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.
