose images are reflected in the mirror hanging on the back wall of the hall? Or is it the spectator who is being viewed by the artist and the princess?

Through the ages, this piece has fascinated art connoisseurs and researchers with its elusive perspectives. The motif has continuously triggered discussions about who is really supposed to be understood as the main characters in the painting, and how the different perspectives of the painting might be interpreted.

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Las Meninas as a metaphor in this work

In this work, I take the liberty of interpreting the painting in line with my aims in this thesis. My interpretations are partially based on the composition of the image and partially on the fact that the painting, like this thesis, aims to twist the perspectives. I, like Velázquez, strive to include those who were previously not in the spotlight, i.e. the spectators (or in my case, the students).

To this can be added that Las Meninas, in a classic analysis by Foucault (1977), has been discussed as a metaphor for perspectives of power. To some extent, the sub-studies in this thesis also address power relations, as they explore what would

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happen if the students were invited to be co-creators in the classroom.

A further basis for how the painting is applied as a metaphor for the kappa is outlined below.

First of all, let us examine the scenario in the painting from above so that it is also possible to illustrate the characters who are located outside the painting, i.e.

the royal couple and the spectators. Figure 2 represents such a scenario.

Figure 2. Las Meninas seen from above, with the royal couple and the position of the spectator(s) added.

In my metaphor, the room depicted in the painting represents entrepreneurship education, populated by academics. These are the people who conduct research, design education, write textbooks and give lectures. The princess represents the most established researchers in the field, surrounded by her admirers, i.e. co- authors and colleagues, as well as by critics in the field, represented here by the man seen by the back door. He is standing on the stairway, questioning what is really going on in contemporary research, prepared to fully approach the field or leave the room. The artist (i.e. Velázquez himself) represents the author of this thesis with her text (the canvas) in front of her. The author is still new in the

The artist’s canvas

The artist

The mirror

The royal couple The spectator(s) The princess and her court The man on the stairway

Depicted in the painting

Outside the painting

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research context and is not yet part of the royal court³, but is already practicing as an educator and researcher.

Further, all around the walls are paintings in gilded frames. They represent previous research which, just like landscapes and still life, has been captured in articles and books. Soon, the author hopes to have her canvas hanging there.

On the back wall is a mirror, and in the mirror, the king and queen are reflected;

they are present but are still located outside the painting. The royal couple represents entrepreneurship, i.e. the phenomenon that everyone in the painting is facing and that their research and teaching is about. The mirror, through which entrepreneurship is interpreted, represents the visual-based exercise that is used and evaluated in this thesis.

Lastly, there are those who are not represented in the original painting at all, but who are crucial to art: the spectators (in Figure 2, the spectator’s position is indicated by a dashed circle). This is comparable to how students, who are not part of the academy, are crucial to entrepreneurship education. When the spectator/the student is included, a triangular relationship emerges between the teacher (the princess), the subject (the royal couple) and the student (the spectator).

These interdependent relationships constitute the didaktik triangle that I want to shed light on from different angles in this thesis. The different perspectives of the painting are represented in the four sub-studies, all of which frame the didaktik relationships and examine the visual-based exercise from various perspectives.

Sub-study 1, in which the visual-based exercise is used as a research method, discusses the students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship in relation to established understandings and critical approaches. Thus, it is a study of the student-subject relationship in relation to the teacher-subject relationship. This aspect is represented in the painting by the way in which the spectators perceive the royal couple, reflected in the mirror, in relation to how the princess and her court, as well as the man in the doorway, regard the royal couple when looking out from the canvas.

Sub-study 2 discusses the author’s intentions to use a visual-based exercise as a teaching tool in relation to the learning objectives and the students. Here, the teacher’s perspective is examined from an education designer perspective. This aspect is represented in the painting by the artist’s intentions with the mirror, i.e.

why it was depicted and how it might capture the spectator’s perspective.

