Entrepreneurial learning: an ethnomethodological examination

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Entrepreneurial

learning:

An ethnomethodological examination

Tjebbe Dijkstra

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Student Tjebbe Dijkstra who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

1. Abstract

Purpose - the purpose of this thesis is to provide new insights on entrepreneurial learning. It will do so by investigating learning processes in real-time as they unfold. It is a novel approach to investigating the phenomenon and moves away from more traditional modes of inquiry in order to shed a new light on the phenomenon.

Design/Methodology/Approach – This work utilizes concepts from Entrepreneurship-As-Practice and Ethnomethodology to analyze a workshop that was given at an entrepreneurship event at the business incubator B.Amsterdam in which a group of (aspiring) entrepreneurs learn about user experience design. The thesis uses the case in order to categorize different learning sequences and devices essential to the process yet overlooked by scholars up until now.

Findings – The paper draws lessons from the case as it emphasizes the importance of the environmental and social setting surrounding learning practice and shows how these significantly affect the quality of learning.

Practical implications – It becomes increasingly clear that learning is of key importance in the entrepreneurial process. This work shows that the intricacies of entrepreneurship are not easily captured in traditional individualistic and process models of learning. It proposes a practice-based perspective which provides practical recommendations valuable to the organization of learning events.

Originality/Value – This thesis is the first attempt to combine principles from ethnomethodology and apply them to an entrepreneurial Community of Practice. The study reframes studies from an

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individual perspective of entrepreneurs to relational/practice perspective of entrepreneurs and others.

2. Introduction

Entrepreneurial learning has long been a promising area of research. The transition from a production- to a knowledge-based economy has placed emphasis on the necessity for organizations to assimilate and diffuse increasing bodies of knowledge more rapidly. As Prange (1999, p. 23) notes “organizations are reeling from discontinuities created by a growing level of globalization, heightened volatility, hypercompetition, demographic changes, and the explosion of knowledge”. The acknowledgement of the rapidly changing business environment and the need for responsiveness by startups and incumbents, has revitalized research on entrepreneurial learning. It signals a shift in mindset; from a static, trait based entrepreneurial perspective to a dynamic model to cope with the volatile business environment.

There are two main streams of entrepreneurial learning research. The first views the phenomenon from an organizational perspective; it deals with concepts related to learning by experience and professional learning outcomes. (Wang & Chugh, 2014; Rae, 2012; Corbett, 2005). The second stream of literature, in contrast, investigates learning from an educational perspective (Blenker P. et al, 2014; Pittaway & Cope, 2007; Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018; Ramsgaard & Christensen, 2018). The educational perspective has seen growing interest by entrepreneurship scholars due to a specific mission of teaching nascent entrepreneurs through guided programs. While experiential and professional learning has always and will be an important part of entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial education has grown in recent decades. This thesis will follow the second stream of literature as it possesses a clear set of boundary conditions to analyze and is more appropriate for the limited time frame of a thesis project.

In an educational setting, students need to acquire a broad set of conceptual and practical skills in order to deal with the complexities of entrepreneurship (Ramsgaard & Christensen, 2018). The most common mindset of entrepreneurship educators is rooted in process models, a significant change from individual oriented models of the past. Process models are taught to inform nascent entrepreneurs of the broad and abstract phases that venturing is a part. However, there has been a critical strain of this research that argues that process models do not adequately represent nor

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inform nascent entrepreneurs of the practical activities of entrepreneurship. Recently, a number of scholars argue that practice-based methods of teaching are most appropriate in order to integrate the various conceptual and practical capabilities associated with the volatile domain (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018). While focusing on the practices of entrepreneurship would add insight into entrepreneurial learning, there are no studies that investigate the real-time interactions. There is a need to shed light on the situated phenomenon of practices in order to understand entrepreneurial learning as it happens. One methodology to do so is ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodology analyzes social practices as they occur, aimed at uncovering the mechanisms by which these practices are known and acted upon by the actors involved in the process. Two important constructs are sequences, referring to the assertion that every social phenomenon is structured in sequences that make it knowledgeable and interpretable, and devices, referring to the actionable or conversational devices that shape and guide the range of possible responses or actions by actors. It does so by means of conversation analysis (Sacks, 1974). Ethnomethodology provides significant new understanding of the learning process as the data collection method involves acquiring real-time data whilst the learning process is taking place. As these methodologies have never before been applied to an entrepreneurship educational setting, this study asks;

Research question

In what ways can ethnomethodology add to the discussion about Entrepreneurial learning practices?

Sub-research questions

Can I identify the learning sequences that structures the development of the CoP? Can I observe specific learning devices that facilitate the learning process?

How do these learning sequences and devices relate to the peripheral participation of the students? Therefore, this work explores the entrepreneurial learning process, utilizing theories and concept as developed and advocated by the entrepreneurship-as-practice and ethnomethodological schools of thought. Multiple entrepreneurship events around Amsterdam were attended to collect rich data on the phenomenon. Furthermore, the thesis offers insights relevant to the debate on the situatedness of the learning process. Specifically, it moves away from the dominant cognitivist viewpoint, which positions learning as a mental process largely unrelated to environmental factors.

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This work joins the growing body of literature that argues that learning in general and entrepreneurial learning specifically is situated in nature and is significantly affected by the setting and practices associated with the process.

In order to collect data for the project, audio recordings were made at multiple startup events in the city of Amsterdam. One of the focal objectives of these events is the exchange of knowledge between actors who attend or host these occasions. As such, workshops of this kind served perfectly for use as cases to analyze the phenomenon. Eventually, one case was selected for analysis. The case had 24 attendants and 1 teacher and the subject was user experience design. The subsequent ethnomethodological analysis uncovered the learning sequence guiding the case as well as the many devices that were deployed to teach the participants the matter at hand. As it turns out, these learning devices prove critical for the learning process and the quality of the knowledge transfer greatly depended on this specific combination of learning sequences and actionable devices.

