Description
In such a brief illustration interpret a framework for a northern scandinavian center of competence in entrepreneurial learning.
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A framework for a Northern Scandinavian Center of Competence in Entrepreneurial
Learning – Opportunities and Challenges
Soili Mäkimurto-Koivumaa, Education Manager, Kemi-Tornio University of Applied
Sciences
Contact information
Address: KTUAS, Technology and Business, Tietokatu 1, FI-94600 Kemi, Finland. E-mail:
[email protected] Ph: +358 40 734 0405 Web: www.tokem.fi
Mats Westerberg, Professor, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Dag Ofstad, PhD Student, University of Nordland, Bodö, Norway
Pekka Belt, Researcher, Oulu University, Finland
Mirja Väänänen, Researcher, Oulu University, Finland
Abstract
Questions we care about. In the entrepreneurship education area, there has been a shift from
mainly focusing on creating new businesses to building entrepreneurial competence more
broadly. Based on Sarasvathy & Venkataraman (2011), we view entrepreneurship as a method
for human action and consider entrepreneurial competences to be valuable for everyone as a
means to provide better opportunities for the individual to lead a fulfilling life and be able to
contribute to a better society.
Approach. As a result of five years of collaboration between higher educational institutions
(HEIs) in the north of Sweden, Finland and Norway, we have decided to form a joint
competence center in entrepreneurial learning. In this paper, we outline the road we have
travelled on regarding entrepreneurship education in the four HEIs and a common framework
we are suggesting as a base for the competence center.
Results. Based on our experiences and informed by earlier research we propose a framework
where we distinguish between personal entrepreneurial competences, entrepreneurial
knowledge linked to the professional knowledge base and context specific entrepreneurial
competences. We hold that it is important to have a base in personal entrepreneurial
competences that help the individual to take action and collaborate with others. However, to
be able to work entrepreneurially in a specific context, there is also a need for a strong
professional knowledge base. It is thus in the intersection between personal entrepreneurial
competence and the professional knowledge base that context specific entrepreneurial
competence is formed and can be utilized. The challenge for entrepreneurship education is to
take this into consideration in the work to enhance entrepreneurship in society. We hope that
the competence center we are setting up will aid to accomplish this.
Implications. With the framework that is geared towards all contexts, we might help to open
up a discussion on what the important aspects in entrepreneurship education are, bridging
different earlier approaches.
Value/Originality. We hope that we can contribute to entrepreneurship education both by our
framework and our competence center that we open up for others to join and contribute to.
Key Words: Entrepreneurial competence center, cross-national, cross-disciplinary
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Introduction
In the Nordic countries the introduction of entrepreneurial learning into curricula in the entire
school system has prompted a need for competence development and research on the subject
to satisfy the demand for practical guidance on the practical level and policy development at
different government levels. During the last five years several of the main higher educational
institutions (HEIs) in Northern Scandinavia have been working together to promote
entrepreneurship education in their institutions and surrounding regions. These HEIs have
now decided to take the entrepreneurship education to the next level by forming a virtual
competence center for entrepreneurial education. In this center the participating HEIs aim to
work broadly with the promotion of entrepreneurial activities in the region in terms of
supporting venture creation, but also, and mainly, by focusing on developing the
entrepreneurial mindset of the general student population.
We base our work on the notion of entrepreneurship as a method for human action as
proposed by Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011). This means that we consider
entrepreneurial action as something important and useful for everybody, and not only for
those aiming for venture creation. Moreover, the output of entrepreneurial activity is not only
visible in new firm formation, but also in social and cultural entrepreneurship as well as in
intrapreneurship. This further indicates that entrepreneurship also can be seen as a pedagogy,
with the focus to make people more entrepreneurial and become co-creators of the future.
Since the participating HEIs educate a broad range of students, including engineering,
teaching, social sciences and health sciences we are able to learn from the different disciplines
and from each other. Consequently, we are potentially better able to address cross-disciplinary
challenges and also to influence many business and societal sectors in our region.
In this paper we will describe and analyze the journey that the Northern HEIs have travelled
so far in relation to different types of entrepreneurship education. Then we will outline a
framework for entrepreneurship education generic to all professional areas. After that, we will
bring forward our basis for the proposed competence center and end by stating the main
challenges that lie before us.