Sub-study 3 develops the teachers’ perspective further. It discusses how other entrepreneurship researchers and teachers understand the visual-based exercise as a teaching tool in relation to the students and the subject. This aspect is represented in the painting by how the princess and her court perceive the mirror, and whether it might change the way in which they understand the spectators and the royal couple.

3Velázquez was actually appointed as Chamberlain at King Philip IV’s court.

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Sub-study 4, in turn, develops the students’ perspective further. It discusses students’ understanding of the visual-based exercise as a teaching tool, and how it captures their preconceptions of entrepreneurship. This aspect is represented in the painting by the spectators’ perspective of the mirror, and the extent to which it reflects their understanding of the king and queen standing together with them outside the painting, as well as whether the mirror invites the spectators to describe their preconceptions of the king and the queen.

Thus, the present work focuses on how the spectators (the students) envision the royal couple (entrepreneurship) when they are reflected in a mirror (i.e., through a visual-based exercise). Are there any differences between what the spectators, who are standing next to the king and the queen, see, and what the princess and her court (the researchers and teachers) see when they look out at their royal highnesses from the painting? And how can the mirror (the visual- based exercise) help us capture these relationships? Like the artist, I attempt to portray all of this on my canvas – of which you, the reader, thus far, have only glimpsed the frame.

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1 Introduction

As may be apparent from the prologue, this is not a thesis on entrepreneurship in a general sense. Rather, this work studies entrepreneurship as an educational subject, introduced via entrepreneurship education in a variety of academic disciplines. The sub-studies examine the subject from a student perspective, as well as the didaktik relationships in entrepreneurship education from various angles. A visual-based exercise is used in all four sub-studies: in the first sub- study as a research method and in the remaining three sub-studies as a teaching tool. The exercise is evaluated from a designer perspective, a teacher perspective and a student perspective. Based on the results from the sub-studies, the introductory chapter illustrates how a visual-based exercise renders the students’

envisioning of entrepreneurship visible and therefore possible to explore in relation to the teacher’s perspective and to the subject of entrepreneurship. The introductory chapter links the sub-studies further and shows how phenomenographic didaktik can be used to identify the subject-specific characteristics of entrepreneurship education using a student-centred approach.

Phenomenographic didaktik is a philosophy-based sub-field of pedagogy that interprets learning content and methods via the perceptions of teachers and students of the same (Kroksmark, 1987, 2007). It rests on an assumption of constructivist learning (Larochelle & Bednarz, 1998), implying that new knowledge is created on the basis of already conquered knowledge (Biggs, 1996;

Hein, 1996; Håkansson & Sundberg, 2012; Säljö, 2010). It is also founded on

“attitude towards teaching that implies a focal awareness of the learner and the learner’s world” (Marton & Booth, 1996, p. 560). This way of understanding learning goes back to Piaget (1964) and his reasoning about the learning process as being incremental, developed on a step-by-step-basis, in which the learners’

understandings are of equal importance to gaining knowledge of the teacher’s stimulus. In this sense, my work is in line with Fayolle (2018), who suggests that Piaget is a suitable learning theorist for teaching and research in entrepreneurship.

A visual-based exercise has been developed from photo elicitation (Collier &

Collier, 1986; Harper, 2002; Prosser, 2005; Rose, 2016), meaning that I use photos to promote reflective conversations about experiences. Thus, I work with a novel exercise in a visual tradition based on theories and techniques that have been proven in research and education (Emmison et al., 2012; Harper, 1998, 2002; Mitchell, 1995; Spencer, 2010; Stanczak, 2007).

Overall, the work is in line with the findings of Gabrielsson et al. (2020), which suggest that:

there is a golden opportunity for entrepreneurial education scholars to intensify research efforts on what is actually going on in classrooms. These efforts should ideally employ venturesome and

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alternative research methods that are able to capture how pedagogy in entrepreneurial education materializes in discursive practice at both ontological and educational levels.

