Iikka Meriläinen: Interdisciplinary Approaches Towards Novel Knowledge on New Venture Legitimation

I work as a project researcher in the field of micro-entrepreneurship. My professional background is deeply rooted in digitalization and data. I recently completed my master’s degree with an intensive thesis process, where I delved into the legitimation of organizations, especially new ventures, through an extensive stack of articles and books. The result was a comprehensive literature review on new venture legitimation – a challenging thesis, but a solid foundation for further studies.

An academic career had been on my mind for a while, and my interest in it grew even more during the final stages of my master’s studies. My thesis supervisor, Vesa Puhakka, who now also supervises my doctoral studies, facilitated a seamless transition to doctoral research. He also demonstrated the significance of high-quality supervision in ensuring the smooth completion of a demanding thesis.

My approach to research problems is multidisciplinary, and legitimacy research is a good fit for such an approach. I study how new companies find their place in the market, why their early stages are often difficult, and what companies can do to overcome these initial challenges. In addition to organizational and entrepreneurship research, I also draw on perspectives from philosophy and linguistics. Examining legitimation through processuality and studying legitimation strategies as performative phenomena that construct social reality is made possible precisely by incorporating insights from other disciplines.

The toolkit of organizational and entrepreneurship research is versatile today, but it has its limits, and when these limits are reached, a researcher needs the willingness to learn from other fields. For me, process philosophy and pragmatics open up new, fascinating worlds – ways to find new paths for companies to survive and grow. At the same time, this is an opportunity to do better science and learn new things.

Some might find the diversity of different approaches overwhelming. However, for me, it is a great wealth that opens up new routes to sources of knowledge. Nevertheless, patience is required. It’s relatively easy to write papers that casually reference various fields in a thinly veiled spirit of academic self-indulgence, eclectically across disciplines, and when it comes to superficially drawing from long-dead philosophers, the more the merrier. However, such activities have little to do with creating new knowledge. Instead of showing off, what’s needed is understanding – and building that understanding requires patience.

I’ll conclude with the thoughts of British Emeritus Professor Andrew Sayer (2000) on post-disciplinary research. At the turn of the millennium, after a long, interdisciplinary career, Sayer seemed thoroughly fed up with the imperialism of academic disciplines. According to him, many researchers approach problems narrowly, through the lens of their own discipline — regardless of what solution would genuinely be the best. Sayer’s proposal was somewhat radical: forget disciplines and their boundaries, and focus on how we can learn new things in the best possible way.

In my opinion, this goal is not only ambitious but also beautiful. However, the institutional structures of the academic community are not particularly conducive to this. It’s something every researcher will likely end up evaluating in their work.

Author:
Iikka Meriläinen, M.Sc. (Econ.), Project Researcher, Doctoral Researcher, Kerttu Saalasti Institute, University of Oulu

Photo:
Minna Kilpeläinen

Reference:
Sayer, A. (2000). For postdisciplinary studies: Sociology and the curse of disciplinary parochialism/imperialism. In J. Eldridge, J. MacInnes, S. Scott, C. Warhurst & A. Witz (Eds.), Sociology: Legacies and prospects (pp. 85–97). Sociologypress.