Developing an evolutionary/ecological approach in enterprise education (original) (raw)
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Entrepreneurship; Learning to Evolve
2011
Prior Work: The paper builds on both evolutionary / ecological approaches to present a multi-level perspective on entrepreneurial learning. At the micro-level the paper focuses on the development of key recurring, knowledge components within the nascent and growing small business (Aldrich, 1999; Breslin, 2008; Burgelman, 1991; Jones, 2005; Penrose, 1959).
Emergent issues in enterprise education: the educator's perspective
Industry and Higher Education, 2011
Recent research suggests that important issues are emerging among enterprise educators in higher education institutions (HEIs). This paper examines four key areas of debate. The first of these is the assessment of entrepreneurship ideas and related activities (Pittaway and Cope, 2007). Penaluna and Penaluna (2008, 2009a,b), for example, focus on assessment methods in schools of art and design and on how these methods could be employed more effectively by enterprise educators. Second, and linked to the issue of assessment, is the area of ‘contextualized’ enterprise education, focusing on enterprise education as it is taught within the context of a specific discipline (for example, Carey and Matlay, 2007). The third area concerns online social media platforms and how in the UK these are increasingly being employed to deliver and support enterprise pedagogies, including the use of external contacts, teaching marketing and explorations of professional boundaries (Smith, 2009; Carey, 200...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2017
Learning and Teaching of entrepreneurship has been a big challenge for higher education institutions. While the subject spans the entire spectrum of management learning, the psychometric traits linked to entrepreneurial behavior have always been difficult to inculcate in students coming from diverse cultural background. For sustainable learning of entrepreneurship, it is important to develop an ecosystem which engages students through various stages of entrepreneurial journey without the encumbrance of financial & logistics constraints. The effectiveness of management and business simulation games was found to be sub-par in sustaining student interest over a longer learning period. To overcome these challenges, the authors conceptualized an innovative learning pedagogy testing a theoretical model through a longitudinal study integrating physical resources, knowledge management, IT interface through a virtual reality based game and several labs in campus to support the initiative. All institutions today are supporting startups but few have a focus of leading students thinking towards natural wealth and develop ways and means of harnessing it without disturbing the ecological balance. In developing economies of Asian African region, almost 80% resources are offered by nature and population of equivalent proportion is dependent on value added products and services that have their roots in natural abundance produce. In modern evolving times, most of the efforts are centered on IT applications to make urban processes faster and smoother. While this effort helps the 20% to 35% of total population, intense competition in startups based on intangibles leads to a high failure rate. The authors thus wanted to chart a course of action through an innovative pedagogy which leads to divergent thought process in students, generating oft-the-beaten-track ideas and then support the students in taking their ideas to launch stage through numerous interfaces adding value and making them more secure of failure through subsequent stages. The system was found to be very effective as a learning pedagogy. Student response to various situations was studied to initiate behavioral corrections and impart learning. Sustained interest and engagement reflects the potential of the entire entrepreneurial development chain. Data from the project was mapped to success metrics for entrepreneurial venture and was observed to have high correlation with learning effectiveness. The system could increase critical thinking and analytical skills in the students significantly.
Learning to Evolve: Developing a practice-based evolutionary language of entrepreneurial learning
Over the past few decades an emerging group of social scientists have been adopting evolutionary approaches to study socio-cultural change. Some have taken this approach to reconceptualise the small business' struggle for survival as an evolutionary process in which the entrepreneur must 'learn to evolve'. In this chapter, this practice-based evolutionary language is explored. Entrepreneurial learning is thus reinterpreted as the co-evolution of components of knowledge through the mechanisms of variation-selection-retention. It is argued that if knowledge co-evolves, and more importantly if entrepreneurs become aware of this evolution, then they can learn to adapt, and so influence the wider evolutionary process within the firm and beyond.