Entrepreneurship education – the ugly duckling of university education?
Entrepreneurial education has from the start had trouble fitting in the university system. There
are several reasons for this. First, its theoretical foundations stem from a multitude of research
subjects, such as economics, psychology, sociology, business administration and
management. Thus, there is no obvious “home” for entrepreneurship at a university. Second,
entrepreneurship courses aimed to develop entrepreneurship skills to start a new venture have
been seen as too practical for a university and have therefore been scorned by academics from
subjects with strong theoretical basis that see entrepreneurship as non-academic. Since many
entrepreneurs have a limited academic schooling this further validates that what entrepreneurs
do is not mainly for universities to teach. Third, entrepreneurship education can have different
aims that sometimes are confounded (cf. J amieson, 1984). One aim is to teach “about”
entrepreneurship, i.e. teaching theories that are shedding light on the phenomena, where the
strong focus is on the cognitive skills of the student. Another aim is to teach “for”
entrepreneurship, where the idea is to train students to start a venture, often using business
plans as tools. A third aim is to attempt to learn “in” an entrepreneurship mode, which from
the start was about training in the different tasks that would happen once the business was
operating. This has later been adapted to a more general entrepreneurial pedagogy (see Falk-
Lundquist et al., 2011) where the focus is on developing entrepreneurial competences that can
be used in any setting. Typically, the students are challenged by an ambiguous situation to
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take initiative and be creative in response to opportunities. A “lighter” version of this would
be to use action learning more generally, which could be seen as learning “through”
entrepreneurship, as entrepreneurs often learn by doing. Thus, in universities we can teach
entrepreneurship in four different ways – in, for, through and about. We will next look into
the four universities and analyze how the entrepreneurship education have developed in these
institutions over the years.
Analysis of the participating HEIs development in entrepreneurship education
Finland – Kemi-Tornio. The process of developing entrepreneurial education at Kemi-Tornio
University of Applied Sciences (KTUAS) has proceeded in three stages. In the early years
(1992 – 1996) the curriculum in engineering contained 9 ECTS studies linked with the
business context, where the focus was to deliver information about entrepreneurship. In the
second stage (1996-2011) some common courses were added to the curriculum of each
school. The first course of 3 ECTS contained elements of learning skills and personal
development, and the second course included information for building knowledge in
innovation and business, indicating a stronger focus on aspects for entrepreneurship. The third
stage started in 2011, when it was decided that entrepreneurship should be embedded in the
curriculum of each degree program at KTUAS. Therefore, along with the reform towards
competence-based curriculum, some aspects of entrepreneurship have been added to a few
study projects in each degree program. The common decision of the pedagogical team at
KTUAS was that entrepreneurship should be studied through each study program.
As a result of a development project (2009 – 2012) all the engineering education curricula
were modified to meet the standards of CDIO network (www.cdio.org). Therefore the
curricula currently contain some activating (i.e. through entrepreneurship) learning methods,
mainly study projects. In 2011 – 2012 a study module of 15 ECTS titled Technology-based
entrepreneurship was carried out in the degree program of Industrial management. The aim of
the module was, on one hand, to offer information for starting a new company or for
developing an existing one (about/for entrepreneurship). On the other hand, the purpose was
to assist students in opportunity recognition/development and exploitation and realize that
entrepreneurship could be an option in the future (for/in entrepreneurship).
In 1995, an entrepreneurship project called Meri-Lapin YKI (Integration of entrepreneurship
education in Coastal Lapland) was started. The aim of the project was to increase
entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior in the region. Due to the project financing the
focus groups of the activities were teachers and students of the secondary schools in the
region. Several events and activities were implemented, including web-based learning
material. Throughout the years the focus of entrepreneurship education has been in building
the knowledge base (about entrepreneurship). Due to the two projects focusing in
entrepreneurship (Innopreneurship and Innopreneurship 21) the development work has
proceeded more intensively during the last three years and the content in the education has
also changed to include the other forms (i.e. for, in and through) to a greater extent.