Finally, following the findings, the relevancy of the work will be discussed. As this is the first attempt to categorize the structural properties of an entrepreneurial CoP, the case was specifically selected as it possesses a clear set of boundary conditions akin to classroom setting. This section will theorize on the possibilities to transfer the employed methodologies to more complex settings, perhaps even experiential learning cycles and startup trajectories

3. Literature review

The following chapter will discuss entrepreneurial learning and education from two different perspectives. First, as entrepreneurship courses and training programs have been on the rise in recent years, scholars occupy themselves with finding new ways to approach the phenomenon methodologically. The first segments of the literature review will elaborate on the varying methodologies that are deployed in contemporary research. Afterwards, recommendations that scholars suggest in order to advance the field will be discussed.

The second part of this literature review explores entrepreneurial learning and education on a conceptual level. Specifically, situated learning theory as developed by Lave & Wenger (1991) in combination with entrepreneurial learning processes will be discussed. Afterwards,

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opportunities for conceptual development will be presented. These recommendations will guide the course of this thesis.

3.1 Methodologies in entrepreneurial learning research

Entrepreneurship has established itself as an independent field, transcending conventional boundaries of business schools and attracting the interest of people from varying educational backgrounds. It is considered an important source of economic development, value- and job creation. Following these developments, entrepreneurial education is attracting interest from policy makers and education management. (Gibb & Hannon, 2006) The value attributed to entrepreneurship education by public agencies and policy-makers enforce a pragmatic but potentially problematic focus on numbers, output and effect. This tendency poses the threat of a unidimensional focus on the phenomenon and faces the risk of misrepresenting the reality of actual entrepreneurs. The singular focus on the goal of producing more entrepreneurs disregard some of the complex aspects and purposes of entrepreneurship education and learning.

As entrepreneurship is taught across faculties by scholars and non-academics alike, learning methods and objectives diverge considerably from instance to instance. This diversity challenges researchers aiming to measure and understand entrepreneurship education. As a result, researching entrepreneurial education is no straightforward matter. The field is widely heterogeneous with overlap between an array of fields such as teaching, learning and policy. Therefore, research into these practices faces substantial tensions, methodological challenges and biases. (Pittaway & Cope, 2007).

In order to present the various approaches and methodologies used in the field Blenker et all (2014) conducted a systematic literature review of papers published in peer reviewed journals between 2010 and 2014. They devised a methodological framework to allow for faster dissemination of knowledge without sacrificing the foundations of solid research in the future.

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Whilst their findings include a variety of parameters I like to draw attention to two figures that are relevant for the research at hand.

Figure 1 Research methods (Blenker P. , Elmholdt, Frederiksen, Korsgaard, & Wagner, 2014, p. 704)

Figure 1 shows the distribution of research methods in the field. Qualitative research methods are predominantly deployed followed by quantitative methods. To a lesser extent, mixed methods are used to investigate. The most interesting statistic, however, is the fact that other methodologies, the ‘unassigned’ category do not seem to see the light of day at all. This is especially interesting given the nature of educational settings where researchers have access to a vast amount of different data sources, like class rooms, exam results, student reports, that can be utilized for all sorts of modes of inquiry. The variety of data sources that can be used to investigate learning settings are depicted in figure 2.

Figure 2 Data collection methods (Blenker P. , Elmholdt, Frederiksen, Korsgaard, & Wagner, 2014, p. 705)

Figure 2 shows that the dominant data collection method are surveys, even though the most common type of inquiry is qualitative. Blenker et all (2014) discern that the amount of different

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possible data types indicates a promising future for entrepreneurship education research. As can be seen in the graph, however, research, as of then, still primarily relies on traditional data sources. Evidently, one has to keep in mind that that the research relied upon here stems from 2014. Conducting a contemporary inventarisation, however, is outside of the scope of this thesis. Furthermore, contemporary conceptual literature, which is to be discussed in chapter 3.4, does not provide evidence that the validity of this has to be put to question, the methodology attempted in this work will be completely new.

3.2 Opportunities for methodological development

Given the statistics as presented above, there are a number of methodological advancements that can be made in order to forward the discussion on entrepreneurial learning and education. First, even though there are many data sources readily available for analysis, researchers employ predominantly traditional qualitative and quantitative methods. Blenker et al (2014) view this as a serious limitation as “the deployment of more refined forms of data analysis could enhance

research from descriptive to in-depth investigations into the central mechanisms of entrepreneurship teaching and learning” (Blenker et al. 2014, p. 706)

Furthermore, given the complementary strengths of combining research methods, the field suffers from a lack of overarching methodological frameworks. As a result, much of what has been written is has a singular focus and fails to understand the intricate mechanisms of how learning works.

Blenker et all (2014) argue that case studies are best equipped to deal with the complexity of the phenomenon and often encourages the use of multiple methods. A case study can be defined as “An empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its

real-life context especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly defined”. (Blenker et all 2014) Entrepreneurship education lends itself well to this type of inquiry

as it consists of activities and entities that are easily identifiable and observable, e.g. the activities are undertaken by students and teachers in courses, trainings and programs.

3.3 Situated Learning

From a classical perspective, learning is seen as a cognitive process. In a basic sense, this stream of thought concerns itself with uncovering internal information processing mechanisms in

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individuals which account for relationships observed between the environment and response behaviors. DoCorte et all (1996) call this the first wave of the cognitive revolution and it has been the go to explanatory model for over 40 years. The second wave of cognitive revolution, on the other hand, introduced a shift towards greater emphasis on social context in which information is processed and disseminated.

This theory underlying this ‘second wave’ of cognitive revolution is called situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Within the situated learning discourse, social practices do not merely influence otherwise autonomous psychological processes but learning is, fundamentally, a change in in which a person participates in social practices.

