|
4.2.4.2. Axiology & Teleology
Next, once the relative autonomy from surrounding circumstances has been realized, the question: “What is important for us, and in what priority?” emerge naturally. The institution explores its values and decides what causes to pursue. Here, the science of axiology and subsequently teleology, offer insights and suggest ends towards which to strive. Axiology, from the Greek axia (αξια, value, worth), is the study of how phenomena and ends are valued and evaluated. It is often related to ethics as indeed axiology often times includes questions of inter-personal conduct. However, the two are differentiated by defining axiology as the study of what values can serve for human teleology. Before the telos value is discussed, one value, the value of autonomy in the decisions, is proposed to play a substantial role in an entrepreneurial  mindset by influencing motivation.
Once the insight of the internal locus of control and free will has been reached, it is held as a value in itself. This value causes a strong bias towards intrinsic motivation and what has been described as a hacker’s work ethic in contrast to the still dominant work ethic described in Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (Weber, 1930).
In contrast to the Protestant Work Ethic, which is centred around one’s duty to constantly work as part of fulfilling one’s calling by God and to reach salvation, hacker work ethics stress the need for intrinsic motivation and passion as a result of engaging with self-set challenges. For Himanen the most important result of hacker ethics is the “general passionate relationship to work that is developing in our information age” (Himanen, Castells, & Torvals, 2001). It is for this reason that entrepreneurs are not commonly found in hierarchical organisations where authoritarian leaders reign and processes are rigidly defined. Entrepreneurs need the distributed leadership described below. They need spielraum (see below).
Constructing the Telos
“Institutions, in a word, inculcate duties and generate outcomes. In order to generate outcomes, they must rely on cognitive and moral resources, which, in their turn, are to be created by administrative fiat. There is no administrative production of meaning” (Habermas as quoted by Ozga, 1998, p. 152 [bold added]). Agreeing with the words of Habermas, this section deals with the construction of meaning or telos.
Teleology, (from Greek telos: end, purpose), is employed here as the practice of the philosophical discourse on the degree of finality that human creation and “beingness” follows. Since the human condition has been established as dependent upon the free will of the individual, this purpose, as a Platonic causa finalis, has to be elected (conscious or unconsciously). Teleology is not dependent upon intrinsic finality (doing something for the perfection of its own nature) and is even less dependent upon extrinsic finality (realizing a purpose outside and greater then that being). Rather, teleology is used in the sense of V. Frankl’s self-chosen logos (reason) for being. In his seminal work “Man's Search for Meaning” Frankl (1963) writes: "Logotherapy...considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts" [i]. His central argument: "Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way" (ibid p. 104), expresses very closely the central theme of the attractor described in this section.
Another potent approach for exploring and defining one’s values is derived from George Kelly’s work on personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). This early constructivist theory is used by Peavy (1992) to propose a vocational counselling approach that represents uses for constructivist psychology in career counselling. Here a career is understood to be “a carrier for meaning” and “as a path that provides direction, structure and meaning to life” (ibid p.218). In this approach, the values that give the (entrepreneurial) career meaning are constructed or chosen based on free will.
Before some concrete examples of values motivating entrepreneurial projects are provided, it seems important to make explicit that it is not the popular and conformist moral of the good that drives entrepreneurial action. An entrepreneur can not accept the established understanding of values nor can he/she value traditional practices simply for historical or cultural reasons. An entrepreneur follows [ii] what Nietzsche (1885) described in “Beyond good and evil” as a master moral. Nietzsche writes "The noble type of man experiences itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, 'what is harmful to me is harmful in itself'; it knows itself to be that which first accords honor to things; it is value-creating" (ibid). In this sense, an entrepreneur does not accept a given state or practice but creatively destructs the current paradigm to give birth to innovation.
On a more profane level, the teleological approach has been captured by the eminent American entrepreneur and venture creation consultant Guy Kawasaki (2004a) in his book “The Art of the Start” where he advises entrepreneurs to “make meaning”.