Finland – Oulu. At the University of Oulu (UO), entrepreneurship has been acknowledged in
the university strategy. According to the strategy, UO aims to advance entrepreneurship and
business activities by actively contributing to innovation centers and other forms of strategic
cooperation. The university also examines its own operations from the point of view of
entrepreneurship and business operations, and the exceptionally comprehensive dialog with
the actors in private industry provides an excellent setting for this. Thus there is a strong focus
for entrepreneurship. This is also evidenced in the concrete entrepreneurship education at the
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university. In the Faculty of Technology, the Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management is offering a course where mainly engineering students develop business plans.
In the Faculty of Economics, the unit of International Business is offering its students at least
three directly entrepreneurship-related courses and a number of other courses supporting
entrepreneurs in their actions. In the faculty of Science, the unit of Information Processing is
offering two courses related to software entrepreneurship. At the University of Oulu, there is
also the Center of Internet Excellence (CIE), focusing on internet-based business
development, both in research and promoting internet-based entrepreneurship education.
There are also entrepreneurship educations activities that are more linked to the in category.
For instance, OU in cooperation with Oulu university of Applied Sciences launched the
Business Kitchen (BK) in 2012 to advance growth entrepreneurship and international business
as well as the entrepreneurial skills of higher education institutes’ graduates. Demola Oulu is
a BK activity that integrates students into business life by providing companies’ practical
challenges for students to solve. In BK you also find Oulu Student Entrepreneurship Society
(Oulu SES) that is an open and independent student led community encouraging and
supporting an entrepreneurial mindset among students in Oulu area HEIs. OuluSES works in
close cooperation with regional entrepreneurs and arranges competitions, seminars and get-
togethers. Currently, Business Kitchen is operating as a focal actor connecting students from
different higher education institutes as well as students with real life business challenges,
while, there is room for improvement regarding cooperation between the different units of
university teaching entrepreneurial capabilities.
Sweden – Luleå. At Luleå University of Technology entrepreneurship education was first
found in a voluntary 15 ECTS course aimed at business creation between 1995 and 2005.
Students entered the course with an idea that was developed during the course (using a
business plan as a guiding framework). Many of the students taking these courses started
companies and performed well as entrepreneurs based on an evaluation by Nilsson (2012),
indicating that the for focus worked. However, despite the apparent success with this course,
it was cancelled in 2005. Then, in line with the university’s strategy to work cross-
functionally, new courses linking design, product development and business development
emerged. These courses challenged the students and prompted them to be more active than
traditional courses indicating an in or through approach. At this time there was still no
entrepreneurship subject at the university, but in 2006 the subject was established and new
courses in entrepreneurship added. The first course was “Entrepreneurial learning” targeting
teacher education and focusing on the pedagogy of entrepreneurship and providing challenges
for students, thus a clear in perspective. After this several courses have emerged where the
focus is on business development, business establishment and high-growth venturing,
indicating an about/for perspective. During the last few years a renewed focus on the
pedagogical aspects of entrepreneurial education has emerged as the Swedish school system
have adopted entrepreneurial learning. In response to this, LTU have provided courses for
teachers both in the region and in other parts of Sweden.
Norway – Bodö. At Bodø University Collage entrepreneurship was on the agenda in education
from the mid-1980s, then under the name ”working life knowledge” as a strategy to enhance
the knowledge of school teachers, key persons within labor market training concepts and
people working with intrapreneurial projects inside enterprises to be better qualified to
support and motivate young people to open their eyes for local resource utilization and self-
employment – thus a for perspective in connection with the increased governmental focus on
regional development issues and the aims to raise the business development activity in the
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remote regions of Norway as a buffer against depopulation. The for perspective was also clear
when the concept entrepreneurship was first mentioned in governmental documents in the
budget in 1995 – 96, where the government promoted a future priority on building
entrepreneurship and resource understanding among the young generation as a strategy for
motivating them to see the opportunities not only as employees but also as ”work creators”
Linked to this, Nordland County Council initiated in 1996, together with local municipalities
in Nordland, Bodø University College and partners in 5 European countries, a three year pilot
project on entrepreneurship education called “Europrise” (an acronym of European trainee
enterprise). During the pilot the “Europrise” partners developed a 30 credit point University
course, first of all adapted to unemployed people between 20 – 35 years. After the pilot, Bodø
University College has been offering both ”Europrise courses” for potential entrepreneurs
(until 2007 when it was transferred to Innovation Norway) and further educational courses for
teachers in education and key persons within community development (30 ECTS). Although a
strong focus on for, the in aspect has also got more attention. With the establishment of the
Centre of Pedagogical Entrepreneurship (SPEnt) in 2011 this latter in component became key
together with the through component, as the center’s purpose is to promote and motivate
action oriented and entrepreneurial education methods and research. SPEnt aims to develop
and promote a creative, innovative, entrepreneurial & originative culture in training and
education at the faculty and aims to act as University of Nordland’s (the new name for the
institution from November 2011) strategic tool for teaching research activities - and for the
dissemination and promotion of educational entrepreneurship/pedagogical entrepreneurship in
different contexts regionally, nationally and internationally. Regionally, the university is
offering schools further education courses. Internationally, the university is involved in a pilot
project offering a Nordic Master degree for teachers in cooperation with the University of
Umeå and the University of Iceland.
