創業研究的新趨向－－敘說探究之應用

A New Approach in Entrepreneurship Research: Application of Narrative Inquiry

創業研究發展至今，由於一元化的研究方法導致研究發現無法貼近實務，亦無法產生深刻的洞見。有鑑於此，我們期望透過引進不同思維的新興研究法來突破當前創業研究的瓶頸，因而提出以敘說探究作為創業研究應用的新趨勢。
十七世紀興起的邏輯實證思維主導了科學研究取向，但人類理解世界的思維方式不只有邏輯實證，還有敘說思維。前者主張經由客觀立場發現唯一真實，但後者卻認為知識具有主觀性，必須仰賴研究者與研究對象互動所得，而真實是共同建構出來。邏輯實證思維主導了數個世紀以來的科學研究，但隨著學者發現人類社會的動態複雜無法以客觀科學完全解釋時，研究思潮產生了轉向，開始有越來越多的學者開始使用敘說思維進行研究，敘說探究便在這樣的背景下產生。
我們期望透過介紹敘說探究的發展與特色來讓大家理解何謂敘說探究，並援引國外應用敘說探究進行創業議題的個案為例，說明敘說對創業研究的幫助。最後，我們提供一則應用敘說探究的創業研究實例，以我們自身的研究經驗證明敘說探究確實有助於保存更多更豐富的脈絡，並可擴大創業研究的視野，闡明敘說探究作為創業研究新趨向的優點。

Entrepreneurship research has been studied for dozen years, and it comes to fine pass now by the limitation of methodology. In the past, researchers used to adopt logic positivism as methodology in entrepreneurship studies but failed in deeper insights and impressive findings. For this reason, we advocate "narrative inquiry" as a new approach in entrepreneurship research.
Logic positivism emerged from 17(superscript th) century and it dominated natural science research approach so fat However, there is not the only way to understand the world. Some scholars argue that there is another narrative knowing. Positivism believes that people can find the truth in objective view, but narrative thinking believes that the knowing is subjective and the truth is constructed. Human society is too complex and dynamic to be understood by only positivism. Therefore, the academic community started to turn to narrative thinking, and narrative inquiry happened.
We introduce the development and characteristics of narrative inquiry in this paper. Through the cases from published entrepreneurship researches, we find that narrative inquiry indeed avails the analysis and makes the findings closer to practice. We also provide our own case and narrate the experience to illustrate advantages of narrative inquiry applied in entrepreneurship research, such as broader lens and richer contexts. Narrative inquiry will be a rising trend in entrepreneurship research.