The viewpoints are radically different as the underlying assumptions of both streams of thought diverge fundamentally. At the level of analysis, the cognitive approach, centralizes mental processes and structures that function at the level of individual actors, such as knowledge, perception, memory and so on. Whilst the situated perspective focusses primarily on interaction between individuals as participants in social contexts. In this regard, structures include; participation structure, distributed cognition and communities of practice. The cognitive approach is the more normative of the two, priding itself on the stronger tenet for generalizability than its situated counterpart. However, authors argue that a laboratory induced model for learning cannot be expected to be disseminated successfully throughout different settings. Another fundamental difference between the paradigms are the goals we are trying to achieve through learning. In cognitive theory, developing a subset of predetermined skill acquired through one or other process is the ultimate goal, whilst, for situated learning, the ability to successfully participate within different social contexts (e.g. classrooms, work and so on) is considered central to learning. (Greeno, 1997)

3.4 Situated learning and entrepreneurship education

Contemporary research investigating entrepreneurial education is now starting to apply situated learning theories and constructs as developed by Lave en Wenger (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018; Rae, 2017). Embracing the notions of student co-participation and social embeddedness, this stream of research questions the up until then one-dimensional teaching models. Few studies have attempted to understand entrepreneurial education and training from a situated learning

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perspective. In particular, it remains unclear how this perspective can enrich our understanding of students learning transformation in practice-based learning.

As mentioned before, the situated learning perspective views learning as socially embedded. By participating and engaging in social activities, meaning is negotiated within a

community of practice(CoP) and as new meaning arises, people learn. While traditional EL models

emphasize the individual and experiential learning cycles, situated learning theory relies on learning as a product of social participation among members of a CoP. Evidently, entrepreneurial learning in a student possesses a social dimension beyond individual processes as it relates to the immersion, comprehension and co-participation in a CoP; its routines, work tasks and culture. It incorporates the learner’s own initiative in social negotiation and construction of new meaning.

Lave and Wenger (1991) conceptualized another construct which they deemed legitimate

peripheral participation to capture the dynamics of the learning trajectory. It denotes the access to

and gradual co-participation in a CoP. Membership in a CoP can thus be understood as two ends of a continuum. On one end is full participation, which denotes the most experienced members of the community, a professor for instance. On the other end, there is the newcomer which has yet to learn the ins and outs of community the is the legitimate peripheral participant who works towards becoming a full member of the community. The legitimizing process involves changing the learning and the CoP, thus co-participation in in fact learning “of both absorbing and being absorbed in” the practice. This process of both absorbing and being absorbed in a practice is achieved through language and storytelling that allow for the exchange of knowledge, stories and information important to solving the task at hand and understanding the routines of the practice. (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018)

In an educational setting, students rarely achieve the status of full-membership due to time restraints. From a student perspective it makes more sense to discuss their respective levels of

legitimate peripheral participation. Authors have argued that his place at the boundary possesses

the quality of exploring new opportunities and demonstrate their capabilities without being subjected to habits of the core practice. (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018)

Factors that influence this process have been investigated by Kubberod and Petersen (2018) the first identified factor are the power relations between members of a CoP which may hinder the transition to full membership. The second are emotions experienced by members. The authors

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hypothesize that especially in an entrepreneurial setting the periphery of a startup is especially confusing and ambiguous forcing its members to go outside of their comfort zone which may result in high emotional exposure. Third and final, they attempted to investigate the relationship between co-participation and entrepreneurial outcomes. Entrepreneurial Learning outcomes are defined as:

“The ability to identify new opportunities of value to others beyond the individual learner as well as the ability to develop opportunities from the existing social practice” and “the ability to cope with the liability of newness” (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018) which can be simply understood as

learning to cope with the uncertainties faced by entrepreneurs

3.5 Opportunities for conceptual development

Given the recent rise in interest in entrepreneurial learning in combination with situated learning theory there are many opportunities for conceptual development. First, as CoP’s are central to the learning process, it is mesmerizing why, as of yet, no research has attempted to investigate such an entrepreneurial community from the inside. All the research I have come across is conducted from an outside perspective, utilizing interviews in all cases to infer meaning about the community. Van de Ven (2007) asserted that this kind of qualitative research is overly reliant on subjective judgement in analysis. As a result, research produces very broad factors influencing the level of co-participation in a CoP. The factors affecting EL as identified by Kubberod and Petersen (Kubberød & Pettersen, 2018) are broad categories like ‘Educational background’ and ‘power relations’ which have some effect I do not doubt but they do not lay bare the innerworkings of these communities of practice. The very interesting question then becomes what an insider might observe in these communities and whether what is observed holds true in light with what is inferred. Can we observe the level of co-participation within such a community of practice? Are their points in time when we can see members becoming more absorbed in the practice thereby increasing their legitimate peripheral participation? How would one go about researching this?

Furthermore, it is possible to imagine the level of co-participation might also be affected by factors on a more micro level. Imagine a classroom for instance, in which the participating students almost always sit in the front of the class whilst the disinterested students mostly sit in the back. One can wonder whether physical peripherality in classrooms affects the peripheral participation of its members. What other micro mechanisms can be observed that affect the level of co-participation in these communities?

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The final point I like to raise refers back to assertion that language is the means by which people becoming absorbed in the practice and meaning is disseminated through its members. However, no study as of yet attempts to analyze the language as used by a community. If language fills such a prominent position with regard to the innerworkings of these entrepreneurial communities of practice then why have researchers never attempted to use linguistics to gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon?

4. Theoretical Framework

The following chapter will elaborate on the theoretical lens through which entrepreneurial learning will be analyzed. The chapter follows a from-broad-to-narrow approach in terms of methodologies. First, entrepreneurship-as-practice, a school of thought which views entrepreneurship not as a static entity but as a series of mutually understood practices that lead to certain outcomes, will be discussed. Afterwards, the specific methodology, ethnomethodology, will be elaborated upon.