At Bodø Graduate School of business, entrepreneurship has been a strong research focus for a
long period and education about entrepreneurship has been the focus. However, as part of one
of the first courses in the program, students have developed business ideas and based on this
started and run their own business, indicating an in/through and for focus. Today, this course
is elective and the level of the business ideas is more advanced which have led to that the
course has a stronger in focus as students are challenged to a higher degree. To further support
extra-curricular entrepreneurial behavior among students the graduate school of business has
organized a student lab where students are assisted in further developing potential business
ideas. Despite its extra-curricular mode, outside of the traditional education system, it might
be the strongest entrepreneurial education where there is focus on in, for and through.
History of entrepreneurial education - From political rhetoric to practical pedagogy
The first time Entrepreneurship was expressed officially as a powerful tool in European
education and mentioned as something more than a concept linked to business and enterprise
development, was in the speech of the British delegate Colin Ball at the OECD conference
“Education and economy in a changing society” in Paris in 1989 where he stated:
“In short, people will need to be creative rather than passive, capable of self-initiated
action, rather than dependent; they will need to know how to learn rather than expect to be
taught; they will need to be enterprising in their outlook, and not think or act like an
‘employee’ or ‘client’. The organisations in which they work, communities in which they
live, and societies in which they belong will, in turn, also need to possess all these
qualities.”
OECD/CERI - report “Towards an enterprising Culture – a challenge for education and
training (Paris 1989)
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When tracing further the concept of entrepreneurship and its contextualization into the
educational system, this Paris meeting has become a milestone. Politicians, bureaucrats,
business and industry actors were given a “wake-up call” about the importance of
entrepreneurship as a vital factor in education. About 15 years later, the European
Commission launched the Green Paper – Entrepreneurship in Europe, where they stated that
“Entrepreneurship is about people, their choices and actions in starting, taking over or running
a business, or their involvement in a firms strategic decision making. It covers an individual’s
motivation and capacity, independently or within an organization to identify an opportunity
and to pursue it in order to produce new value or economic success” (2003:5). Then, a couple
of years later, the commission presented “Fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through
education and learning” describing entrepreneurship as follows:
“Entrepreneurship refers to an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action. It includes
creativity, innovation and risk taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in
order to achieve objectives. This supports everyone in day-to-day life at home and in
society, makes employees more aware of the context of their work and better able to seize
opportunities, and provides a foundation for entrepreneurs establishing a social or
commercial activity” Commission of the European Communities, 2006: 4
Later, both the European Commission (2008) in Europe and “The Consortium for
Entrepreneurship Education” (2008) in US states that entrepreneurship education is not just
about teaching someone to run a business. It is also about encouraging creative thinking and
promoting a strong sense of self-confidence and empowerment. Through entrepreneurship
education, students could be able to learn a lot about how to handle challenges, work in a
problem solving way, how to work project oriented and also how to set up a business. The
core knowledge created via entrepreneurship education includes:
• The ability to recognize opportunities in one’s life.
• The ability to pursue opportunities, by generating new ideas and find the needed
recourses.
• The ability to think in a creative and critical manner.
• The ability to create and operate a new enterprise – both traditional companies but also
community projects.
So, beside knowledge and skills in business, entrepreneurship education is mainly about the
development of certain beliefs, values and attitudes, with the aim to get students to really
consider entrepreneurship as an attractive and valid alternative to paid employment or
unemployment (Sánchez, 2011).
