Engaged scholarship in small firm and entrepreneurship research: Grappling with Van de Ven’s diamond model in retrospect to inform future practice

• Published in: International small business journal Vol. 36; no. 4; pp. 380 - 399
• Main Authors: Whitehurst, Fiona, Richter, Paul
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.06.2018; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Entrepreneurship; Intellectuals; Research methodology; Scholarship; Small business; Teams; theory–practice divide; entrepreneurship; engaged scholarship; Van de Ven; rigour–relevance gap; small firms
• ISSN: 0266-2426; 1741-2870
• DOI: 10.1177/0266242618758155

This article explores the dynamics of initiating and implementing an engaged scholarship approach by taking a current research project relating to small business development and employing Van de Ven’s diamond model to frame a personal critical reflection of our research process. We explore the scholarly and practical debates implicit in Van de Ven’s method of Engaged Scholarship before unpacking our research project to illustrate the challenges that scholars pursuing engaged forms of scholarship have no doubt faced, but journal article formats do not usually allow authors to explore, thereby providing lessons for scholars wanting to embark upon such projects. We make the argument that engaged scholarship and interactive research methods are well suited to the entrepreneurship and small firm field, but find that tensions are likely to be faced in respect of personal motivations and identities, gaining and maintaining stakeholder engagement, and balancing and managing relationships within diverse research teams.