子谦译文｜创业教什么：六种主流创业理论的对比研究(9)

在日常语言和科学语言中，许多术语和它们的同义词都被用来讨论规范的行为理论，比如启发式方法、指引式方法、原则、方法和技术、框架图、 实践、 过程和流程、模型和方法。为了明确起见，今后我们将使用“方法”一词来阐述行动的规范性理论。之所以选择“方法”一词还因为它在学术界无处不在：它意味着对行动的指导，使其具有理论和实践的相关性，并可作为一个统一的术语发挥作用。尽管“方法”一词在日常生活和科学论述中都很常见，但对该词的许多不同定义可能会造成混淆，进而阻碍有效的交流，因此就有必要建立一个明确的定义。
Landa (1999, p. 346) conceptualizes method as “a structured system of instructions and/or actions for achieving some goal.” March and Smith (1995) refer to methods as a set of steps necessary to carryout a task. Vincenti (1990) describes a method as a design apparatus that entails various ways of thinking, judging, and eventually doing. In line with this, Dimov (2016, p. 25) suggests that methods can be proposed “in the form of design propositions or principles on the basis of review and synthesis of prior research findings.”Neck et al.(2014, p. 11) define method as “a way of thinking and acting built on a set of assumptions using a portfolio of practices to encourage creating.” By synthesizing definitions for the purpose of this article, a method is defined here as a coherent set of related principles and guidelines of thought and action that help to structure the theoretical and practical aspects of arriving at a set goal (cf. Mansoori 2017). Based on this, an entrepreneurial method is further defined as a coherent set of related principles and guidelines of thought and action that help to structure the theoretical and practicala spects of entrepreneurship (cf. Neck and Greene 2011;Sarasvathy and Venkataraman 2011).