The evolution of entrepreneurial learning
International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 2012
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an evolutionary perspective on entrepreneurial learning, whilst also accounting for fundamental ecological processes, by focusing on the development of key recurring, knowledge components within nascent and growing small businesses. Design/methodology/approach – The paper relates key developments within the organizational evolution literature to research on entrepreneurial learning, with arguments presented in favor of adopting a multi-level co-evolutionary perspective that captures and explains hidden ecological process, such as niche-construction. Findings – It is argued in the paper that such a multi-level focus on key recurring knowledge components can shed new light on the process of entrepreneurial learning and lead to the cross-fertilization of ideas across different domains of study, by offering researchers the opportunity to use the framework of variation-selection-retention to develop a multi-level representation of organizational and entrepreneurial learning. Originality/value – Entrepreneurial learning viewed in this way, as a multi-level struggle for survival amongst competing knowledge components, can provide entrepreneurs with a set of evolutionary heuristics as they re-interpret their understanding of the evolution of their business.
Role and impact of the environment on entrepreneurial learning
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development
This article is presenting an overview of the literature devoted to entrepreneurial learning and, more specifically, those research bringing environmental elements into the study of the entrepreneurial learning process. Then, it shows how each of the four Special Issue selected research papers contribute to enhancing our knowledge of the complexity of the learning process vis-à-vis entrepreneurial processes placed in context. By doing this, it makes an attempt to explain the specific context behind each contribution as well as presenting the wider context. Finally, the article is suggesting a set of key challenges and research pathways that might be explored in the future.
Journal of Management Development
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine young learners’ attitudes towards enterprise education within the context of a university led initiative to construct a sustainable framework which benefits identified stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach The research used self-completed questionnaires with 117 business studies students in Stages S4-S6 from secondary schools across Dundee and business students from Years 1-4 at one university in Dundee, Scotland. Findings The research reveals that respondents positively engage with enterprise education and felt that their project management, creative thinking, communication skills and confidence were enhanced by the activity of real-world business challenges. The findings support the notion that an enterprising spine embedded in the academic curriculum better equip the learner with the necessary hard and soft skills required for the employment market but not necessarily to be entrepreneurial. Research limitations/implications A li...
Learning to Evolve; Increasing Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Putting the Market First
Interpreting venture creation as a process of learning allows potential entrepreneurs to help themselves, and develop the specific skills and competences they need for their businesses. In this chapter, the effectiveness of such a learning-based approach to enterprise education is explored. This study examines changing perceptions and performances of 88 undergraduate business students as they complete a new venture creation module. In this course, students are invited to interpret the start-up process as a process of learning, using an evolutionary metaphor. A number of key findings were revealed. First, the evolutionary learning approach increased the self-efficacy of participants, as their self-belief and confidence in their ideas and abilities increased over the course of the module. This increase was even more pronounced within a subgroup (18% of the cohort) who started their businesses within 6-months of completion of the course. Second, by adopting the 'learning to evolve' approach, participants increasingly focused changes made to their ideas on marketing-related issues (e.g. identifying target market, market research etc). The more the individual focused on marketing as a source of change, the better the improvement in quality of the idea. The findings of this research have implications both for enterprise educators and practicing entrepreneurs. It is seen that when one shifts the focus of attention to the external world, and when changes are increasingly driven by signals from that external world, the quality of emerging opportunities is enhanced. Alongside these changes, self-efficacy increases as nascent entrepreneurs gain confidence and self-belief both in their ideas, and the skills needed to make them happen. In brief, the shift in perspective towards the external market, is the key driver in triggering the entrepreneurial process. The approach put forward in this chapter thus promotes the notion that the entrepreneurship option is open to all who can 'learn to evolve'.
Entrepreneurship as everyday practice: towards a personalized pedagogy of enterprise education
Industry and Higher Education, 2012
Adopting the perspective of ‘entrepreneurship as an everyday practice’ in education, the authors conceptualize opportunities as arising from the everyday practice of individuals. Opportunities are thus seen as emanating from the individual entrepreneur's ability to disclose anomalies and disharmonies in their personal life. The paper illustrates how opportunities unfold depending on regional differences, local heritage and gender, to show how entrepreneurship education must take into account differences in context, culture and circumstance. Rather than perceiving entrepreneurship education as universalistic and searching for a generally applicable teaching approach, the authors argue that there is a need to tailor entrepreneurship education to the particular. They therefore propose that the pedagogy of entrepreneurship education should be personalized and they build a conceptual framework that contrasts two opposing views of entrepreneurship education: ‘universalistic’ and ‘idio...