Summary of the literature review

In the various studies reviewed, different research methodologies were applied and different results and interpretations were drawn. All in all, the literature review has revealed that traditional theories of entrepreneurship are at their limits and the territory has to be newly delineated. So, a need to redefine entrepreneurship as a method of human problem solving is addressed by Wiklund et al. (2011) and Sarasvathy & Venkataraman (2011). A general call for a more interactive, activity-driven, cognitive, compassionate and prosocial research on entrepreneurship was put

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ward by Shepherd (2015). The question of what is still to be researched about entrepreneurial motivation has been raised by Carsrud & Brännback (2011), who formulate a series of 13 questions, three of them are address-ing motivations leadaddress-ing to avoid failure.

Shepherd & Patzelt (2017) state that although it is important to further explore uni-directional causal relationships, research has to be progressed to multiple causal relationships of the causes and consequences of failure.

Ucbasaran et al. (2013) take a similar stance by requesting more research at the intersection of the different categories of business failure costs, and state that such research studies will require multidisciplinary and/or multi-level theory development as well as empirical testing. Additionally, Davidsson (2016) draws attention to the fact that failure of a new venture (the individual or firm level) could have positive effects on the economy at large (the macro level perspective), as involved parties will learn and in future are likely find better solutions that are only possible because of the initial “failure” (p. 12).

Furthermore, it is also clearly visible that only little is known about learn-ing strategies of German entrepreneurs in the aftermath of failure experi-ences. In particular, it is not clear which methods and procedures are ap-plied to ensure learning, to what extent unlearning is actively apap-plied or whether any connection with behavioural or social styles is existent.

Hence, additional research to examine relationships between cultural per-ceptions of failure, individual failure attributions, and subsequent behav-iour seems to be needed (Cardon et al., 2011).

The present literature review was conducted with two purposes: firstly, to gain an insight into entrepreneurship in general, and entrepreneurial fail-ure and learning from failfail-ure in particular; and secondly, to provide a

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id basis for selecting the pertinent questions of entrepreneurial learning after failure for the present inquiry. The literature review revealed that learning from failure is a dynamic process that comprises learning about oneself, learning about the business, and learning about social relation-ships. Emotions, cognition, attitudes and attributions are essential factors that can either strengthen or impede learning from failure. However, many open questions still exist. For example, there is an acknowledged importance “to study the other side of the same coin - failure to progress on an important entrepreneurial task - for instance, by exploring the inter-relationship between negative emotions and attentional scope, creativity, and social resources” (Shepherd, 2015, p. 497).

A research framework (see figure 1) that was developed on the basis of the literature review will form the foundation for the upcoming data col-lection and analysis. Through focusing on achieving the five research objectives explained in chapter 1.2, it is possible to answer the general research question “Which strategies do entrepreneurs apply to learn from their failure experiences and are these strategies related to their personal behavioural style?”

Figure 1 Research framework for entrepreneurial learning after failure

Archetypes

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acker-softwar acker-softwar

Although over the last decade, research interest in factors that will affect learning in the aftermath of entrepreneurial failure and entrepreneurial learning strategies has gathered momentum, no study is known that fo-cuses on the existence of archetypes of failure learning based on interper-sonal or social styles, learning preferences and the individual sense-making of the failure experience - no matter if it is in the German or in-ternational entrepreneurship context. The main aim of the present disser-tation is to fill this gap. In regard to practical implications, the literature review has additionally shown, that learning from failure is an un-derrepresented content in entrepreneurial education (Fox, Pittaway, &

Uzuegbunam, 2018; Kuratko & Morris, 2018). The following chapter 3 presents the underlying research methodology before chapters 4 and 5 analyse, interpret and discuss the research findings.

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acker-softwar acker-softwar

3 Methodology

This chapter explains and reflects upon the research strategy and design of this thesis of the dissertation to investigate the research objectives. The motives and justification for the research design are considered in a holis-tic manner which involves the underlying philosophy as well as the de-scription of the methods. Therefore, the chapter starts in section 3.1 with the description of the underlying research paradigm and will be followed in section 3.2 by a short presentation of the research objectives. Section 3.3 introduces the strategy of the research, including the research meth-ods, preparation of the data collection and sampling strategies, as well as the analysis process.