In the following, entrepreneurship in higher education is introduced. I first examine the subject’s general development in higher education and then provide a brief review of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions raised in previous research on content, objectives and methods. I then present the current student-centred movement and how entrepreneurship education can be understood as an intersecting field between entrepreneurship and education. Lastly, in this section, the research questions are posed, and the purpose of the thesis is described.

1.1 Entrepreneurship education in higher education

Since the post-war period, entrepreneurship has become established as a subject in higher education (Edelman et al., 2008; Katz, 2003; Morris & Liguori, 2016).

This in line with the emerging growth economy and a labour market that has come to be characterised by increased mobility and greater demands on self- employment. The first entrepreneurship classes were held in the United States in 1947 (Katz, 2003; Kirby, 2006). Thereafter, the practice of entrepreneurship education developed and expanded at a rapid rate and become a university-wide subject (Gabrielsson et al., 2020). In this development, business schools have acted as hubs for a network of entrepreneurship education across disciplines (Katz, 2007). However, Kirby (2006, p. 50) states that if “business school educators are to assist and facilitate this new market and its support system, then there would appear to be a need for a more innovative and radical approach to entrepreneurship education than appears to have been evident to date”. Thus, the situation in which entrepreneurship education has “transcended the boundaries of business schools” (Blenker et al., 2014, p. 698) has undeniably brought new challenges to the subject in relation to the learners (Volkmann, 2004; Warren, 2005). As an example of what this has meant, I cite here Blenker et al. (2012, p.

419), who discuss entrepreneurship in relation to who the education might be directed towards:

Entrepreneurship is thus not merely for the chosen few who can identify business opportunities in the marketplace, produce a business plan, provide the necessary financial capital and build a new venture.

Thus, it can be assumed that entrepreneurship educators will encounter students with disparate experiences, attitudes and expectations regarding entrepreneurship. For example, business school educators may encounter students from teacher training or from environmental science programmes who are

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participating in mandatory entrepreneurship courses, even though they regard entrepreneurship as being irrelevant to them, or even as something negative.

Fayolle (2018, p. 695) describes today’s multifaceted audiences in entrepreneurship education as:

students engaged in a range of disciplines, from various socio- demographic backgrounds and with different levels of motivation and different aspirations towards entrepreneurship.

Consequently, new ways of understanding (Gibb, 2007) and producing (Steyaert

& Hjorth, 2003) entrepreneurship in educational settings have arisen when entrepreneurship education spread to more diverse student groups (Antal et al., 2014; Fayolle, 2018; Hynes, 1996; Kirby, 2007; Kuratko, 2005; Matlay & Carey, 2007; Morris & Liguori, 2016).

The extensive development in the practice of entrepreneurship education (Béchard & Grégoire, 2005; Blenker et al., 2011; Katz, 2007) has, in turn, formed the basis of an increased interest in research in the field, particularly among those who also teach themselves. The field of entrepreneurship education is still relatively young with its “slightly less than (a) 30-year history in science”, according to Kyrö (2015, p. 93) However, the entrepreneurship research stream that focuses on education is steadily advancing. For example, Sweden, together with the other Nordic countries, has developed quite extensive research into entrepreneurship education (see for example Blenker et al., 2011; Hytti et al., 2010; Hägg & Kurczewska, 2016; Johannisson, 1991; Kyrö, 2015; Leffler, 2009).

Extensive research on entrepreneurship education is also being conducted in the rest of Europe (see for example Béchard & Grégoire, 2005; Fayolle, 2018; Gibb, 2007; Matlay, 2006) and in the USA and Australia (see for example Brush et al., 2015; Jones, 2007; Liguori et al., 2018; Neck & Corbett, 2018). There has been an increased stream of literature in terms of how entrepreneurship education can be enhanced as well as critical perspectives, questioning its aims and basis (see for example: Berglund & Verduyn, 2018; Dahlstedt & Hertzberg, 2012). The requirement for entrepreneurship educators who can handle students with different types of experiences and preconceptions (Neck & Greene, 2011) has also paved the way for more target-group focused research. However, it is worth noting that, even though entrepreneurship education research has been conducted in all parts of the education system in the Western world, the overwhelming majority of studies have looked at compulsory and upper secondary schools (Kyrö, 2015). This provides space for and interest in further studies of entrepreneurship education in higher education as the practice expands.