From his extensive empirical experience, Kawasaki extracts three categories within which entrepreneurs drive to create meaning (Kawasaki, 2004a, , 2004b): (1) Increase the quality of life (e.g. through a more usable computer service); (2) to right a wrong (e.g. through the introduction of a garbage recycling system); and (3) by preventing the end of something good (as in the case of e.g. a 'slow food' restaurant being replaced by a modern fast food practice).
So what are the values that qualify as teleological or that make meaning? Naturally, all instrumental values and goods can be neglected as they are only stop-overs on the way to the causes of motivation and finality: the intrinsic values. The distinction first made in Plato’s Republic allows for a relatively rapid but astonishingly correct classification of what can be considered teleological values. Another influential conceptualisation of values was developed by Kant (1948), who developed the dichotomy of hypothetical and categorical values. Employing the same logic present in his categorical imperative, he defines a categorical value as being universally true, that is true under all circumstances in contrast to hypothetical values which are true only in some conditions: i.e. it is good to be rich only if that does not imply that one is spending great amounts of time doing a work that one does not enjoy.
The philosophical discourse on what and how these true values are is very old and is of course ongoing. Naturally, it is not the intention herein to propose or discuss “the” telos or logos for life, instead -- four prominent values that have been observed as various combinations in the entrepreneurial motivation of human beings are presented in their expression as telos. Nevertheless, the three conditions suggested by Habermas in “Theory of Communicative Action” (1981) as necessary conditions for a valid statement might be deployed to examine the validity of a postulated telos. These three conditions are: normative rightness (‘We’), theoretical truth (‘It’) and expressive or subjective truthfulness (‘I’). This translates to the questions: Is the telos acceptable within my normative believes? Is the telos congruent in my life’s context? Do I truly feel like pursuing that telos?
In the following four values: wealth, power, justice and knowledge are presented from their axiological aspects.
While the following presentations intend to articulate the distinction between the teleological drives, it is acknowledged that in reality they almost always simultaneously interact (possibly also with other values such as love or health or aesthetics).
The most dominant teleological value of modernity is monetary wealth, most figuratively exemplified in the successful businessman. Given its central role in common entrepreneurship theory and today’s capitalist society in general, it is presented herein, but it will be analysed on the meta-physical axiological dimension since it does not qualify as a cardinal value. Basic monetary wealth is of course fundamental in that it fulfils the first two primitive needs - physiological maintenance and safety - from Maslow’s pyramid of human needs [iii] (Masslow, 1943). However, when it come to the higher human needs – love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization – wealth is only an effect (wirkung); just like happiness (Welsch, 1998) but with a distinct causation. Therefore, do people who claim to be motivated by wealth, mostly substitute money for other values like power or pleasure.
The power telos is dealt with in the following paragraph. The hedonistic motivation of pleasure is rather short-sighted and thinkers such as Frankl have warned not to indulge in affluence and materialism as the paramount logos in one’s life (Frankl, 1963). Thus, even though being rich is probably the most common entrepreneurial motivation, it does not represent a sustainable (cardinal) value to strive for, but only serves to permit the consumption of pleasurable goods and services.
Power as motivation might be best developed as a meta-physical concept in Nietzsche [iv]. He writes: “[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant — not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life” (Nietzsche, 1885, §259). The strive for power finds one of its purest forms in political entrepreneurship [v] (Taewook, 2004; Younkins, 2000): People who identify and realize political opportunities in order to gain power and to promote their political position. However, most political entrepreneurs also tend to have a particular understanding and motivation to bring justice [vi] to the society. The latter being the lead-motivation of the social entrepreneur, a phenomenon which lately has received quite some attention (Bornstein, 2004; Leadbeater, 1996; Mair, Robinson, & Hockerts, 2006). Or the altruistically related notion of the ‘green entrepreneur’ (Anderson, 1998; Taylor & Walley, 2003), who creates ventures where the dominant telos is the promotion of sustainability.
