Suna Løwe Nielsen

DesUni: university entrepreneurship education through design thinking

Purpose – In recent years there has been growing focus on the innovative and profit generating value of design thinking in a businesses. This attention is also reflected in business education. The basic thesis is that design thinking is particular relavant to entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this paper is to propose a teaching model, named the DesUni model. The model suggests a novel design-oriented approach to entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach – This paper relies on the interfaces between the literatures on entrepreneurship education and design thinking. From reviewing and synthesizing these literatures new insights are offered into how to develop entrepreneurship education through design thinking. Findings – The DesUni teaching model offers a significant shift in paradigm changing the traditional didactic assumptions of entrepreneurship education. It involves a change in curriculum, teaching methods, use of knowledge, teaching style, teacher-student relations, culture, ha...

The Wicked Problem of Design Management: Perspectives from the Field of Entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT Inexplicable tensions and paradoxes exist between the underlying assumptions and logics of design and the related management perspectives. This paper aims to contribute to the design management literature by introducing entrepreneurship as an alternative management perspective. Entrepreneurship holds the capacity to add new valuable managerial meaning to the term design management that does not disrupt the uniqueness of design. A differentiation is made between two logics of management – administrative management and entrepreneurial management – and the article argues against a one-management-style-fits-all-design-processes approach. Design associated with complex and wicked problems may be more closely associated with entrepreneurial design management, whereas design based on simpler and tamer design problems may align better with administrative design management. A framework of entrepreneurial design management is introduced and the theoretical and practical implications of entrepreneurship as a platform for design management are brought into perspective.

Am I a Student and/or Entrepreneur? Multiple Identities in Student Entrepreneurship.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study different aspects and tensional forces that play a role in the internal and contextual negotiation that takes place within students in the exploration of the possible identity of entrepreneur. It expands the knowledge of how the university context influences student entrepreneurial processes from a multiple identity perspective. The findings are related to discussions of entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual paper that presents a framework on student entrepreneurial identity sense making that is grounded in a multiple identity perspective. The framework is illustrated by ten narrative cases on student entrepreneurship. Findings The framework suggests four different ways students make sense of identity in the process of exploring the entrepreneurial identity along with their university studies. In this process students negotiate between the two identities of “student” and “entrepreneur”, both demanding in time, effort and commitment, and they in different manners struggle with balancing university belonging and entrepreneurial distinctiveness. Originality/value The framework serves as a point of departure for discussing the psychological processes and tensions associated with students’ entrepreneurial identity construction, and what it means to entrepreneurship education. It is suggested that universities to a higher degree have to view themselves as psychological institutional moratoriums and thus as platforms of identity explorations rather than deterministic systems preparing students for certain careers to support students in becoming entrepreneurs.

Developing Knowledge Intensive Ideas in Engineering Education: The Application of Camp Methodology

Background: Globalization, technological advancement, environmental problems, etc. challenge organizations not just to consider cost-effectiveness, but also to develop new ideas in order to build competitive advantages. Hence, methods to deliberately enhance creativity and facilitate its processes of development must also play a central role in engineering education. However, so far the engineering education literature provides little attention to the important discussion of how to develop knowledge intensive ideas based on creativity methods and concepts. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate how to design creative camps from which knowledge intensive ideas can unfold. Design/method/sample: A framework on integration of creativity and knowledge intensity is first developed, and then tested through the planning, execution and evaluation of a specialized creativity camp with focus on supply chain management. Detailed documentation of the learning processes of the participating 49 engineering and business students is developed through repeated interviews during the process as well as a survey. Results: The research illustrates the process of development of ideas, and how the participants through interdisciplinary collaboration, cognitive flexibility and joint ownership develop highly innovative and knowledge-intensive ideas, with direct relevance for the four companies whose problems they address. Conclusions: The article demonstrates how the creativity camp methodology holds the potential of combining advanced academic knowledge and creativity, to produce knowledge intensive ideas, when the design is based on ideas of experiential learning as well as creativity principles. This makes the method a highly relevant learning approach for engineering students in the search for skills to both develop and implement innovative ideas.

Interviewing Like a Researcher: The Powers of Paradigms

The purpose of this chapter is to show the transformation that takes place when a ‘neutral’ research method is turned into a ‘paradigm-embedded’ research method. Because a paradigm consists of some ultimate presumptions (understood as philosophical hypothesis or normative theses), paradigms influence the way in which researchers understand problems and how researchers look at existing and available sets of research methods and knowledge in general. The powers of paradigms thus are substantial and should be noted by researchers to provide context for their reflections. The paradigms we depart from are inspired by the Arbnor and Bjerke (Methodology for creating business knowledge, SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, 2009) distinction between an analytical view (similar to positivism), a system view (similar to critical realism) and an actor view (similar to interpretism). To illustrate the transformation that neutral research methods go through, we consider an often-used method in business research, which researchers often become familiar with or have opinions about, which is the personal interview. The illustration of how the personal interview can be influenced by three different paradigms lays the foundation for a more nuanced understanding of how research methods in general can be used very differently depending on the paradigm researcher’s departure.

Process Perspective on Entrepreneurship

Gertsen, Lassen, Haase, and Nielsen start with the proposition that the essential properties of development processes within the three areas of innovation, design, and entrepreneurship have converged during recent decades. Based on a review of the three areas, Gertsen et al. conclude that, indeed, the development of processes within the three areas has led to a seeming convergence in the understanding of processes. However, it appears that the development may have happened more or less independently; although some similarities between the three disciplines can be identified, figuratively, the development may have followed different roads leading to the same intersection. Gertsen et al. identify similarities and opportunities for cross-fertilizations and conclude that further comparing and contrasting may be beneficial to advance learning in all three fields.

Hunting the Opportunity: The Promising Nexus of Design and Entrepreneurship

Abstract While recent debates in research on the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities increasingly link opportunity creation to the logic of design, they do not fully engage with the design literature. The aim of this paper is to bring closer together the two research fields of design and entrepreneurship in order to stimulate new knowledge on opportunity creation. In doing so, we offer a shared theoretical framework on new opportunity creation that illustrates that design and entrepreneurship can advantageously complement each other in the opportunity design process. Practical insights into the robustness of the framework are provided by a short illustrative case on electric cars.