4.1 Entrepreneurship-As-Practice

Entrepreneurship-as-practice is a contemporary stream of thought which argues that theory of entrepreneurship would benefit from a shift in mindset, away from a static view on entrepreneurship towards a practice-based view of entrepreneurial activities. Practices can be defined as “providing order and meaning to a set of otherwise banal activities” (Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007, p. 995). A practice is only viewed as such because the carrying out of the activity is mutually understood by all parties involved. As such, practices are inherently social and are only given meaning through a shared understanding of the activity. Learning as a practice is given meaning because the parties involved understand it as such. A teacher is given intellectual authority because the pupils understand their roles in the activity, for instance.

As entrepreneurship-as-practice has gained traction over the past decade, scholars have made insightful discoveries by moving away from the more traditional modes of inquiry generally pursued in the field. For instance, Keating et all (2014) were skeptic of the up until then dominant view within entrepreneurship literature that social resources are viewed as ‘owned’ and strategically deployed by entrepreneurs when the need arises. Indeed, much of what has been written on social resources give them the quality of being able to be shelved and deployed whenever the entrepreneur deems it fit. Rather, the authors argue that, when viewed as a practice,

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e.g. social resourcing instead of social resource, one implicitly acknowledges that this is not the case in practice, but, rather, social resources are simultaneously acquired and consumed by entrepreneurs, through engagement with their network. Similarly, knowledge is often portrayed as a static concept that can be accumulated in the brain through learning. However, Intuitively, one can sense that learning is a social practice that unfolds itself over the course of a learning event. For this reason, it is worthwhile to investigate entrepreneurial learning from a practice-based perspective.

4.2 Ethnomethodology

The following paragraph elaborates on the theoretical lens through which the matter of the thesis will be analyzed. Given the nature of the data collected, ethnomethodology has proven to be the best fit for analysis. The reason for opting with this particular stream of thought of others will become apparent over the next paragraphs.

“Ethnomethodology’s standing task is to examine social facts, just in every and any actual case asking for each thing, what makes it accountably just what that social fact is?” Garfinkel 2002

The theory is a special kind of social inquiry dedicated to “explicating the ways in which collectivity members create and maintain a sense of order and intelligibility in social life” (Fox, 2003) Basically, it examines the unseen link between interactions and intelligibility between members within a social construction.

Ethnomethodology is the result of the teachings of Harold Garfinkel. At its incarnation it has been a new way to construct sociological problems. In turn, this led to new ways to study sociological phenomena. Within practice theory, ethnomethodology differs from other prominent streams of thought, as it does not position a practice as an instance of something else (habitus, cognition) but as spatio-temporal accomplishments obtained by knowledgeable actors who use a variety of methods, tools and techniques. “These practical methods and procedures through which we constitute our daily scenes of action”. The actual doing of something is the object of study in this approach. As such, it does not concern itself with the fundamental elements of social interaction but rather; to produce an account of the methods and techniques deployed between members to produce and reproduce social reality.

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In other words, instead of reducing social phenomena as the result of unobservable cognitive processes, as is ordinarily the case within psychology and sociology, e.g. explaining members learning process as cognitive events mediated by social relations and actions, it seeks to explain social events as they occur. In so doing, ‘facts’ are seen in the course of their production, accomplishment and achievement rather than the result of some unseen cognitive process or another. Notions of motive, intent and meaning are not the object of study. Rather, for ethnomethodologists, practical action is the phenomenon under scrutiny.

Sequences and Devices

The following section will explain what ethnomethodology can teach us about learning processes. In order to illustrate this, I will utilize a famous case written by Sacks (Sacks, 1974) about the structure of the telling of a joke. By using this specific case it will be easier to explain how ehtnomethods view social phenomena, specifically two fundamental traits; sequences and devices, without becoming too theoretical about its constructs. This will be an exempt of the original work, for a more in depth understanding on ehtnomethods I refer to ‘An analysis of the course of a joke’s

telling in conversation’ (Sacks, 1974)

In the case of a joke there are three sequences, the preface, which sets the scene for the joke. It could be that the teller explains who told him the joke, which can invoke a response by the other actors. For instance, it might have been told by somebody who loves dirty jokes, implying that the coming joke is probably going to be dirty too. The second sequence is the telling of the joke itself and the third sequence is the response but the group, who may or may not laugh. (Fox, 2003)

Any social phenomenon is structured in sequences, relating this to learning we can imagine that actors in a group do some sort of introductory sequence to familiarize themselves with the setting and other participants. After this, an explanation of the subject at hand might be given by a teacher. Subsequently, the actors might have to do some sort of an assignment to gain hands on experience with the subject, and finally there is a discussion among members on what has been taught.

The second trait I draw attention to are conversational or actionable devices, which shape the range of possible outcomes and actor responses. In case of a joke, there are many possible responses to the punchline. People could collectively burst out laughing or no one laughs. Some

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may laugh first before others join in. Or maybe it’s the teller who starts laughing before others join or not. (Fox, 2003)

An important thing to understand here is that Sacks gathered a lot of insightful data about the telling of this particular joke without referring to the cognitive processes that undoubtedly unfolded in the minds of the participants. The use of these sequences devices and structures within conversations are akin to a driver signaling direction in his car. This does not need to be a flashing light but might as well be a lurch to the left. The point here is that social action often does not come labelled for what it is but it is still readable. Rather than indicating the intent of the driver ethnomethodology interests itself in how social practices shape the form of possibilities of the response sequence which is visible. Likewise, learning often does not come labelled for what it is. During the class that serves as the case for this work, the participants were asked whether they understood one of the assignment to which the class responded affirmative. Interestingly, there was only one team who completed the assignment correctly. This example shows that the actors had not learned the matter, even though they were confident they had. This social fact that I observed calls into question traditional qualitative research methods based on interviews as the interpretation of the participants does not accurately translate to practice. For this reason, this thesis attempts to utilize principles borrowed from ethnomethodology to make the learning process observable and indexical as it happens in practice.