The narrow and the broad approach to the concept of Entrepreneurship Education. Based on
the previous section we can divide entrepreneurship education into two aspects– a narrow and
a broad approach. Activities based on the narrow definition refer to “business activities” and
how students learn to start and operate an enterprise. These activities are rapidly spreading
into all corners of the education system from “Kindergarden” to University and these
activities are still growing fast. Activities based on the broad definition are referring to “the
entrepreneurs coming into the world process“, where human qualities and skills that makes it
possible for individuals within organizations and communities to act flexibly and creatively
when meeting rapid social and economic changes – an entrepreneurial mindset. Educational
entrepreneurship is often used as a concept when discussing adjusted learning approaches
with the aim to strengthen the entrepreneurial abilities of the students. Entrepreneurship has
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mostly to do with the ability that an individual has to turn his/her inspirations into actions
(Raposo & do Paco 2009:454 -55) and with more education and encouragement students
should be able to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations. This outcome will increase
economic growth in communities and open new job and career opportunities, regardless of
economic circumstances. Although not all youth will become entrepreneurs, all students and
society benefit when individuals have a solid education, that gives them entrepreneurial
knowledge and skills to use over their lifetime (ibid).
Pedagogical Entrepreneurship. Pedagogical Entrepreneurship is both theoretically and
practically oriented. Training in entrepreneurship can be organized as a separate subject or be
integrated as a way of working in other subjects. Entrepreneurship can be a tool and a
working method to stimulate learning in different subjects and in basic skills.
Entrepreneurship in education and training may also further develop personal characteristics
and attitudes. The training may focus on importing knowledge on how to start, run and
evaluate an initiated and planned event together with others (groups, communities of practice
etc.) and moreover about innovative and ground-breaking processes in our community (in
schools, businesses, voluntary organizations) Education seems important for stimulating
entrepreneurship based on several reasons (Reynolds, Hay, & Camp, 1999; Sánchez, 2011).
First, education provides individuals with a sense of autonomy independence and self-
confidence. Secondly, education makes people aware of alternative career choices. Third,
education makes the horizons of individuals broader, thereby making people better equipped
to perceive opportunities, and finally, education provides knowledge that can be used by
individuals to develop new entrepreneurial opportunities. Landström and Sexton (2000) hold
that children are entrepreneurial by birth. Therefore entrepreneurship education should begin
at the youngest age possible. It is imperative to have in mind that entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurship education, from an early age in one’s life, does not only concern business,
start-ups and new ventures. Entrepreneurship has mostly to do with the ability that an
individual has to turn his/her inspirations into actions. Entrepreneurship education seeks to
propose people, especially young people, to be responsible, as well as enterprising individuals
who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic
development and sustainable communities.
In pedagogical entrepreneurship, the teachers are invited to act in a new role as mentors and
facilitators, whose primarily role is to support and motivate students to think differently – “out
of the box”, to find new experiences. Instead of being the speaker of knowledge the teachers
should be involved and take part together with the students within the students’ learning
context – and the learning methodology for them should be asking good questions, which
preferably could generate new answers. By doing that, they will be able to contribute to
bringing the students closer to satisfactory solutions to their challenges or problem solving
processes. What we then achieve is that the students are designing their own learning process
within team-oriented communities of practice, commonly through creating a constructive
environment where they have ownership relation to their own plans, processes, methods and
the final result. The process does not stop when they have come to satisfactory solutions and
accomplished their aims. They should also use extra time to evaluate their work and work-
process and learn what has been OK – and what could be done or resolved better – or has to
be improved the next time they are into team-working. Doing that, they will encourage self-
awareness and self-management, personal development with in a “learn – to learn” from
experience process. Entrepreneurship can thus be seen as a method, both teachable and
learnable that is heavily relying on practice. Therefore, entrepreneurial pedagogy will never
be successful within the frames of a static content-oriented teaching approach.
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Entrepreneurship is a dynamic method requiring dynamic people and dynamic environments
which fits our rapidly changing and highly complex societies in the 21st century.
Building entrepreneurial competence in higher education
Entrepreneurial competence is defined here to mean individual’s ability to act
entrepreneurially and utilize entrepreneurial mindset in different situations and environments.
