The field of entrepreneurship is a relatively young academic field (Bygrave 1989; Low 2001, Wang and Chugh 2014) that has become more popular in the last few decades gaining the attention of scholars from diverse fields (Acs and Audretsch 2003; McDonald et al. 2006, Wang and Chugh 2014). Although as a result there are various types of constructs mobilised to study the phenomenon, traditionally entrepreneurship research has drawn from a positivist stance to research (e.g. Davidsson 2003) influenced by trends in management research more broadly. This approach assumes that social phenomena much like the physical world operate according to laws, with the intention being to understand and model those laws as a way to understand the social world (Bryman, 1988). The nature of reality is considered objective with research aiming to explain and predict that reality. Research drawing from this perspective is characterised by data collection through large scale surveys that aim to
measure as accurately as possible aspects of the phenomenon, to link cause and effect and shape generalisable theory. This approach to research in entrepreneurship is supported by the view that such consolidated efforts that use similar approaches and constructs contribute to the development of the field overall, building up a testable knowledge base, which has contributed to a relatively low level of methodological diversity (Neergaard and Ulhøi 2007).
Increasingly in the last two decades this trend seems to change with major publications being more open to new approaches to examining the phenomenon (Gartner and Birley, 2002). Studies adopting phenomenological and interpretivist approaches have advanced our understanding of entrepreneurship significantly (Suddaby et al. 2015) and are increasingly seen as potentially the only way to address certain aspects of the phenomenon that are emerging, context specific and highly social (Gartner and Birley 2002).
For this study this broader view of entrepreneurship is acknowledged, viewing it as a complex social construct with various manifestations that can be better understood through the application of different ontological and epistemological lenses. The study adopts an interpretivist perspective justified by the nature of the research problem identified and the literature review conducted (Aldrich 1992). In more detail, adopting an objectivist perspective in unpacking the research question would not be appropriate since the researcher cannot be independent from the study of knowledge creation in such a novel context, it is more appropriate for the researcher to use their intuition and reflection with the aim to increase the level of understanding of the situation rather than to demonstrate causality. To do that the study aims to capture instances of personal experience within the context of the design process and link those to the stories and meanings that the participants assign to them. The interpretivist approach draws from the reflection of individuals on their experience which is more appropriate given the nature of the phenomenon under study. It is based on the
argument that the study of social phenomena can be done effectively through capturing the meanings and interpretations people ascribe to them as a way to understand them and their actions (Johnson et al. 2006). This approach is especially appropriate in a novel context, making an account of people’s constructions of meanings in a setting that has not been explored before. The view is adopted that an account of the phenomenon of learning in service design, should be grounded in participant’s self-understandings of the engagements and the benefit the value it created for them. Ontologically, adopting this paradigm involves assuming a socially constructed nature of reality, which is shaped intersubjectively by the meanings people develop socially and experientially and ascribe to phenomena. The implication for epistemology is that there can be no separation between reality and out knowledge of it, stressing the importance of the values of the researcher in the investigation with truth being the outcome of a dialogue and a representation of realities intersubjectively. It is acknowledged that all interpretations are grounded on a specific situation and time and are open to re-interpretation through discussion. (Neergaard and Ulhøi 2007).
With this in mind an interpretivist study aims to understand by making rich accounts of phenomena rather than explain the laws that govern them. To achieve that naturalistic methods are adopted, namely interviews, observation and the analysis of texts, detailed in section 3.4. below. To understand and represent these interpretations, the researcher generates rich descriptions that preserve these meanings (Gephart 2004) using them to make an account of complex phenomena. In order to embed the findings to existing research in both fields, two theories discussed in the literature review above are used to represent and analyse the data, providing a structure to the inquiry. The first one is experiential learning theory (Kolb 1984), which is applied to make a nuanced account of the way new knowledge comes to be in the engagement of entrepreneurs in Service Design. The theoretical constructs of dominant logic and learning mode were mobilised to make a novel knowledge-oriented account of the
process of service design in this context. The second theory is the Model – Analysis – Projection – Synthesis framework (Chow and Jonas 2009) which draws from experiential learning theory and helps deconstruct each service design engagement in knowledge oriented way, looking at the domains of knowledge each activity relates to and its contribution to the micro-cycle of learning for each one. Remaining faithful to the philosophical approach adopted, it is acknowledged that the research process is dynamic and the aim of interpretivist research is to develop theories that are grounded in the experience of people, rather than making ontological assumptions about what is real (Leitch et al. 2010, Cope 2005). For this reason the use of these two theories are used mindfully, primarily to represent and analyse the data, allowing for rich interpretation based on the meanings shaped by participants, based on openness to emerging themes. How this is implemented in the study is reflected in the research design discussed below.