Each ethnomethodological case is unique, the sequences, devices and mechanisms observed in the unfolding of one particular setting cannot and will not ever be the same as in another setting as the unfolding of these social facts are unique to this particular situation and not another. The point is not to generalize about specific sequences and devices but to appreciate this uniqueness of the social instances, much like a work of art.

“Each ethnomethodological study is like an individual work of art. They are not all equally good, but they each show something unique, even though many of them appear to be ‘about’ the same thing (e.g. the human figure, landscape, flowers). It is as pointless to try to generalize from ethnomethodological studies as it might be to generalize about the nature of flowers from an exhaustive survey of all the paintings of flowers ever made. Of course, one could try to do that and could be successful to a

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point, but, not only will something always be missing from such generalizations, but, the unique point of each painting would be lost.” (Fox, 2003, p. 13)

5. Combining the theory

The previous chapters have dealt with various theories relating to entrepreneurial learning, communities of practice and ethnomethodology. This section will explain why the combination of these theories is relevant. There is a greater picture that needs elaboration because everything that has been mentioned up until now relates to each other and poses a unique opportunity for research that has not been attempted before.

First, I like to raise awareness to the fact that ethnomethodological cases share a lot of similarities with the analysis of CoP’s. Just like each ethnomethodological case is an individual work of art, appreciated for its uniqueness, so too are communities of practice. To stick with the analogy of paintings, we can imagine a community of practice revolving around entrepreneurial learning as a painting of flowers. It shares similar traits and dispositions with other paintings of flowers but each is distinct, the same holds for EL CoP’s. Even though they are similar in their representation they are unique in the specific ways in which meaning is negotiated between its members.

For this reason, I like to call into question the assertion that language is the sole device through which meaning is negotiated within a CoP. I theorize that language is but one of the devices through which understanding is generated and members move from peripherality to core of a practice. Conversely, the constructs that were devised by Garfinkel and Sacks might not be solely reserved for the investigation of conversation but might be applicable to CoP’s to uncover their inner workings. Can we observe specific devices, such as language, that instill meaning into members? What are the sequences through which members of a CoP generate understanding?

My thesis is the first attempt to analyze an Entrepreneurial learning CoP from the inside as a participant. I will utilize the principles as developed by ethnomethodologists and apply them to the CoP in the hope to uncover some of the inner workings of the community by observation. Not only can this result in new understanding about the phenomenon conceptually, it also poses a new avenue through which entrepreneurial learning can be advanced methodologically. As mentioned in chapter 3.2, the field of EL would benefit from an increased number of case studies as they are

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best suited to deal with the complexities of the subject. Furthermore, authors call for an increased use of mixed research methods. As this the first attempt to conduct this kind of research it will be a single case study utilizing one method. However, if successful, it would open up a whole new array of possibilities of combining methods. Qualitative methods might be used in conjunction with ethnomethodology to explore the differences in observation vs subjective judgement by participants. Similarly, quantitative methods could be used to investigate the possibilities of generalization across multiple CoP’s.

6. Methodology

The following chapter will elaborate on the data collection method and analysis for this thesis. As this is a practice-based study on entrepreneurial learning, I am interested in real-time data in order to be able to analyze the learning as it occurs in practice. It was decided that the best course of action was to attend entrepreneurship events that hosted workshops and discussions. Evidently, people that attend these events do so to learn something. As such, it is the perfect setting to collect data on the learning process.

Data collection and sample selection

In total, 10 hours of workshops were attended and recorded at multiple events across the city of Amsterdam. At first, this undertaking seemed easy, however, it quickly became apparent that is was not as easy as it seemed. For instance, the first event attended advocated itself as a workshop which would teach attendants about bitcoin and blockchain and would include discussion among participants. For our purposes, this event proved problematic for two reasons; (1) The event hosted approximately a hundred attendants. The ‘discussion’ I was interested in was a rather one-sided monologue by the host, supplemented by the occasional question from the audience. Moreover, whenever actual discussion did occur, there are far too many people talking through one another to catch anything intelligible from the audio recording. (2) As the event was free to attend, the event was sponsored by companies who, not coincidentally, were the same companies giving the workshop. Therefore, much of the information provided and discussed concerned these companies and felt more like marketing than genuine transfer of knowledge.

In order to gather valuable data, it was necessary to search for smaller scale events with less attendants. This turned out to be another horde because these specific events, undoubtedly

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insightful, often cost considerable amounts of money. Eventually, I came across an event at the Amsterdam based business incubator B. Amsterdam. The event, let’s startup 2018, hosted various small-scale workshops and discussions and seemed perfect for my purposes. In the end, I attended two workshops with around 20 participants which was manageable.

Data analysis

After transcribing both events, I needed to select the one most suitable for ethnomethodological analysis. As mentioned before, ethnomethodological studies present an in-depth analysis of a specific case as the social actions observed are unique. Eventually, a workshop which taught about user experience design was selected as the most appropriate for analysis. The reason for this was that the class was the more structured of the two. As such, the learning sequences were clearly identifiable. Furthermore, the class made use of various devices in order to guide the learning process which was suitable for analysis.

7. Findings

The following sections will provide insights from my analysis of the workshop given at B. Amsterdam. An attempt is made to uncover the structural properties of this entrepreneurial community of practice. In so doing, I focus on three concepts relating to situated learning. (1) Can I identify the learning sequences that structures the development of the CoP? (2) Can I observe specific learning devices that facilitate the learning process and disseminate meaning through the CoP. And, if so, (3) how do these learning sequences and devices relate to the peripheral participation of the students?

