This chapter takes an alternative route to inquiry by drawing on intersubjectivity as a way to challenge taken-for-grantedness in entrepreneurship tools. The authors elaborate on how inter-ethnography can be used to discuss various aspects of teaching tools in entrepreneurship education (EE), where the Business Model Canvas (BMC) serves as example. The aim is to initiate a meta-discussion based on education theory on the purposes of tools that risk being taken-for-granted in teaching. The chapter also raises awareness of the difference between the functional and psychological sides of tools, wherein both visuals/graphics and words play a critical role. As a result, a reflective framework is developed as to challenge the existing use and understanding of teaching tools. The framework combines Biesta’s thought on purpose and desirability in education (i.e. qualification, socialisation and subjectification), and the classic relationships in the didactic triangle between the educator, the students and the subject.

An audio essay that discusses and problematizes Shakespeare's character Lady Macbeth, based on Hans Werner Henze's piece "Mad Lady Macbeth". We examine Lady Macbeth from the perspective of contemporary theories in the field of entrepreneurship.

The contemporary focus on extracurricular activities, here the educational incubator environment, accentuates a need to understand what we offer students in terms of the curricular and extracurricular learning environments when situated in the same higher education institution. Current research points toward breaking down the invisible barriers and silo thinking. In this conceptual study, we apply the Didaktik triangle as a theoretical and conceptual framing to make comparisons of structurally based conditions for curricular and extracurricular entrepreneurship education. We present a framework that helps bridge the “what”, “why”, and “how” questions in the two different learning spaces and, thereby, conjoin educators and consultants in possible pedagogical discussions on how they work with the students. The suggested bridge frames a wider “why” and adds a more holistic and cohesive view of the two different types of settings. Our study contributes to the literature on how to bridge the blurred lines between curricular and extracurricular activities and break down the silos. The framework can act as an inspiration for entrepreneurship educators and practitioners who wish to provide more suitable and sustainable structures and develop a holistic learning environment. 

The business model canvas (BMC) has become the leading way to visualize business models and an omnipresent global language in management practice and education. This chapter draws on critical entrepreneurship research and applies semiotics to conduct an analysis of the BMC language and to explore what entrepreneurship narratives unfold in the BMC. The analysis shows that the BMC language (re)emphasizes an established view of business models with an underlying planning perspective and an individualistic understanding of the (male) entrepreneur in a traditional business context. In addition, the BMC language stresses a non-critical, bright side of entrepreneurship where value is transmitted from entrepreneurs to waiting customers. The suggested semiotic method and the presented analysis of the BMC can be used by mangers and educators to reflect on what the BMC universe offers in terms of, for example, disruptive and digital perspectives, and thus the consequences for logics in new business models.

Teaching methods and students’ preconceptions are considered a crucial basis for entrepreneurship education, not least when entrepreneurship is taught outside business schools with differentiated learning outcomes. This qualitative study seeks to explore students’ experiences of a visual-based teaching exercise––“Images of entrepreneurship”––and examines how the exercise contributes to making their preconceptions of entrepreneurship explicit. The study presents the exercise and its theoretical underpinnings and then, via interviews with 28 students from various educational backgrounds, gives a unique insight into their experiences of the exercise. The purpose is to contribute to the development of theory on pedagogical practices in classroom settings in entrepreneurship education in higher education. In order to systematically discuss the students’ relationship to the exercise and to their preconceptions of entrepreneurship, implicit theories are proposed and developed as a theoretical framework. Based on the students’ views, this study shows that entrepreneurship educators can use visual material to initiate reflective conversations about students’ implicit entrepreneurship theories, and involve students in evaluations of teaching methods in order to promote their perspective.

This conceptual chapter re-actualizes the Didaktik-inspired discussions in entrepreneurship education, initiated by Kyrö, Blenker et al., and Bechard and Toulouse over 15 years ago. Didaktik in the German educational tradition is a pedagogical sub-discipline which, unlike the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” as teaching methods, focuses on the relations between the subject, teacher, and students, and considers questions regarding what to teach, how to teach, and why, as being interdependent. A review of literature on entrepreneurship education published in the last decades shows that research in the German Didaktik tradition is sparse, and that the awareness of the differences between Didaktik and “didactics” has been overlooked. This chapter has practical implications for entrepreneurship educators as it presents Didaktik as an approach which comprises planning, implementing, and evaluating teaching in a way that includes an awareness of the learners’ relationship to the subject without excluding the teacher’s key role in education. In a theoretical perspective, the chapter challenges the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” and proposes Didaktik as an approach to developing entrepreneurship education research and practice to be scientifically based in two fields and encompass transformative learning and critical perspectives, rather than being driven by political agendas and focusing on results.

As entrepreneurship education is spread outside business schools, students’ pre-understanding has been identified as central. It is however, not obvious how students’ perspectives can be made visible. This chapter explores how visual artifacts play a role in didactic analysis, in order to approach students’ contemporary meaning of entrepreneurship in the beginning of a learning process. Via interviews with educators, experiences of a visual exercise are examined. The findings suggest that the exercise makes teachers aware of students’ pre-understandings, and simultaneously, better equipped to support the learning process. Visual artifacts thus contribute to develop entrepreneurship education in a more student-centered direction.