A Neopragmatist Approach To Entrepreneurship Research

Schaefer, Reiner

A Neopragmatist Approach To Entrepreneurship Research

dc.contributor.advisor	Keyhani, Mohammad
dc.contributor.advisor	Weinhardt, Justin
dc.contributor.advisor	de Koning, Alice
dc.contributor.author	Schaefer, Reiner
dc.contributor.committeemember	Dick, David
dc.contributor.committeemember	Gartner, William
dc.date	2022-06
dc.date.accessioned	2022-04-08T20:14:28Z
dc.date.available	2022-04-08T20:14:28Z
dc.date.issued	2022-03-15
dc.description.abstract	This dissertation will use neopragmatist philosophy (particularly the work of Robert Brandom and Donald Davidson) to examine three important concepts in entrepreneurship theorizing: entrepreneurial uncertainty, venture ideas, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Neopragmatist philosophers typically understand meaning, objectivity, correct reasoning, and knowledge in terms of social-linguistic interpretive practices. Each of these concepts are perspectival in the sense that different people will interpret others as having a different view than themselves on what is actually objective etc.. According to neopragmatists we should analyse these concepts not by trying to identify any sort of criteria which distinguishes which perspectives are actually correct (e.g. what is actually known), but instead identify how these concepts are used when people try to interpret the perspectives of others in relation to their own. This dissolves many difficult ontological problems (e.g. realism vs constructivism). I will argue that the concepts ‘entrepreneurial uncertainty’, ‘venture ideas’, and ‘entrepreneurial opportunities’ are similarly perspectival and that a neopragmatist lens allows us to fruitfully understand them in terms of how we scholars use them when interpreting the perspectives of the entrepreneurs we are studying—who are in turn interpreting the perspectives of their stakeholders. In chapter two I will argue that Knightian uncertainty (understood as the inability to calculate probabilities) seems largely irrelevant to practicing entrepreneurs, and that we should reconceptualize and study entrepreneurial uncertainty as a lack of social justificatory resources. In chapter three I argue that instead of conceptualizing venture ideas as mental representations we should instead conceptualize them in terms of their role in social justificatory practices whereby entrepreneurs have to navigate how their perspectives diverge from their stakeholders. In Chapter four I argue that when an entrepreneurship scholars says that an entrepreneur pursues an opportunity they are not only claiming that the entrepreneur perceives the course of action as favourable, but are themselves taking a stand on its favourability relative to whatever theoretical lens they are using. The question “what are entrepreneurial opportunities” ceases to be an ontological debate and becomes instead a more fruitful debate about how we scholars can bring relevant theoretical insights to the perspectives of practicing entrepreneurs.	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Schaefer, R. (2022). A Neopragmatist Approach To Entrepreneurship Research (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.	en_US
dc.identifier.doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39680
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114539
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.faculty	Haskayne School of Business	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.	en_US
dc.subject	Entrepreneurship	en_US
dc.subject	Uncertainty	en_US
dc.subject	Venture Ideas	en_US
dc.subject	neopragmatism	en_US
dc.subject	Entrepreneurial Opportunities	en_US
dc.subject	Epistemology	en_US
dc.subject	Robert Brandom	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Business Administration--Management	en_US
dc.title	A Neopragmatist Approach To Entrepreneurship Research	en_US
dc.type	doctoral thesis	en_US
thesis.degree.discipline	Haskayne School of Business: Management	en_US
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary	en_US
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US