Sequences

During my time spend in the class I notices that the sequential structure of the workshop given had significant impact on the development of the CoP. The following paragraphs will elaborate on the individual sequences that I observed and how these relate to the learning process. The assertions made will be supplemented with exemplifying quotes from the afternoon. For a complete overview of all sequences and accompanying quotes I refer to appendix 1.

Opening sequence

During the opening sequence people started to enter the room and seated themselves on the couches that were placed. The first 5 minutes were spent with introducing one another to get some

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idea of the various backgrounds that were present in this newly established CoP. After everyone was seated the teacher of the class Andei introduced himself and gave an introduction to the class that he was about to give.

“so basically, what we are gonna do today is kinda walk you through having to kinda define your product and getting to know your user through personas that users have, focused on lean development and especially ehh user mapping and then if there is time we are gonna have q&a sessions.”

As much as the purpose of the preface of a Joke is to sets the stage and to manage expectations for the audience for what is to come, the same holds in this case. The opening sequence allowed the participants to familiarize themselves with the subject at hand. Relating this to peripheral participation, it presented the journey from periphery to core of user experience design which was about to follow. During the workshop there were four learning sequences, each dealing with a different topic relating to the overall subject of the course. The four topics were (1) Defining your product. (2) Defining your user (3) User Journeys and (4) prototyping. Upon completing each of the sub topics participants advance to the next stage which increases their level of legitimate peripheral participation. Next to the four topics, there was a fifth learning topic, namely, gaining proficiency in the brainstorm method that was to be the closing off of each sub section. Following this I conclude that the learning within this CoP is completed when the actors are successful at the brainstorming session as it proves they understood the matter as well as demonstrate their ability in the technique

Learning sequences

The structuring of the individual learning sequences was following the same pattern for each of the sub-topics. First, Andei would introduce some common issue entrepreneurs tend to engage in. In first learning sequence, defining your product, it was the assertion that

“The biggest issues that we have seen with the startups that we work with is ehh they don’t have the narrow scope and they go very broad, so this is a problem because it confuses users and it cost a lot of money and that doesn’t necessarily end up with a better company, you can scale up when you want to get bigger but you can’t scale down if you start bad.

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Following this he would give examples of successful companies who did not follow these common pitfalls. In the first sequence he gave the example of Amazon;

I kinda wanna remember people how amazon and google started so..ehh.. does anyone know, what was amazon doing when they started? They were selling somethings what?

Man: Books

Andei: Books! What type of books?

Man: new books

Andei: new books okay now compared with what they are today you know ehh you get the idea

Afterwards, he would introduce the assignment we were supposed to do. In this case sticking post it notes to a canvas which consisted of 5 columns which denoted ‘name’ is a ‘product/service’ that allows “users’ from ‘location’ to ‘use case’. Given these conceptual parameters of the assignment, it was up to the participants to figure out the specific conditions under which Traintap would operate with regard to the product definition. Even though Andei explained the concepts, the actual learning of the matter at hand was through the exercise that followed. This shows that gaining proficiency in the matter did indeed depended on the co-participation of the members of the individual groups

Exercise

During the exercise session the attendants brainstormed on their own ideas concerning Traintap. Unfortunately, this was also the moment in which my single microphone proved inadequate as there was simply no way to distinguish between the different voices. In a perfect setting, each of the group would need a high-quality microphone which would record their voices distinctly while simultaneously canceling out the background noise of the conversations of the other groups. I do not possess the intellectual nor financial resources to make this a reality within the span of a thesis. As a result, I am unable to provide quotes exemplifying the sequence.

To conclude this sub-section, I want to reflect upon the specific purpose of the learning sequences related to the peripheral participation of the actors. As mentioned before, in order to move from periphery to core of the CoP the actors needed to learn about 4 different subtopics. The interesting thing here however is to ask whether it is necessary to know the content of the first sub-topic in

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order to begin learning about the second. Following this I theorize that there are two different kinds of learning sequences which I call Independent and dependent learning sequences.

Independent learning sequences are those sequences that do not rely on specific pre-knowledge in order to gain proficiency. The sum of the total of independent sequences denotes the proficiency in the practice. An example of this would be the courses of an entrepreneurship master course that can be taught individually which together give students the proficiency to achieve their graduation. In this case, these are the ‘Defining your product’, the ‘defining your user and the prototyping sequence. Conversely, dependent learning sequences are those sequences that do rely on specific pre-knowledge before actors are able to learn. In this case, it is the ‘user journey’ sequence which can only be completed after the ‘defining your user’ sequence.

Learning devices

The room

As I was the first to arrive I introduced myself to the teacher of the class Andei. Andei seemed a bit distressed, the reason for this was that the room, which was supposed to be filled with tables participants would be seated at, was filled with moon shaped lines of couches from front to back. Due to this, he feared that he exercises he had prepared for the day could not be done and he contemplated to forfeit them all together and simply explain what he wanted to do. Following this I suggested to move the couches so that teams could be formed we would do the exercises on the floor, which he agreed with.

As it turns out, something as mundane as the room in which the class was given proved to have a significant effect on the learning that was to take place. Had we not rearranged it then Andei would have simply explained the matter but, as mentioned in the sequences segments, being able to do the brainstorm session not only increased proficiency but also served as the closing of the individual learning sequences. In fact, the brainstorming sessions were the moments in which the social participation by the actor was highest and as such, was a vital component for the participants to increase the peripheral participation.

The board

The board functioned as a visual representation of the matter at hand. During the exercise sequence, the most important concepts were displayed on the board to serve as a constant reminder

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of how the assignment should be done. Furthermore, the board served as a visualization of the canvasses during the example sequence, so that the actors gained an initial idea of how the assignment should be done.

