Entrepreneurship Theory and Ideation Techniques

This chapter considers the role of entrepreneurship theory in the development of ideation techniques for entrepreneurship education. It begins by considering how metatheories impact theory construction in entrepreneurship research and discusses the role of ontology, epistemology, axiology, as well as the role of assumptions about human nature and social change. The chapter presents four different paradigms of thought that apply different philosophies and illustrates how these different paradigms conceptualization entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial opportunity differently. The four paradigms include the equilibrium paradigm; the disequilibrium paradigm; the disruptive innovation paradigm and the social constructionism paradigm. Within each paradigm the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity is discussed, and the chapter shows how different ideation techniques can be generated from these different conceptualizations. Forms of ideation technique are presented and explained, as they relate to each paradigm, and the chapter concludes by explaining the value of these techniques for ideation, opportunity discovery and creation, in the entrepreneurial process.