Diamanto Politis

Professor, Centrumföreståndare Sten K Johnson Centrum för Entreprenörskap

What's interesting in entrepreneurial education research? Identifying conversants sharing common interests in the field

Författare

Hans Landström
Jonas Gabrielsson
Diamanto Politis
Roger Sørheim

Summary, in English

In this study, the authors develop knowledge and insights on how the perception of interestingness influences the structure and focus of conversations in entrepreneurial education (EE) research. In particular, the authors elaborate on what is perceived as interesting among different subgroups of EE researchers, and not least, how EE researchers can identify and engage in scholarly conversation within the field.

The study is based on a unique database with web-based responses from 465 EE researchers from around the world. The authors conduct analyses of both open-ended and closed questions. The open-ended questions are analyzed by inductive categorization. The closed questions are subject to factor and cluster analyses.

The findings suggest that EE research is a topic-oriented field, characterized by a strong focus on novel and challenging research issues. In addition, the field is individualistic and fragmented, and the perception of interestingness differs between five subgroups of EE researchers, whose members have a somewhat different perception of interestingness. Accordingly, the authors also find different core
conversations going on within the field. Obviously, these conversations tend to be triggered by the field’s obsession with novelty and challenging research, but several conversations are related to practically relevant research, as well as methodological and theoretical discussions.

Avdelning/ar