Post-it notes

In order to guide the assignments, Andei handed out post-it notes. The notes were used to guide the brainstorm sessions we had which were differently structured as is normally the case. A ‘normal brainstorm’ is a setting in which “there is no structure and people kind of ehh people kind or raise their hand when you say a lot about something”. We were going to have a diverging approach in which “there is a short time where you can spew any idea with no possible judgement okay so that is not the time when you want to judge your own ideas you have, you can write on your post it notes whatever comes into your mind and the you kind of gather, amass the amount of knowledge”.

In a learning sense, the post-it, are used to structure to participants conduct during the exercise sequence. It also served as a tool to judge whether the participants fully understood the assignment or not. Intuitively, given the objective of “spewing out as many ideas as you can without judgement” means that the more post-it notes a group stuck to the canvas the better they understood the assignment. Not coincidentally, the group who had, in fact, the most notes on their canvas were also the only group in the class who did the assignment correctly.

Canvas

The canvasses that were handed out during the session served for the participants to stick their post it notes on in the relevant fields. As such, these canvasses go hand in hand with the post it notes as they allowed the people to practice what was being taught. Solely handing out the canvasses could have served as a visualization of the matter of the course, it would have been redundant as the same information was displayed on the screen. Moreover, the canvasses allowed people to focus their attention collectively towards the assignment. During the session, I noticed that, whilst the actors were discussing the matter, all the while, they were looking at their canvasses. In this sense, these devices helped to structure the participants collective effort in developing their ideas on the subjects

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Brainstorm session

During the exercise sequence, the participants were tasked with brainstorming on the subjects and relating this to Traintap. The brainstorm device is the one in which situated learning becomes most apparent as this was the moment in which the successful completion of the assignment relied completely on the co-participation of the actors in the CoP. The result of the assignment was dependent on the individual contributions of the participants. As mentioned before, even though Andei explained the assignment, most teams did not complete it correctly the first or even the second time. As the afternoon progressed, people became more confident in their abilities relating to the subject. As such, I conclude that the more successful the participants became at the brainstorm the more they were transitioning from periphery to the core of the practice.

Conceptual model

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8. Discussion

The following chapter will relate the findings to the theory as presented throughout this thesis. In so doing, emphasis will be placed on the value of the work that I conducted as well as the relevancy for the advancement of entrepreneurial learning as a field.

This work was the first attempt to analyze an EL CoP as an insider. In so doing it joins the growing body of work that views learning as a situated practice which is the result of Co-participation. Even though the original theory on the situatedness of learning as developed by Lave and Wenger (1991) is not new, scholars have only recently started to apply its concepts in an entrepreneurial context. This exemplifies that, within entrepreneurship, learning is still predominantly viewed as an individual process, neglecting the significance of co-participation as the guiding principle for learning. My study shows, however, that the site in which the learning happens and the actors that are involved in the learning process are all paramount for the learning that happens. The sequences and devices that I observed where specific to this CoP, therefore, the way in which knowledge was disseminated through this CoP was also specific, dependent on the particular setting and set of actors.

As this was the first attempt to apply ethnomethodological principles as developed by Garfinkel to an EL CoP, the workshop was specifically selected as it posed a clear set of boundary conditions for my analysis. At a first glance, the sequences and devices observed in this case seem to be a matter-of-course. Evidently, a class often uses a board to guide the learning of the students. I like to remind you, however, that earlier work in ethnomethodology dealt with mundane phenomena in order to develop the field. I have shown that, through participating in a CoP, we can observe specific structure that guide the learning process. The question becomes whether these concepts can be applied to more complex phenomena over longer periods of time. What are the sequences and devices that guide experiential learning during the development of a new startup, for instance.

The investigation attempted to analyze an EL community of practice through a new lens in the hope of developing a new theoretical understanding of these CoPs. As it turns out, the components that structure the learning of the actors in the community, e.g. the sequences and devices, have significant effect on the learning process. In this case, the role of sequences can be understood as the stages through which the actors of the CoP transition from periphery to core of

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the practice. Upon transitioning from one sequence to the next, the actors had achieved some stepping stone, thereby increasing their level of legitimate peripheral participation concerning the matter at hand.

9. Limitations

As this was the first attempt to conduct this kind of research there are limitations that need to be taken into account. First, as this was an ethnomethodological examination of a single case there are issues of validity and generalizability. Even though ethnomethodology prides itself on examination of the unique, it is worthwhile to attempt to combine this method with other methods, such as interviews and or surveys to see what constructs can be transferred from one CoP to the next.

Also, as the data was collected in real time at an event in which 24 attendants would converse simultaneously there were some data corruption issues. As mentioned in the findings, the moment in which co-participation in the CoP was highest was during the brainstorm session. Unfortunately, this was also the moment in which my single microphone proved inadequate as there was simply no way to distinguish between the different voices. In a perfect setting, each of the group would need a high-quality microphone which would record their voices distinctly while simultaneously canceling out the background noise of the conversations of the other groups. I do not possess the intellectual nor financial resources to make this a reality within the span of a thesis.

10. Conclusion

This chapter concludes my exploration into ethnomethodology and Entrepreneurial learning CoP’s. The justification for the journey resides in both methodological and conceptual tensions within the field of EL research. In part one of the literature review it became apparent that, due to the heterogeneity of the field, there is limited consensus among researchers and practitioners., Blenker et all (2014) argue that research is stuck in traditional modes of inquiry and that contemporary research disregards some of the rich data sources that are readily available in classroom settings. My thesis has proven this to be the case, as emphasis was placed on the many learning devices which might be considered are matter-of course but proven to have significant impact on the learning process. The second part of the literature review has dealt with the conceptual development of EL and teaching. Situated learning theory questions the traditional

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cognitive models of learning placing emphasis on learning as a result of co-participation and immersion in a CoP. Even though the theory is not new, it has only recently starting to attract the interest of researchers working in the field of entrepreneurship. Kubberod and Peterson (2018) devised a model that incorporated situated learning perspectives and Entrepreneurship. However, they assumed an outside position to the CoP and were thus unable to say anything meaningful of the inside workings of this CoP. By participating in the community, I was able to observe aspects of the phenomena that have been overlooked by researchers up until now. As it turns out, the components that structure the learning of the actors in the community, e.g. the sequences and devices, have significant effect on the learning process. In this case, the role of sequences can be understood as the stages through which the actors of the CoP transition from periphery to core of the practice. Upon transitioning from one sequence to the next, the actors had achieved some stepping stone, thereby increasing their level of legitimate peripheral participation concerning the matter at hand.

