Paula Kyrö

A theoretical framework for teaching and learning entrepreneurship

Recent research on entrepreneurship education has moved from content questions to the process of learning and teaching. This assumes that we actually have conceptual frameworks for combining learning to teaching. This paper presents a general framework that combines these aspects for fostering individual meta-competencies in planning, conducting and evaluating teaching interventions. It applies the taxonomy of individual difference constructs to the risk learning process and suggests that, besides cognition, we should also include affection and conation in enterprising and entrepreneurial learning. Thus it provides a new approach to plan, conduct and evaluate the outcomes and impact of entrepreneurship education.

The conceptual contribution of education to research on entrepreneurship education

By building a bridge between the conceptual discussion of education science and entrepreneurship, this article demarcates the role of entrepreneurship education as a form of pedagogy and its connection to a progressive movement. As a form of pedagogy, entrepreneurship education changes the idea of the human being, brings action-orientation, autonomy and interplay between risk and responsibility to the centre of the learning process and challenges the previous ontological, epistemological and to some respect axiological bases of earlier learning paradigms and also presents new ideas for pedagogy and didactics. Thus, seen from an educational perspective, entrepreneurship can now be perceived as a form of pedagogy that renews the previous learning paradigms and furthers educational institutional practices.

GENDER LENSES IDENTIFY DIFFERENT WAVES AND WAYS OF UNDERSTANDING WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

This article suggests that perhaps adopting gender lenses to study the interplay between gender theories and women entrepreneurship research might advance our understanding of women entrepreneurship and small business ownership. This interplay reveals three different waves in women entrepreneurship research: men-specific, stereotyping, and postmodern. To investigate this empirically, the article adopts the Finnish context and looks at how women experience being an entrepreneur and/or small business owner by employing the method of phenomenography. Finland as a country officially sets great store by equality, but at the same time still evinces a great deal of segregation. This paradox offers a fruitful ground for this study. The results provide new categories to women entrepreneurship and thus expand the third wave of research. These results indicate that we are far from understanding the dynamics between being a woman entrepreneur and the gendered structures and practices. Thus, further research is needed to deeper understand these dynamics.

Meta Processes of Entrepreneurial and Enterprising Learning: The Dialogue between Cognitive, Conative and Affective Constructs

Our approach to entrepreneurial and enterprising learning allows us investigate “how the cognitive, conative and affective self-regulating abilities interplay in entrepreneurial and enterprising learning process?” This research consists of the two year follow-up reflections of 18 university students who participated in two consecutive study programmes of entrepreneurship education during years 2003-2006. The programmes adopted entrepreneurial and enterprising pedagogy. Textual data consisted of 400 pages of reflections. Research methods and data analysis followed a two-part progression: 1) The application of Straussian Grounded Theory with the coding proceeds through open, axial and selective phases, 2) the concept map method. The results indicate that all constructs appeared in these entrepreneurship education learning interventions as well and transitions between them. However, the disappearance of affective construct in meta-level reflections emerged. Strengthening this underrepresented element might enhance students’ reflection and selfregulation processes and as a consequence empower entrepreneurial and enterprising learning. Such ideas encourage us to suggest that this stream of research should get more emphasis in entrepreneurship education research.

Social Capital and Entrepreneurial Behaviour Advancing Innovativeness in Interaction between Small Rural Entrepreneurs and Researchers: A Phenomenographic Study.

ABSTRACT Innovation processes between entrepreneurs and researchers are activated by interaction. Social capital increases the efficiency of action, for example, information dissemination by minimising redundancy. To learn more about how to build and develop social capital assumes that we understand how entrepreneurs behave and what their expectations of interaction with researchers are. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of what entrepreneurs want and expect from interaction, how they act and perceive the scope of social capital in interaction. In this study we adopt a theoretical approach that combines social capital and entrepreneurial behaviour. The firms in this study are located in the South Savo region of Finland and operate in food production. As a result of interviews with 15 entrepreneurs, a system of categories was compiled as the phenomenographic method assumes. It became obvious that the key dynamics of the cooperation between entrepreneurs and researchers is embedded in a common understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour and learning as well as a trust-building process. As a practical implication, we suggest that through adopting specific features of entrepreneurial behaviour and acknowledging the preconditions for building trust researchers could pave the way to innovativeness of rural entrepreneurs. The results of this study could be valuable for research organisations focusing on research cooperation with rural entrepreneurs.

The interplay between cognitive, conative, and affective constructs along the entrepreneurial learning process

Purpose Although the role of reflections in entrepreneurship education is undeniable, the research has focused mainly on their advantages and consequences for learning process, whereas their dynamics and interrelations with other mental processes remain unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to better understand how personality and intelligence constructs: cognition, conation, and affection evolve and change along the learning process during entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach To better understand reflective processes in entrepreneurial learning this paper adopts the tripartite constructs of personality and intelligence. By employing longitudinal explorative research approach and self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm, the authors follow students’ reflections during their two-year learning processes. First, the authors try to identify how the interplay between the cognitive, conative, and affective aspects emerges in students’ reflections. Then, the authors investigate how this interplay evolves during the individual learning process and finally, by looking for similarities in these learning pathways, the authors aim to identify patterns of students’ reflective learning process. Findings All constructs are present during the learning process and all are prone to change. The individual constructs alone shed no light on the interplay between different constructs, but rather that the interplay between sub-constructs should be taken into consideration as well. This seems to be particularly true for cognition, as procedural and declarative knowledge have very different profiles. Procedural knowledge emerges together with emotions, motivation, and volition, whereas the profile of declarative knowledge is individual. The unique profile of declarative knowledge in students’ reflections is an important finding as declarative knowledge is regarded as the center of current pedagogic practices. Research limitations/implications The study broadens the understanding of reflective practices in the entrepreneurial learning process and the interplay between affective, cognitive, and conative sub-constructs and reflective practices in entrepreneurship education. The findings clearly indicate the need for further research on the interplay between sub-constructs and students’ reflection profiles. The authors see the study as an attempt to apply an exploratory statistical method for the problem in question. Practical implications The results are able to advise pedagogy. Practical implications concern the need to develop reflective practises in entrepreneurial learning interventions to enhance all three meta-competencies, even though there are so far no irrefutable findings to indicate that some types of reflection may be better than others. Originality/value The results of the analysis indicate that it is possible to study the complex and dynamic interplay between sub-constructs of cognitive, conative and affective constructs. Moreover, the research succeeded in identifying both individual variations and general reflection patterns and changes in these during the learning process. This was possible by adopting a longitudinal explorative research approach with SOM analyses.

Drawing the Boundaries between the Different Phases of Opportunity Processes

To investigate the boundaries between the different phases of opportunity processes, we adopted an empirical phenomenology and used documentary videography with an editing method as well as a critical incidents and events technique. The analysis of cases led to three kinds of opportunity process approaches. Each had a different rationale for the actions taken and set of moderators, which are represented by the different interplay of phases. The interplay between alertness, insights and creativity was characteristic to all of the approaches, although each of these concepts present different form in the identified three approaches.