Thus far, the literature on entrepreneurship education in higher education has primarily covered such areas as content, methods or outcomes (Gabrielsson et al., 2020; Hägg & Gabrielsson, 2020). A range of articles in the field have addressed learning objectives (Bechard & Toulouse, 1998), measurability (Henry et al.,

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2005; Matlay, 2006; Tracey & Phillips, 2007), learning content (Gibb, 2002;

Koch, 2003; Solomon, 2007), learning context (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Pittaway

& Cope, 2007), identity building (Donnellon et al., 2014) and the need for students to be active (Fiet, 2001; Jack & Anderson, 1999; Jones, 2007; Jones &

English, 2004). From an outcome perspective, in recent years studies have reported, for example, increased learning when students create value for others (Lackéus, 2016), as well as the importance of combining action, reflections and experiences in entrepreneurship education (Hägg & Kurczewska, 2016). Thus, the main areas explored in the field have been questions about ‘what’ to teach or

‘how’ to teach (Byrne et al., 2014; Fayolle et al., 2016; Kickul & Fayolle, 2007;

Klapper & Neergaard, 2017; Neck & Corbett, 2018). An overview of the ways in which these two perspectives have been discussed is outlined below.

1.1.1 What? – Content and objectives

The definitions of entrepreneurship presented in educational settings mainly originate in research on small businesses and growth potential, thereby emphasising the creation of new ventures (Gartner, 1985, 2014), as well as opportunity recognition (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Current examples include:

The core of entrepreneurship is related to the process of opportunities, new venture creation, growth, risk and acquisition and allocation of resources in order to make things happen. (Kyrö, 2015, p. 610).

At its core, entrepreneurship is the process of creating venture and value for multiple constituencies. (Matthews, 2018, p. xviii).

We define EE as developing the mindset, skill set, and practice necessary for starting new ventures. (Neck & Corbett, 2018, p. 10).

Typically, in addition to theoretical knowledge about entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education also implies that students using models and theories from various sub-disciplines in business administration in order to learn how to manage start-ups and be self-employed (Antal et al., 2014; Galloway et al., 2005), i.e. learning for entrepreneurship (Hannon, 2005; Kirby, 2007).

However, as entrepreneurship courses have also become increasingly common outside business schools (Fayolle, 2018; Katz, 2007; Kyrö, 2006; Morris &

Liguori, 2016), entrepreneurship education has come to include more general entrepreneurial skills. Thus, entrepreneurship education often intends to increase the students’ ability to handle uncertainty and complexity (Audretsch, 2014) in various contexts, i.e. learning through entrepreneurship by developing entrepreneurship skills, as well as entrepreneurial attitudes and identities (Blenker

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et al., 2014; Donnellon et al., 2014; European Commission, 2006; European Communities, 2007; Fayolle et al., 2006; Henry et al., 2005; Matlay, 2006;

Politis, 2005; Solomon, 2007). In addition, the entrepreneurial process has gained increased interest in entrepreneurship research (Davidsson, 2005; Sarasvathy, 2001) and thereby in entrepreneurship education (Hjorth & Johannisson, 2009).

Fayolle and Gailly (2008, p. 572) confirm the content diversity when discussing entrepreneurship in education as being “polysemous”. The authors state that entrepreneurship education “may designate attitudes such as autonomy, creativity, innovation, risk-taking, or the act of venture creation”. Likewise, Mwasalwiba (2010, pp. 25-26) shows in his review of 108 studies in the field that entrepreneurship in educational settings can be understood in an broad sense, since it can be related to

some kind of educational (or training) process that is aimed at influencing individuals’ attitudes, behaviour, values or intentions towards entrepreneurship either as a possible career or to enhance among them an appreciation of its role in the community (i.e.

creating an entrepreneurial society).