To be able to this kind of research in the limited timeframe of a thesis, I needed to find a EL CoP that can be analyzed within manageable time. A workshop given at a startup event in B.Amsterdam proved perfect for my purposes. In the findings I was able to deduce the learning sequences that structure the learning process for the actors in the CoP. Furthermore, there were many devices which were all vital in their own way for the learning that took place during the afternoon. In the future, researchers should attempt to combine inside and outside perspectives of CoP’s. I theorize that the combination of these methods can further the field as it possesses the ability to simultaneously view the phenomenon on a micro and macro level and how these influence one another.

11. Bibliography

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Anderson, J., Reder, L., & Simon, H. (1997). Situative vs cognitive perspective: Form versus substance. Educational Researcher, 26(1), 18-21.

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Blenker, P., Elmholdt, S., Frederiksen, S., Korsgaard, S., & Wagner, K. (2014). Methods in Entrepreneurship education research: A review and integrative framework. Education +

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Blenker, P., Elmholdt, S., Frederiksen, S., Korsgaard, S., & Wagner, K. (2014). Methods in entrepreneurship education research; a review and integrative framework. 56(9), 697-715. Cobb, P., & Bowers, J. (1999). Cognitive and situated learning perspectives in theory and practice.

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Entrepreneurship education, 4(1), 73-110.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Learning sequences

Sequence Sub-sequence Relating to

peripherality

Quote

Opening “so basically, what

we are gonna do today is kinda walk you through having to kinda define your product and getting to know your user through personas that users have, focused on lean development and especially ehh user mapping and then if there is time we are gonna have q&a sessions.”

Learning

Defining your product Problem definition “The biggest issues

that we have seen with the startups that we work with is ehh they don’t have the narrow scope and they go very broad, so this is a

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problem because it confuses users and it cost a lot of money and that doesn’t necessarily end up with a better company, you can scale up when you want to get bigger but you can’t a scale down if you start bad

Real time case I kinda wanna

remember people how amazon and google started so..ehh.. does anyone know, what was amazon doing when they started?

Fictional case Traintap these are

ehh gonna have the shape of a post it note to kinda relate what we will do in a second. So, Traintap is a mobile world web app that allows people with smartphones from all over the globe to do all kinds of stuff. So

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uhm what’s kind of off with this?

Exercise So this is an example

ehh of a result of this, so we can think about a 25-35 year old well-educated tourist of countries in Europe and the US and then this can be the reason you use Traintap, to plot destination etc

Defining your user Problem definition Next topic is personas so basically the gist here is that you don’t know how your users are going to react and not sure about your user

Real time case …they are an email

automation tool and they wrote personas in a really nonconformist way and just hang them up on walls so that everybody in the team can see them

Fictional case Even though its

fictional I hope you can take something

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away from it so this is example of a persona in this case a tourist he’s interested in seeing places, meeting people and lunching offers and making friends in other cities. He mostly worried about missed connections inconsistent systems between transportation providers and paperwork Exercise

User journey Problem definition I usually see in an

organization uhh silo’s teams who are working on features but they did not know how this affected what happened before and what was after in the user train so I think this is kinda the main point why you would want to do a user journey map.

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Real time case Airbnb uses the same

kind of physical model to kind of hang them up on walls so that everybody can see them. But it’s basically a um listing of events uhm before during and after the use of the product.

Fictional case (before) The user will

be researching the destination where he wants to go okay. During he will be using Traintap for booking the confirmation and for actually getting on the train when he should. And then afterwards maybe he writes a trip review.

Exercise

Prototyping Problem definition Real time case Fictional case Exercise

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Appendix 3 Transcription

Tjebbe: hi im coming to introduce myself David: yeah hi, im david

Tjebbe: Hi

Tjebbe: David... and you are? Naomi: Hi Naomi

Tjebbe: Hi naomi, tjebbe

Tjebbe: yeah all names are going to be difficult but we will get there *moving furniture around*

David: you told me a little bit about yourself but what abo7ut you, do you own a startup or... you want to start a business o...

Naomi: I'm doing an internship at ehh, digital revolution David: Okay

Naomi: and we striving to uhh, uhh, to transition to a circular economy, and by 2020 we want t be fully circular without we are from a festival and we have arounbd 30.000 visitors a year and we really would like to be an example for amsterdam and yeah like other businesses.

David: OKay

Naomi: focus on a shift to becoming more circular business models Tjebbe: You were in the other talk as well right?

Naomi: Yeah tjebbe: yeah

Naomi: So we are basially a lab and we really want to try new innovative ideas Thebbe: hmm hmm

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35 other people walking in

david: hi im david nice to meet you\ David: hio have a seat over here

David: I was expecting a different set up with circular tables but instead they gave us armcharis so we are gonna kind of improvise here throughtout the workshop. ,, hi welcome,,

Woman 1: hi david: HI

man1 nice to meet you tjebbe hi im tjebbe More people walking man 1 haha tjats smart chairs moving around 888background noise88 Hi rianna

david hi

woman 2 can we put it like this david yeah

womanL is it time yet david in like 5 minutes Tjebbe: yeah lets help her out Man: yeah hahaha

woman: sorry guys David: uhmmm

Entrepreneurial learning: an ethnomethodological examination