After quickly reviewing the teleological motivation of the established entrepreneurial paradigm for business, politics and social work, let me now turn to knowledge as a motivating value for entrepreneurship. In the theoretical background, the historic scientific trajectory of knowledge entrepreneurship has been outlined. Allow me to develop in this paragraph the meta-physical argument for knowledge entrepreneurship. As an motivation knowledge entrepreneurship has been researched under the concept of curiosity (Kashdan, Rose, & Finchmam, 2004) and more specifically scientific curiosity (forscherdrang) (Vidler & Rawan, 1974). The psychological approached pursued by these researchers however is rather descriptive and analytic than normative as is intended here.
Proposing knowledge as a teleological value replicates the traditional academic argument of knowledge as an end in itself. Much discussion has orbited around this argument because knowledge as an end in itself allegedly caused the academics to retreat into an ivory tower. Lately the view that, so called, Mode 2 knowledge (Gibbons, 1994; Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2001) - knowledge that is generated within a context of application - is taking over scientific production, has been widely accepted. I will not repeat the argument on why knowledge entrepreneurship is an adequate paradigm for universities, but rather seek to depict why knowledge is an intrinsic value for many universities. The ancient Greeks distinguished two forms of knowledge, techne and episteme. The first, techne, can be neglected as categorical value as it can be classified as instrumental knowledge, the knowledge of how to do something, mode 2 knowledge. The second, episteme, however touches the core of what a categorical value might be as it deals with life and the understanding (making sense) of one’s reality as such; thus making it the recursive motivation for reflection upon life and one’s motivations. It is this knowledge, described by Lombardo (2007) as “understanding the big picture” and “deep learning”, that causes wise men to say they know that they don’t know. It is this knowledge that motivates wise men to study endlessly.
As expressed before the elaborations of the different motivations, most entrepreneurs are motivated by a conglomerate of values, but usually one of the values is dominant as is the case for academics – who as knowledge entrepreneurs - do want to focus on their research or teaching and have no intentions of commercializing their work.
Cross Case Analysis
The LSE was founded by entrepreneurial intellectuals with the purpose of developing knowledge about how to improve the conditions in society. Contemporary stakeholders describe its mission to “ask important question” and to “challenge existing thought” (LSE5) thus to explore answers to the issues society has not accepted as tradition and conserving argument. Lately however, the same informant reported a notion (especially amongst students) characterized by the director as the “death of idealism” (LSE 6). She elaborated that many students express a somehow naïve telos of promoting the good, what she dubbed a “Robin Hood approach”, when they study at LSE. Once they leave the school they embark on philanthropic and social work only to realize after a while that the same profane obstacles of corruption and malpractice are present in these environments and many subsequently decide to pursue what seems ‘realistically’ the most beneficial career for them: business consultancy and the like. Hence, while no direct relation between the change in the mindset of the director and the students can be verified, a trend seems to show that more and more LSE students don’t follow a justice and political trajectory, but rather embark upon a wealth accumulation telos. On an institutional level knowledge entrepreneurship is today as present as telos was before, and finds its expression in the mission statement [vii] and its strategy. What is undeniable is that the economic aspects, which are even mentioned in the mission statement, gained importance with the increasing responsibility caused by the retreat of government funding.
A lesser defined teleological scenario has been encountered at the FU. While the university developed a visionary proposal for what the institution could look like, the Chancellor explained that there was a project to define a mission statement but that it was abandoned as the mission/vision statements according to his assessment “all convey the same” (FU Chancellor 40). One interesting temporary axiological shift occurred when, during the 1960’s, the student experimented at changing the FU’s teleology and experimented with the finality of becoming an institution for the emancipation of a critical society. Even though the experiment as such, lasted only for a very limited time, its teleological spirit had a long lasting effect and is still faintly present today.
The instrumentalist telos of excellence found at the LSE is also present at the UPC. While no explicit mission or vision statement has been identified, the UPC expresses a competitive attitude to defend and extend its leading role as The Spanish university for polytechnic subjects. Thereby, it quite explicitly follows the three mission telos of teaching, research, and socio-economic services, especially in its manifestation of Etzkowitz’s triple-helix paradigm.