Thus, entrepreneurial competence is considered important both for an entrepreneur and an
employee. Entrepreneurial competences have been outlined to cover skills needed in
successful entrepreneurship (Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2010). Entrepreneurial behavior has
been defined to include such elements as seeking, identifying and grasping opportunities,
solving problems creatively, networking effectively and acting proactively in complexity
(Gibb, 1993). An entrepreneurial mindset, which reflects individual’s attitude, contains
his/hers ability to be dynamic, flexible, and self-regulating in given dynamic and uncertain
task environments (Heinonen & Poikkijoki, 2006).
As emphasized by Sarasvathy (2001) effectuation is needed in today’s entrepreneurial
processes. The fast changes and turbulent environments challenge the individual to become
aware of his/hers available means in opportunity recognition and exploitation. Due to the
rapid change processes, it is not possible to predict or control future events. Therefore the
individual needs to be able to use the means at hand in generating different options
(Sarasvathy, 2001). In addition, the individual has to handle uncertainty/ambiguity and be
aware of the affordable loss, i.e. how much the person is prepared to venture. Sarasvathy uses
the term causation for the more traditional process of decision making. When using causation
the entrepreneur first decides the goal or way to take and thereafter chooses the means how to
get there. The success in a causation process requires that the entrepreneur collects
information for predicting future events and for minimizing risk that way. Recent studies
argue that for being successful today the entrepreneur should be agile and aware of situational
elements, and rather use effectuation than causation (see Sanz-Velasco 2006, Dew et al. 2008,
Read & Sarasvathy 2005).
The challenge for educators is thus how to find ways to train and prepare students to behave
entrepreneurially. In the early years of entrepreneurship education the main aim was in
delivering explicit knowledge about entrepreneurship. Along with the expansion of the
concept of entrepreneurship it has been clear that increasing the student’s knowledge about
entrepreneurship might not lead to a more entrepreneurial student. Therefore, another three
aspects of entrepreneurship education have been specified; to train in entrepreneurship (use of
teaching methods which support entrepreneurial behavior), through entrepreneurship (e.g.
different activating methods) and for entrepreneurship (education to support becoming an
entrepreneur) (Hytti & O’Gorman, 2004; Rae, 2000; Fayolle & Gailly 2008; Taatila 2010,
Henry et al. 2005). These three aspects combine entrepreneurship education with pedagogy
and practical teaching skills as well. The aim of entrepreneurship education is to develop
entrepreneurial competence during the study path of the individual. The Fig. 1 below outlines
the framework which could be utilized in entrepreneurship education.
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Fig. 1 Process of entrepreneurial competence
The main idea of the figure 1 is that entrepreneurial competence grows throughout studies and
entrepreneurship education is the key in the process. In the beginning of the study path the
focus should be in supporting personal entrepreneurial competencies, which becomes visible
through entrepreneurial behaviors such as responsibility, creativity, tolerance for ambiguity.
In the first years the other side of entrepreneurship, that is the hard side or knowledge base,
has a minor role in the process. Later, the emphasis of entrepreneurship education is
transferred to increasing the student’s knowledge and skills in the area where he or she should
work. If it is as an entrepreneur in the engineering sector, important aspects of the
professional knowledge base would include business knowledge and engineering knowledge.
If it instead is as a teacher in the school system, the professional knowledge base would apart
from their domain knowledge contain pedagogics, didactics and leadership. The idea is that to
be able to act entrepreneurially in the specific context you choose, you need to have both the
personal entrepreneurial competence and the professional knowledge base. With only
personal entrepreneurial competencies you lack the tools needed to be an actor in the
professional context and with only the professional knowledge base, you lack the tools to find
and exploit opportunities in your professional context.
To support the process, entrepreneurship education should be using different pedagogic
approaches. The most basic is utilizing the idea of teaching through entrepreneurship which in
practice means using an activating learning method – learning by doing, for instance, project
based learning, or realistic case studies. Activating learning methods usually enable students
to train collaboration and teamwork which is central to personal entrepreneurial competence.