Mwasalwiba (2010, p. 40) concludes that this means that entrepreneurship education “will still be in a variety of forms with respect to one’s definition of entrepreneurship”. In this thesis, I approach the concept of entrepreneurship in line with Mwasalwiba’s broad definition, which assumes that entrepreneurship concerns both organisation creation in different contexts as well as attitudes and skills. This approach is also in line with the context of Swedish education in which the sub-studies underlying this thesis have been conducted. Like Denmark, Germany and the UK (Blenker et al., 2008), for example, in Sweden, entrepreneurship is a key part of the government’s education strategy for the entire education system (Berglund, 2013). The Swedish strategy identifies entrepreneurship as knowledge and skills related to new venture creations, as well as entrepreneurial behaviours in their own right, to enable students to play an active role in societal development (Government Offices of Sweden, 2009). The discussion on entrepreneurship in relation to the extended scope of education has also contributed to a critical research stream, which has intensified in recent decades.

1.1.1.1 Critical perspectives

In terms of learning content, entrepreneurship has traditionally been described as

‘lonely heroes’ operating in business contexts (Bruni et al., 2004; Byrne et al., 2014; Clarke & Holt, 2017; Gartner, 1990; Liñán, 2007; Ogbor, 2000; Sköld &

Tillmar, 2015). Thus, parallel to the development of a more differentiated audience and extended field of research, a desire to expand the concept of entrepreneurship beyond heroic actions has emerged (Lindgren & Packendorff,

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2003). Gibb (2002, p. 259) is one of the critical authors who argues that entrepreneurship in education should be less normative and more pluralistic. He states: “the challenge here is to distance the ‘subject’ from its heroic ideology and association with business and market liberalization philosophy”. In a similar vein, Berglund and Verduyn (2018, p. 3) have noted how “entrepreneurship provides us with a Western world discourse that is classed, gendered, ethnocentric and thus excluding”.

Critical entrepreneurship education research discusses entrepreneurship as a neo-liberal agenda in the education system, and questions the strong emphasis on individualisation and the pursuit of continued economic growth (Berglund, 2013;

Berglund & Verduyn, 2018; Dahlstedt & Hertzberg, 2012). Thus, this research stream seeks to counteract entrepreneurship education as a politically driven top- down project, in which students are seen as consumers. A call for more reflective educational approaches can be found in recent critical literature, based on “a need to also challenge ourselves and our students to engage in a dialogue of what entrepreneurship (education) might become” (Berglund & Verduyn, 2018, p. 4).

Fletcher (2018, p. xix) envisions entrepreneurship education that is “encouraging student participation and dialogue in courses” and, similarly, Hytti (2018, p. 232) states: “we should continue to invite our students to explore if they identify with various entrepreneurial identities and how they make sense of entrepreneurship and their entrepreneurial abilities and futures from their different social positions”. In the present work, this is accomplished by using a novel visual-based exercise that provides a way of accessing the students’ sense making of entrepreneurship. The exercise is outlined in section 3.3.1 below, as well as in the sub-studies, which have been conducted in student groups from various educational backgrounds.

1.1.2 How? – Teaching methods

The range of practices in terms of how entrepreneurship education is taught, i.e.

its teaching methods, appears to be just as extensive as the variation in content and objectives. Fayolle and Gailly (2008, p. 571) argue that “there is no common framework or agreed good practices regarding how to teach or educate” in the entrepreneurship field. According to Blenker et al. (2008, p. 47) these circumstances have led to “questions of didactics and pedagogy” primarily being

“left for the individual university teacher to deal with”.

