Between cognition and discourse: phenomenology and the study of entrepreneurship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe phenomenological approaches to studying entrepreneurs and their behaviors. The goal is to illustrate how phenomenology can provide a complement especially to the cognitive and discursive approaches that are common in the field today. Design/methodology/approach – Conceptual review. Findings – Cognitive and discursive approaches typically seek coherent explanations of entrepreneurial behaviors by grounding them in intra-individual cognitions or extra-individual discourses. Phenomenology on the other hand seeks to capture more fully the richness of individuals’ lived experiences. While some degree of scientific reduction is inevitable in all empirical research, such reduction is also accompanied by the risk of ignoring essential insights, something that has potentially damaging implications for theoretical and meta-theoretical development as well as for practice. Phenomenological methods are thus well suited to develop new insights and to challenge and add nuance to existing, often more normative and structurally oriented, theories. Research limitations/implications – The review of the literature focusses on representative studies and is therefore not comprehensive. Practical implications – Research based on a richer appreciation of entrepreneurs’ lived experiences can inform both policy and more directly the design of specific support structures. Social implications – Research based on a richer appreciation of entrepreneurs’ lived experiences can inform both policy and more directly the design of specific support structures. Originality/value – This paper provides a novel discussion of the limitations of cognitive and discursive approaches by relating them to the phenomenological tradition. More generally, it identifies the potential conflict between coherent theoretical explanations and rich appreciation of the entrepreneurial life-world, as a central methodological concern in the entrepreneurship field.