INTEGRATION BETWEEN UNIVERSITY AND STARTUPS IN THE LIGHT OF THE SINGULARITY AND LIMITED RATIONALITY

Abstract

The article aims to answer the following research questions: What challenges does the academy face to improve the critical thinking of its entrepreneurial students using the action learning approach? And, what are the reactions and alternatives that students present to the singularity and limited rationality when solving a problem? To this end, a qualitative approach is used through participant observation in three case studies of companies participating in an interdisciplinary project developed at one of the best Brazilian federal university. From the cases, it is possible to perceive points such as: Prevalence of fear of failure by students; Initial research using an optimal and generic solution from the scientific literature or similar examples; Students' understanding that internal organization and learning management are more important than the technical solutions; The singularity of the startup problem, coupled with the limitation of facts and data, led the group to decide more on startup studies than generic bibliographic research on the problem or the benchmarking; and The solution validation process was carried out by the legitimacy of the entrepreneur, instead of statistical or economic validation.

Keywords

• Limited rationality
• Singularity
• Startups
• Learning by action
• University entrepreneurship