The teaching methods also change depending on whether or not entrepreneurship education is intended to be about, for or through entrepreneurship (Scott et al., 1998; Warren, 2005). For example, when the aim is to teach students about entrepreneurship, textbooks, as well as lectures and guest lectures, are frequently applied methods (Gielnik et al., 2015; Varamäki et al., 2015). When entrepreneurship education is conducted for entrepreneurship, students often work in groups using business models, business plans or cases (Brush et al., 2015; Fayolle, 2018; Solomon, 2007). Teaching through

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entrepreneurship in higher education involves action and the students participating in exercises in which their entrepreneurial abilities and attitudes are promoted (Murnieks & Mosakowski, 2007). Here, reflective learning processes (Hjorth & Johannisson, 2009; Pittaway et al., 2009) are arranged to encourage students to be active and engaged in real world challenges, see, for example, Opportunity centred learning (Rae, 2003) or Action-oriented teaching (Jones &

English, 2004).

Thus, overall it can be noted that entrepreneurship education is a multifaceted area in terms of learning objectives, content, target groups and methods (Byrne et al., 2014; Morris & Liguori, 2016; Neck & Corbett, 2018). Jones (2011, p. 28) consolidates such a discussion by defining entrepreneurship education as

a process of transformational education through which students are encouraged to better understand their capacity to create future opportunities for satisfaction through exposure to different learning experiences crafted from a learner-centered approach.

The entrepreneurship education examined in the present work is an example of how this multifaceted approach is embodied in practice. Since education is always preceded by specific objectives (Biesta, 2012b), research in educational contexts is always about purpose-orientated and institutionalised practices, involving educators who aim to develop the learners’ “knowledge, values, norms and attitudes in a particular direction” (Öhman, 2014, p. 35, my translation). The courses studied in this thesis are partially expected to increase the students’

knowledge of entrepreneurship theories and partially train the students in entrepreneurship activities in their respective fields using entrepreneurial teaching methods. Thus, in these cases the educational context ranges from theoretical perspectives on entrepreneurship (about) to more practice-orientated activities associated with venture creation (for), to the practicing of general entrepreneurial skills and competences (through) (Blenker et al., 2011; Fayolle, 2018; Hannon, 2005; Piperopoulos & Dimov, 2015). In this work, I construe entrepreneurship to be a constructed phenomenon, envisioned (whether it is well- known or unknown) by students in multiple ways. As the learner-centred approach proposed by Jones above constitutes the starting point of this work, my study is in line with the substantial student-centred movement in the field which argues that entrepreneurship education benefits rom focusing on the learners’

relationship to the learning subject (Lepistö & Ronkko, 2013; Mueller, 2012).

1.1.3 A student-centred movement in entrepreneurship education practice and research

The potential to adopt a student-centred approach to entrepreneurship education has been recognised by several researchers in the field (Hägg & Gabrielsson, 2020), including Jones and Matlay (2011, p. 697), who state: “The important issue

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for us as entrepreneurship educators is that we understand the nature of heterogeneity that constantly surrounds our students’ lives and appreciate the role it plays in their education”, Byrne et al. (2014, p. 283), who claim that “educators need to strongly interact with learners to improve the design of their courses”, and Robinson et al. (2016, p. 676), who similarly argue that we need to “involve students as co-creators of the classroom in order to promote ownership of the learning process”. In this discussion, “learning can be seen as […] making meaning from experience and of generating new solutions from existing knowledge” (Fayolle & Gailly, 2008, p. 580). In a similar vein Fayolle and Gailly (2008, p. 577) propose that “entrepreneurship education courses should be designed through a thorough understanding of the profile and background of the audience, particularly in terms of prior entrepreneurial exposure”. Blenker et al.

(2012, p. 418) problematise current teaching approaches as “educational activities tend to share the idea that entrepreneurship education can, by and large, be perceived as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ activity”. The authors advocate a more individualized entrepreneurship education pedagogy. Hägg and Kurczewska (2016, p. 711) describe this embracing of the student as a change in perspective:

“By focusing more on the individual learner’s needs, it also changes the perspective of how to teach, from a traditional perspective that centers around the teacher and his/her knowledge, toward the student and what the student needs at different stages of the learning process”. Thus, a student-centred approach to entrepreneurship education has been discussed as a way of taking advantage of the heterogeneity of the student groups. By linking the learning content to the students’ own experiences, they become involved in the education design and are able to influence their own learning processes.

