From designing for needs to meaning: Towards a social semiotic model of innovation in entrepreneurship education

The current entrepreneurial pedagogy focuses on enhancing students’ ability in discovering opportunities based on an understanding of users’ needs. This study challenges this dominant pedagogy by proposing a method to help students generate innovative ideas and create entrepreneurial opportunities by transforming the existing product’s meanings, or through a meanings design process, instead of only trying to understand users’ needs. The paper draws on social semiotic theories and theoretically proposes that, by transforming three product meanings (i.e., presentational, orientational and organizational), students are able to design a novel product and thus identify an entrepreneurial opportunity. A brief case study along with some students’ design projects are provided to illustrate how to use this method in teaching. This study is intended to provide entrepreneurship educators with a fresh tool to nurture students’ ability in identifying innovative opportunities and to immerse them in a more creative learning process while shaping their entrepreneurial mindset.