1

Teaching Teaching Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs

through through Experiential Experiential

LearningLearning

Entrepreneurship & “personal enterprise”

• “To boldly go where no [one] has gone before”

• Attitude to life• Exploring, developing, leading and taking

initiatives• Identifying, developing and bringing a vision

to life• “I am the sole proprietor of the rest of my

life.”• What is entrepreneur in Malay and other

languages?

My journey • Babson College• London Business School• Monterrey Institute of Technology• Syracuse University• Indiana University• Cornell University• Universite Paris-Dauphine• Temple University• Seattle University• University of Portland• University of Applied Sciences

Jena• Wuppertal University• University of Applied Sciences

Gelsenkirchen• University of Hohenheim• Florida International University

• Florida Gulf Coast University• Pennsylvania State University• University of Southern California• University of Hawaii• Swinburne University of

Technology• University of Southern Queensland

• Waikato University• Otago University• Syracuse “Experiential Classroom”• Price-Babson Workshop for

Entrepreneurship Educators• National Consortium of

Entrepreneurs Centres• German Entrepreneurship

Research Consortium• Burapha University Thailand• Mahidol University Thailand

Enterprising

behaviours

Cross-disciplinary entrepreneurships

EntrepreneurialBusiness

entrepreneurship

Soc

ial

entre

pren

eurs

hip

Added-value

Economic

profit

Social

capital

Ambitious

Aspiring

Driven

Et alia

Traditional Corporation

Corporate social responsibility

Socially Responsible Business

Non-profit Enterprise

Non-profit with some earned income

Traditional Non-profit

Economic Value Socio-Economic Value Social Value

Economic Value Socio-Economic Value Social Value

Enterprise as the superset

Entrepreneurship Education Impact Studies• Studies have shown significant improvement on

standardized tests among students involved in entrepreneurship programs. – Reading scores increased by 16.4%; language 15.0%;

spelling 15.3%; math 18.7%; social studies 19.5%; science an astounding 39.0%.

• Compared entrepreneurship majors to other business majors over four years– University of Arizona / Kauffmann Foundation (2004)

• Entrepreneurship education outcomes– Produces self-sufficient, enterprising individuals– Produces successful business and industry leaders– Enhances a graduate's ability to create wealth– Produces champions of innovation– Leads to greater opportunities with advancing technologies– Attracts substantial private-sector contributions

Growth of the field• 120 refereed academic journals• 3,400 articles annually• Contending theories of entrepreneurship • Healthy empiricism and innovative

qualitative approaches• PhD programmes • Conferences on how to teach

entrepreneurship• Accepted textbooks

– Kuratko, Timmons, Baron, Allen, Kaplan, Hisrich, Kirby, Mariotti

– North American dominated

Wide range of educational interventions

• Entrepreneurship minor and certificate available to any undergraduate student

• Staff bootcamps• Enterprise pedagogy• Social enterprise and sustainable

entrepreneurship• Third World entrepreneurship• “Country music

entrepreneurship” • Nursing entrepreneurship • Nutrition entrepreneurship, sport

entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship and human rights

• Humanities entrepreneurship – “Literature of

Entrepreneurship”– “History of Entrepreneurship”– “Arts and Enterprise Culture”

• Student entrepreneurship dormitories

• Alumni-driven fund-raising for entrepreneurship education.

• Business plan competitions • Student-organised funding• Student and staff incubators• Commercialisation

initiatives• “Clinical professorships” of

real-life entrepreneurs• Entrepreneurship 101

required of all students• Personal enterprise courses

What unites all these techniques• Personal enterprise skills

– Inner control/discipline; risk taker, innovation, change oriented, persistent, visionary leader, ability to manage change

• Technical skills– Writing, oral communication, monitoring

environment, technical business management, technology, interpersonal, listening, ability to organize, networking building, management style, coaching, being a team player.

• Business management skills– Planning and goal setting, decision making, human

relations, marketing, finance, accounting, management, control, negotiation, venture launch, managing growth

Models of enterprise education• University-wide initiatives • Personal enterprise programmes or courses• Cross-disciplinary (non-business)

entrepreneurships • Technical or science entrepreneurship • Social entrepreneurship • Family business courses• Centres and incubators• Single courses for non-business students • Minors or certificates • Other initiatives

Biggest lessons• Unfulfilled demand• Not just business students• One of fastest growing fields ever• Need for qualified teachers

– Entrepreneurs planning to return to the classroom to teach entrepreneurship courses

– Staff from literally any discipline who are re-tooling so that they can teach entrepreneurship.

– Adjunct staff teaching entrepreneurship on a part-time basis.

• Lack of adequate teaching materials– North American dominance in curriculum and content– Culturally specific and relevant (e.g. for Asia-Pacific)– Mix of theory and practice

Entrepreneurs learn differently

Traditional learning Entrepreneurship learning

Large amounts of data Limited data, more experience

Verify absolute truth by studying all information available

Make decision based on trust, intuition, not “right” answer

Seek correct answer with time to do it

Develop most appropriate solution under pressure

Learning in the classroom Learning while & through doing

Evaluation through written assessment

Evaluation by judgment through direct feedback

Objectives of “enterprise pedagogy”• Help those new to the teaching of

entrepreneurship• Capture the experiences of those who came to the

teaching of entrepreneurship from diverse backgrounds

• Show them creative and effective experiential approaches

• Incorporate media appropriate for today’s students– Multimedia– Webstreaming– Podcasting– Blogs and wikis– Live Web cams

Catalogue of pedagogies: The experiential toolkit• Case study • Business plan• Structured

projects/exercises• Apprenticeships,

internships• Games and simulations• Learning diaries• Play to learn• Experiential exams

• Multimedia• Webstreaming• Podcasting• Blogs and wikis• Live Web cams• E-Newsletters• Global partnering

My conclusions• Widest range of educational interventions• Perhaps fastest growing discipline in the world

today• Entrepreneurship faculty are taking over

leadership roles• Any campus can succeed / low threshold of

success• Most exciting: infusing entire campuses with an

enterprising structure• Need is for entrepreneurial teachers• Need for relevant materials specific to regional

and cultural context.