The student-centred approach is also emphasised as a scholarly approach, for example, in the extensive literature review by Nabi et al. (2017, p. 289) in which further research is recommended in order to “explore individuals’ background in terms of previous entrepreneurial exposure and pre-educational intentions”. The authors write: “Knowing the background and the profile of the students (e.g., prior entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, motivators, gender) and context (e.g., type of program, type of institution, program and country context) can also lead to better design and implementation of EE programs, and ultimately to more efficient learning processes, environments, and hence, impact”. In the same vein, Williams Middleton and Donnellon (2014, p. 26) suggest that “there is a need to shift perspective in our research focus from teaching entrepreneurship to learning entrepreneurship”. Thus, authors engaged in student-centred research claim that by gaining insight into students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education can be developed in relation to the various target groups (Carrier, 2007; Nabi et al., 2017; Shepherd, 2004).

However, recent reviews of entrepreneurship education literature (Gabrielsson et al., 2020; Hägg & Gabrielsson, 2020; Mwasalwiba, 2010; Thomassen et al., 2020) confirm that there has been a focus on methods and content for achieving

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the most efficient impact and output, rather than how to deal with students with various kinds of experiences and raise awareness of the relationship between the students and the subject. Fayolle (2018, p. 130) describes these challenges as follows: “We lack knowledge regarding the implications of such variety: for instance, what are the best combinations of objectives, contents and teaching methods when addressing the needs and the specificities of each particular audience?” As an example, Hägg and Gabrielsson (2020) point out that the narrow focus on ‘learning by doing’ in contemporary entrepreneurship education risks ignoring the needs of novice entrepreneurship students.

In the discussion on how to develop a student-centred approach, increased use of learning theories and perspectives from the field of education have been identified as a way of enhancing entrepreneurship education “which is able to accommodate the heterogeneity of students” (Blenker et al., 2012, p. 418).

1.1.4 A field at the intersection of entrepreneurship and education

Several distinguished authors in the field are calling for more advanced theoretical links between entrepreneurship education research and education science, in which teachers reflect on all parts of their practices based on relevant pedagogical concepts (Fayolle et al., 2016; Gabrielsson et al., 2018; Kyrö, 2015).

For example, (Fayolle, 2018, p. 133) states that entrepreneurship education research needs to “clearly and accurately combine knowledge from both the fields of entrepreneurship and education” and Kyrö (2005, p. 70) describes how the field of entrepreneurship education would “benefit from a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamics of learning theories and paradigms”. Blenker et al. (2012, p. 420) argue that “attempts to broaden the context and scope of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education must necessarily be accompanied by precise definitions and choices of relevant theories and pedagogical methods”. Similar arguments were presented by the same research group a few years later (Thrane et al., 2016), which confirms the observation already made ten years previously by Béchard and Grégoire (2005, p. 38): “the single most important challenge for the future lies in developing a scholarly expertise in the dual fields of entrepreneurship and education”. However, Byrne et al. (2014) state: “those articles that do attempt to integrate learning theories or work from the education sciences are few and far between”. Thus, despite the increasingly extensive research in the field of entrepreneurship education and a movement towards student-centred education, the intersection between the field of entrepreneurship and education has been recognised as being underexplored.

Kyrö (2015) takes the discussion even further, claiming that entrepreneurship education thus far has been developed in an Anglo-American didactic tradition, i.e., mainly based on models of learning and teaching, rather than on theories about the same. Thus, classrooms activities have been “driven by experience more than by systematic teaching approaches” (Fayolle & Gailly, 2008, p. 571).

Envisioning entrepreneurship

Katarina Ellborg

Envisioning entrepreneurship

Envisioning entrepreneurship

E

K

E

To Martin, Maja and Melker

You show me every day that life is so much more than a thesis.

Contents

Compilation of papers

This thesis is based on the following papers:

Prologue

Las Meninas as a metaphor in this work

1 Introduction

1.1 Entrepreneurship education in higher education