The grounds for generating new theory that addresses the
“why” and “how” questions of entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking become evident when significant gaps in the literatures on
entrepreneurship, organisational behaviour, and conflicting demands are considered together. In this chapter, I discussed how micro-foundations of entrepreneurship, such as actions and interactions, are becoming more prominent as a research topic that can advance the field and support entrepreneurs (Barney & Felin, 2013; Shepherd, 2015; van Burg & Romme, 2014). An important micro-foundation seems to be feedback seeking, which can play a significant role in fundamental entrepreneurship theories, such as effectuation
(Sarasvathy, 2001; 2008), bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005; Fisher, 2012), and action-regulation (Frese, 2007; 2009), and processes, such as innovation (Gemmell et al., 2012; Volery et al., 2015) and decision making (Eisenhardt, 1989). Yet entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking seems to be too obvious to be remarkable as a research topic on its own. The current approach of studying feedback seeking as part of broader processes does not adequately address the
complexities and intricacies of feedback seeking as a phenomenon in its own right. Our current understanding of feedback seeking
amongst entrepreneurs is limited and includes puzzling findings and under-developed elements, which remain even when additional streams of research, such as employees’ feedback seeking, and theoretical lenses, such as contingency and paradox theories, are considered. Therefore, the overall aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate why entrepreneurs seek feedback and refrain from seeking feedback, how they seek feedback, and how entrepreneurs’
feedback seeking relates to venture emergence to develop a model of entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking.
Why, why not, and how entrepreneurs seek feedback,
particularly in relation to venture emergence, are important questions for understanding how this interaction influences entrepreneurial processes. First, investigating these research questions together can address the puzzling finding that not all entrepreneurs seek feedback (Katre & Salipante, 2012) despite its potential positive outcomes for the entrepreneur (Frese, 2007; 2009) and the venture (Katre &
Salipante, 2012; Sarasvathy, 2001; 2008). Second, answering the
“why” and “how” questions of a phenomenon provides the theoretical
foundation to understand and investigate the phenomenon in the future (Corley & Gioia, 2011; Whetten, 1989). Given feedback seeking’s suggested role as a micro-foundation of entrepreneurship embedded in diverse theories and processes, such a framework is important to provide a transparent process that explicates why and how a particular outcome occurs in a particular context (van Burg &
Romme, 2014). Developing the theoretical foundations of
entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking can contribute to the emerging research programmes on micro-foundations of entrepreneurship (Shepherd, 2015) and the entrepreneurial method (Sarasvathy &
Venkataraman, 2011), which also depends on such micro-foundations to enable individuals to act entrepreneurially.
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH DESIGN.
3.1. Introduction
The research questions guiding this doctoral thesis focus on understanding why entrepreneurs seek feedback and refrain from seeking feedback, how they seek feedback, and how entrepreneurs’
feedback seeking relates to venture emergence. To address these research questions, I employed a grounded theory approach (Glasser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), which is appropriate for three different reasons. First, given the limited theoretical and empirical research on entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking, an inductive theory building approach can provide an illuminating and insightful foundation to investigate the phenomenon in the future. Second, a grounded theory approach fits my research questions, which focus on the “why” and “how” elements of the feedback-seeking phenomenon (Edmondson & McManus, 2007;
Pratt, 2009), because this approach focuses not only on describing
“what” is happening, but also on providing theoretical explanations for “why” it is happening and “how” it is happening (Corley, 2015).
Third, using a grounded theory approach to understand why, why not, and how entrepreneurs seek feedback fits the philosophical roots of grounded theory in American pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, which focus on understanding the actions and interactions of individuals in and with their social contexts (Locke, 2001; Suddaby, 2006). The philosophical traditions influencing grounded theory conceptualise individuals as thinking and creative agents who create meanings and act purposefully as they interpret their social contexts and interactions (Locke, 2001). From this perspective, research is concerned with how individuals understand and act in response to their situations from their own point of view.
Instead of imposing constructs and theories, the purpose of a grounded theory approach is to represent the experiences of those living the phenomenon under investigation in a systematic way that remains close to their lived experiences and provides plausible and
often novel theoretical explanations based on emergent models (Gioia, Corley & Hamilton, 2012; Locke, 2001).
To develop an emergent model of entrepreneurs’ feedback seeking that explains why, why not, how they seek feedback, and how feedback seeking relates to venture emergence, I collected data from 37 nascent social entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom and engaged in a recursive process of data collection, analysis, and consultation with existing literatures (Locke, 2001). In this chapter I describe in detail the research process. While the process of data collection, analysis, and consultation with literatures was iterative to clarify insights, in this chapter I describe each task separately and even delineate data analysis steps to increase ease of reading (Suddaby, 2006). I start with why nascent social entrepreneurs were selected as a relevant research context and provide information about the participants in the study. Next, I elaborate on the data collection and management methods and describe the steps involved in the analysis. Finally, I discuss how I ensured the trustworthiness of the findings.