Handbook of research in entrepreneurship education 160-165

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST THINKING: SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR

ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Professor: Dr. Arabiun

Fatemeh Shahmehr

Pages: 160-165

Entrepreneurship faculty. University of Iran . Tehran

Introduction:

Entrepreneurship discourses and practices have become increasingly popular and entrepreneurship courses feature in most business school programmes.

Our understanding has extended beyond the traditional focus on personality traits or attributes that used to dominate entrepreneurship.

Introduction:

There is analysis of the structures that facilitate entrepreneurship such as political – economic environment , institutional framework, government policy support, regulatory frameworks, social personal or instrumental networks and education programmes.

Introduction:

In addition , research investigations are also beginning to adopt approaches that emphasize contextual , holistic , and language or process-oriented views of entrepreneurship and which challenge the notion of entrepreneurship as a fixed or static entity that can be fully known.

The problem of paradigm and compartmentalism

Organizational researchers surface assumptions about how particular organizational practices come to occur or be in the social world .

The authors propose four paradigms that embrace particular assumptions about social reality.

1- radical structuralist 2- radical humanist3- functionalist 4- interpretivist

The problem of paradigm and compartmentalism

The value of such framework is that by showing the contrast and duality of such positions, researchers will be encouraged to surface assumption about the world and from this be able to locate themselves within a particular research approach or paradigm.

The problem of paradigm and compartmentalism

More integrative approaches are needed in the study of entrepreneurship by taking account of how entrepreneurial practices are constructed through an interaction between individual agency, industry/sector/firm structures and the wider economic , social or cultural environment.

The problem of paradigm and compartmentalism

My aim is to review the ideas and their application in entrepreneurship in order to show how they provide means of responding to some of the tension and problems.

The social constructionist idea are useful to entrepreneurship because they provide a means of theorizing that transcends polarizing structure/agency emphases.

Social constructivist and constructionist idea

Ever since Berger and Luckmann (1966) coined the term ‘social construction of reality’ to emphasize the shared processes and negotiated understanding in which people constantly engage to create meaning there has been potential for the application of these ideas in the study of business and management. And in recent decades we have seen this potential being realized in studies of organizations , entrepreneurship , small enterprises , family business and international entrepreneurship.

Social constructivist idea and the study of entrepreneurship

Social constructivist thinking is a set of key assumptions about social reality and the ways in which we can come to know or construct understanding of that reality.

Social constructivist idea and the study of entrepreneurship

What is itWe want to learn

about?

Social constructivist Social constructionist

How entrepreneurial activities are

constructed through individual,

Cognitive processes in a social context

How entrepreneurial activities are

constructed through dialogic, social structural and

relational preocesses

Social constructivist idea and the study of entrepreneurship

In constructing the table , it is not suggested that constructivist and constructionist idea can be neatly divided into two categories. On the contrary, the table is means of organizing and making sense of two dominant emphases in social constructionist thinking in order to show what is distinctive ( rather than different) for each set of ideas.

Social constructivist idea and the study of entrepreneurship

Social constructivist ideas are pertinent when research questions are concerned with examining how and why entrepreneurial activities are constructed in the way they are.

Fieldwork activities and analyses focus on, individuals , their cognitive processing abilities, personalities and social – psychological attributes.

Social constructivist idea and the study of entrepreneurship

The key interpretive task is to lean inwards towards the subject of research and examine personal subjectivity.

Some attention is given to the social context or structural forces in the environment/culture, but only in the sense of how they are absorbed or embodies in the person.