Late last year Yashar Mansoori defended his licentiate thesis at Chalmers University in Sweden. The focus was on entrepreneurial methods. Opponent was Steffen Korsgaard at Aarhus University. The interesting thing about this thesis is that it is perhaps one of the first comprehensive overviews of different methods in entrepreneurship. Methods explored and contrasted / compared in the thesis include effectuation, lean startup, customer development and bricolage, and also some more old-style methods such as business planning and discovery-driven planning. Some rather interesting similarities and differences between them were discovered!
Mansoori concluded his thesis with a three-tier framework useful if we want to understand and improve entrepreneurial methods. The three levels were logic (highest thought oriented level), model (middle process oriented level) and tactics (lower behaviour oriented level). Some entrepreneurial methods give a lot of advice on how entrepreneurs should think, but less advice on how to act. Other methods are strong on action-taking, but weaker on the philosophical underpinnings. Here Mansoori points out some work that needs to be done.
The thesis can be downloaded here. Mansoori will now continue towards his doctoral thesis completion, due in 2018.
