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The tacit knowledge of entrepreneurial design: Interrelating theory, practice and prescription in entrepreneurship research

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  • Selden, Paul D.
  • Fletcher, Denise E.

Abstract

An important challenge facing entrepreneurship researchers is the “three-body” knowledge problem of how to use “theoretical knowledge” to produce “prescriptive knowledge” that communicates the “practical knowledge” of situated practice to students and practitioners of entrepreneurship. We argue that a contribution can be made to solving this problem by theorizing practical knowledge as the “know-how” to do a situated entrepreneurial practice. “Know-how” is a cognitive “capacity to act” that prescribes for a practitioner how to produce a type of outcome in a range of circumstances. This “know-how” can potentially, therefore, be reconstructed theoretically as explicit micro-prescriptive guidelines for third-party practice. To exploit this connection between practical knowledge and prescriptive knowledge, however, we first need to overcome the problem that “know-how” is largely tacit in the moment of real-time forward-looking practice. In other words, the practitioner is not directly aware of their tacit “know-how”, or “tacit knowledge”, at the time of practice. In this article, we explore the contribution design theory can make to empirically eliciting, and conceptually inferring, the real-time “tacit knowledge” of entrepreneurial practice as a precursor to producing micro-prescriptive knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Selden, Paul D. & Fletcher, Denise E., 2019. "The tacit knowledge of entrepreneurial design: Interrelating theory, practice and prescription in entrepreneurship research," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-1.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:11:y:2019:i:c:17
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2019.e00122
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    Cited by:

    1. Kapasi, Isla & Rosli, Ainurul, 2020. "The practice of “we”: A framework for balancing rigour and relevance in entrepreneurship scholarship," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    2. Chan Timothy Hor, Shoon, 2023. "Why we need design science in entrepreneurship research an idiosyncratic perspective based on the experiences and learnings of an ex-practitioner in training to be an entrepreneurship scholar," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).

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