Anthropomorphizing for Entrepreneurial Theorizing

Dean A. Shepherd () and Holger Patzelt ()
Additional contact information
Dean A. Shepherd: University of Notre Dame
Holger Patzelt: Technical University of Munich

Chapter Chapter 3 in Entrepreneurial Theorizing, 2023, pp 57-91 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Despite admonishments that anthropomorphizinganthropomorphizing represents a serious error in scientific thinking, we show that anthropomorphizing has been a critically important tooltool(s) for developing influential theories in entrepreneurship. Analyzing the literatures related to an organization’s entrepreneurial orientationentrepreneurial orientation and organizational knowledgeorganizational knowledge reveals how scholars build on their rich and highly accessible understanding of humans (i.e., the self and others) to (1) make guesses and sense of entrepreneurial anomaliesanomalies at the organizational level, (2) articulate theoretical mechanismsmechanisms to build more robust entrepreneurship theories, and (3) create plausibleplausible stories that facilitate sensegivingsensegiving to editors, reviewers, and other audiences. However, anthropomorphizing does not always lead to such positive outcomes. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of the conditions under which entrepreneurship scholars’ anthropomorphizing will be more or less effective.

Keywords: Anomalies; Guessing; Entrepreneurial Orientation; Organizational Knowledge; Plausible Stories; Theoretical Mechanisms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-24045-4_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031240454

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-24045-4_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().