Diverse approaches: Educator-centric insights into design thinking practices in entrepreneurship education

Schneider, Hannah, Huxtable-Thomas, Louisa, Bowen, Robert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8492-2701 and Hoegsdal, Nils 2025. Diverse approaches: Educator-centric insights into design thinking practices in entrepreneurship education. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 10.1108/IJEBR-08-2023-0911

PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (710kB)

Abstract

Purpose: Design Thinking (DT) has emerged in a variety of educational contexts within entrepreneurship and debate continues on the value of integrating DT into Entrepreneurship Education (EE). Although DT is increasingly recommended for EE practice (Baciagalupo et al., 2020) there are scarce insights into how Entrepreneurship Educators apply and/or integrate DT into their practice. This study uses a constructivist paradigm of education to answer questions about the educational practice when integrating DT, with a view to understanding the schema that educators construct when encouraging learners to construct their own knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: This study follows a qualitative, interpretive approach, drawing upon semi-structured interviews from 29 entrepreneurship educators from higher education in the UK and Europe. Thus, this study puts focus on the quality of the DT integration in EE - from an educator’s perspective. Findings: There exists a difference between the scholarly proposed integration of DT and the enacted practice within the classroom. Analysis identified four forms (selective, idea-centric, procedural, holistic) of DT integration in the context of EE, as well as insights into the practical barriers and motivations for utilising DT. In particular, this study has identified an opportunity for appropriate training of the educators to extend their awareness of the principles of DT. Originality: This research has identified four novel and distinct ways in which DT can be integrated with(in) EE. This allows educators to be more reflexive about why and how they utilise DT in their classrooms, addressing an apparent lack of this understanding in contemporary practice.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Publisher:	Emerald
ISSN:	1355-2554
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	26 February 2025
Date of Acceptance:	24 February 2025
Last Modified:	03 Mar 2025 12:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176504

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item