Critical realism — A potential way forward

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Realism and idealism can be considered, from the ontological perspective, as two extremities. Critical realism  1 can be located between these two extremes, and is therefore a potential way to ease EE teachers’ ontological headache. Critical realism recognizes a reality that is common to everybody, but simultaneously (in line with idealism) views this reality as always being observed and interpreted through human brains. The entrepreneurship concept of creation theory can be described using critical realism so that the objective reality provides material for entrepreneurs to create opportunities or new businesses.

The ontological bases of both discovery theory and behaviorism originate from the realist point of view. This means that, because reality exists independently of the observer 2, EE teachers, their students, and all human beings experience it in the same way 3. As a result, EE teachers need to focus on the content of certain means, which they know are the most feasible for their EE courses. From the learning/teaching point of view, EE teachers need to select appropriate exercises through which students learn what is important for discovering existing opportunities and for developing them successfully through actions in the context of business or elsewhere.

In contrast to the realist viewpoint of behaviorism and opportunity discovery, idealism-based creation theory and social constructionism explicitly shows that, rather than discovering the true nature of reality, people construct multiple realities based on their subjective experiences 4,  5. Consequently, EE teachers need to focus on activities that promote students’ abilities to construct (or create) their individual reality as well as opportunities they view as feasible for that reality. Then, students will be able to carry on in transforming the created opportunities into real-life activities.

However, if EE teachers do not choose their teaching contents and methods from the matched pairs of discovery–behaviorism and creation–social constructionism (Table 13.1), they may, we believe, face difficulties in their teaching (e.g., how to cope with a situation in which their teaching is based on both social constructionism and discovery theory). Whereas the former rejects the notion of one true reality to be discovered by human beings, the latter is built on the very same assumption. According to this, EE teachers will be focusing on searching existing opportunities rather than on how to create them individually. This is because there is nothing to be created in the existing reality. Furthermore, if EE teachers’ conceptions of teaching and entrepreneurship in the context of EE are based on behaviorism and creation theory, trying to create something not yet existing is unnecessary or impossible if the reality is knowable and the same for all human beings (see: bricoleur in 6). If students creatively choose their learning methods, a behavioristic EE teacher may begin to think that students are off task and need to get back to real stuff as soon as possible because, in behaviorism, “learners are told about the world and are expected to replicate its contents” 7.

The upper part of Table 13.1 presents the realism-based views of entrepreneurship and education, whereas the lower part follows idealism. In our story above, we have hinted that, by systematically selecting either the upper or lower part of the table for both entrepreneurship and education, one can avoid the ontological mismatch. However, real situations in the EE context may be very different. For example, EE teachers may wish to utilize teaching methods following social constructionism, even though they simultaneously take discovery theory for granted. In a different case, the deviation from the symmetrical upper or lower part of the table may mean a teacher wishes to behavioristically teach entrepreneurship according to creation theory. Is it possible to avoid the headache of ontological mismatch even if one follows Table 13.1 diagonally, as described in these two examples? We believe that critical realism enables the conception of reality based on realism and simultaneously accepts the construction of reality according to idealism. Thus, the dichotomy of the table may be potentially eased if one approaches the phenomenon of EE via critical realism. Table 13.2 explains the nature of critical realism.

When entrepreneurial process scholars talk about opportunities for future business development in the context of both startups and established firms, they refer to a wide range of actions (see: 17). If we look at opportunity more thoroughly from a process perspective, opportunity becomes obvious at the same time as we see it, but not before 18. Then there remain unanswered questions: What do we actually see? Do we see the opportunity as an explicit entity, or as a process? What is the nature of the opportunity, then? If we understand opportunity as an outcome rather than a starting point of the entrepreneurial process, how does this understanding affect this process?

Critical realists claim that people do not only overcome the dichotomy between discovery–creation and behaviorism–social constructionism by defining social reality as existing (the realist ontological positioning). They are also in an active position in dealing with social reality by possessing the power to either reproduce or transform preceding structures 19. To think about the nature of opportunity more thoroughly, we see that critical realists claim that opportunity exists only in human imagination. That is, it exists as artifact (i.e., documented ideas for future business ventures, business models, or business plans) and manifests itself as imagined opportunities 20.

We believe that critical realism may overcome the dichotomy between realism and idealism by conflating them. As a consequence, human beings are in the position of entrepreneurs and are able to reproduce existing knowledge as artifacts (as in realism), or transform, construct, or create new knowledge through their own imaginations and creativity (as in idealism).