Application of object-process methodology in the study of entrepreneurship programs in higher education

Abstract

An entrepreneurial university is engaged in university entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship programs are the specific ways universities organize their activities to fulfil this purpose. Due to the lack of a conceptual framework and methodology that can address the complex and multi-scale nature of the phenomenon, the field has remained in a descriptive stage. In this dissertation, to help the field move towards prescriptive theory, a set of eight criteria are defined that the methodology needs to satisfy. It is then shown that object-process methodology (OPM), incorporating insights from systems engineering and complexity science, is capable of conceptually modelling a wide range of university entrepreneurship-related phenomena across multiple scales. The adoption of OPM implies the centrality of stakeholders and stakeholder-related phenomena as key in understanding the formation and survival of entrepreneurship programs.

To validate this insight further and demonstrate the applicability of the OPM framework, three conceptual studies and two empirical studies are designed and completed. Results of the conceptual studies utilizing systems engineering -based methods (stakeholder analysis, functional analysis, and analysis of harnessable phenomena) led to the recognition of a. 17 entrepreneurship program stakeholder types with varying expectations, b. three main functions (business operating, business developing, and business meta-developing), and three sub-functions (resource acquiring and maintaining, targeting and selecting, and value creating) an entrepreneurship program can have, and c. a scale and function-based categorization framework for phenomena a program designer can harness, including the Finnish higher education financial incentive phenomena.

First empirical study observes stakeholder-related patterns in 45 Finnish entrepreneurship programs’ value propositions, and the second longitudinal empirical study provides evidence for the importance of the program having stakeholder-matching value offerings in the survival of 117 so-called good practices of entrepreneurship support four to five years after being listed as good practice. This dissertation demonstrates the value of OPM in the study of university entrepreneurship, and the findings can help future researchers to develop prescriptive theories that are practically applicable to entrepreneurship program designers and managers.