The UOC represents an interesting case as it started with quite an overt economic entrepreneurial domination-- but has now, under its new leadership, embarked on the difficult task of reorienting its telos towards knowledge entrepreneurship. UOC’s former Vice-Rector for strategic development still expressed UOC’s self-image as an institution in the “business of knowledge” (UOC11). It will be suspenseful and interesting to see where the new management team takes the university’s telos.
One notable case that complements the findings of the case study was investigated because the opportunity emerged and was assessed as relevant to the research’s subject matter. The CEO of the private Barcelona based private sector research venture Starlab [viii] was interviewed and reported the following approach: The company’s goal is to have an impact on society by making meaningful knowledge products (research) in the area of science and technology (Starlab 1). Hence it is a good example of an entrepreneurial organisation with a heterogeneous teleology. It is engaging in knowledge entrepreneurship in order to improve the societal condition, while aiming for monetary profit through income generated on the private market. In short, their business model is to identify competencies, interests, and funding opportunities, develop strategic priorities, and compete for research funding in order to pursue knowledge that fits the strategic agenda of the company.
The German futurologist Horx summarizes the “axiology & teleology” attractor in a forward looking way: “Our culture will give rise to a kind of entrepreneur, who relates more to his work than money: He wants to model a sound and exciting life-art-work” (As cited in (Faltin, 2007, p. 54)). Put differently, entrepreneurs are motivated by multiple telos.
Two aspects have to be mentioned when thinking about envisioning, and planning for the future dubbed entrepreneuring: (1) Agreeing with the observations of Emil Durkheim, and especially considering Max Weber as a representative of idealist German sociology, who stated that there is a profound anomie and disenchantment of social life and the individuals Weltanschauung (world view). Given these factors, it is argued that the irrational side of humans, is not to be dismissed as biological, instinct based, superfluous, or may such a thing be tamed by the modern rationalistic and positivist belief hierarchy, but instead that it is most relevant for creativity and thus for the act of envisioning objectives and scenarios (Durkheim & Giddens, 1971; Kramer, 2002). In short, it is the irrational act of dreaming for an almost impossibly positive scenario, which is represented by the term entrepreneuring. (2) It is also important to clarify that the practice of entrepreneuring is strongly dependent on the pragmatic attractor described in the following section. If perfection and the ‘true plan’ would be sought after ad infinitum, there would be no implementation but only envisioning and reflection. The following develops the pragmatic attractor in detail.
----------------------------------
[i] However Frankl seems to perceive that meaning as something like an extrinsical value to be detected (ibid p. 157) rather than promoting an autonomous construction of one’s telos. This becomes more explicit when he writes: "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly” (ibid p. 122).
[ii] In this context – later ethics and the interactions and consequences for others and the environment are considered.
[iii] In this regard it is naturally the primary motivation for the poor.
[iv] Even though there is much controversy as to how he meant the will-to-power to be interpreted.
[v] Taewook’s definition is: A political entrepreneur refers to a political player who seeks to gain certain political and social benefits in return for providing the common goods that can be shared by an unorganized general public. These common goods that political entrepreneurs attempt to provide to the populace generally include foreign- and domestic-related public policy, while the benefits they hope to gain involve voter support, public recognition, and personal popularity.
[vi] Justice is, in daily life, a highly subjective term and many controversial activities/projects have been started in the name of it.
[vii] http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/campaignForLSE/MissionOfLSE.htm
[viii] Starlab was founded by a wealthy business entrepreneur, who pursued the vision of setting up a high end multi-disciplinary research laboratory, which would engage cutting-edge researchers and commercialize their findings. The venture, which was started during the late 1990’s internet boom, was growing fast and engaged in a multitude of high risk research projects. It collapsed with the market consolidation of 2000/2001. But the informant who had at that point recently founded the Barcelona subsidiary, decided to carry on-- and reports to be doing sufficiently well and producing an organic growth rate (Starlab web, article, old-web).
Users' Comments (2) 
|
|
|