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The action learning approach can also be used when diving into the core of the knowledge
base, where the modes through and about are central. Here, learning about the entrepreneurial
process in theory might be linked to trying out the steps in (limited) practice. In the third step
the toolbox of entrepreneurship education expands with learning in entrepreneurship, where
the students are faced with real life ambiguous situations where they need to act
entrepreneurially to succeed. In a business school this could involve becoming familiar with
authentic business situations that demands action. For a teacher student it could involve real
interaction with pupils or parents. The last part the tool box should enable the student to test
their entrepreneurial competence in full practice by taking the first steps to establishing an
enterprise or working as an intrapreneur in a school setting.
In addition, the whole learning process should contain elements of effectuation. Therefore, the
pedagogy of entrepreneurship education could be supported such elements as developing
student’s awareness of personal skills and abilities and enable co-operation and networking.
At the very early stage of education students should be challenged to ponder about their
personal abilities and skills and consider ways how to utilize them during their studies. In
practice this could done by outlining a personal development map which could be updated
yearly. The map should challenge the student to evaluate aspects of entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurial behavior as well. The role of effectuation in this process can be confirmed by
different activating learning methods which enable the student to solve problems, search for
new solutions and co-operate with other students.
Later the process of effectuation could continue by exposing student to different events or
learning experiences which force the students to test their abilities and skills (that is to find
new opportunities in new situations). Different challenging study projects can be very
effective in that respect. Effectuation strongly emphasizes networking. Therefore students
should be able to create contacts with other students and different organizations as well. In
case the study project is an assignment given by a company it could meet that need well.
Additionally, the process of effectuation can be strengthened later when students are training
in different organizations, because training circumstances can contain unexpected events, for
example. During the last phase of the study path students are able to combine their knowledge
about entrepreneurship with the learning experiences they have had so far if they for instance
start a company or pursue an enterprise in the public sector. Again, this learning event can
utilize the idea of effectuation when the students need to co-operate and use their creativity
during the process.
It is argued here that if the education contains several elements of active learning they can
force the students to use effectuation in different situations (for instance in solving problems
or study projects). Again, this contains different situations in which the students first are able
to become aware of the available means and thereafter create different ways (opportunities)
how and with whom to utilize them.
The proposed competence center
In the project Innopreneurship, the four HEIs have worked with entrepreneurship education in
different ways, for different focus groups and with different resources. When starting in 2008,
we had quite different views on what entrepreneurship education actually was, where the
majority held the view that it was only, or at least mainly, about getting students to start new
businesses. Today, we have a broader view where the focus is on developing entrepreneurial
competences which can be used for many purposes – where starting a business is only one
option. Based on that we have agreed on this broader view on entrepreneurship education, we
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have seen more opportunities in collaborating closely and sharing ideas and tools. This
provided a good basis for a common competence center where we can bring together our
combined resources and create an attractive source for those interested in developing
entrepreneurial competences. The core of the competence center is a web site
“Innopreneurship.org” which will be launched in May 2013. From the start it will contain
material from the four HEIs, but the idea is to invite other HEIs and other organizations to
become partners and share their resources too. The web site will have two main platforms –
one open for everybody and one open only to members granted an account. On the restricted
platform, we plan to build a library of tools and materials, give courses, and provide
opportunities to interact with other members. On the open platform, we will post news and
advertise events, give access to some of the tools and material in the library, and have twitter
feeds loading all tweets having #innopreneurship as hashtag. A logo for the competence
center have been developed. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. The logo for the proposed competence center
At each HEI, there will be a campus entrepreneurial competence center pooling the local
resources in entrepreneurial competence and delivering courses, inspiration seminars and
workshops, etc. The size and scope of this campus competence center will vary based on the
focus of the respective HEI. However, in Table 1 the characteristics in terms of content, roles
and culture that provide a common ground are listed.
12
Table 1. The roles, core values and content of the proposed competence center
Roles Core values Content
Functions as meeting place –
both IRL and on-line.
• Regular events at the
universities and a lively
homepage
“Innopreneurship.org”
Pools resources
• All those who want to
contribute to the
development of
entrepreneurial
learning will be asked
to be partners
Enables interaction
• One main task is to
make people meet each
other and find new
potential partners
Runs and spreads research
& development
• Both own and others
research and
development in the
area of entrepreneurial
learning will be spread
The competent human
being – a belief that each
individual want to and have
an ability to learn and
develop throughout life
Diversity enriches – in
people, in ideas, in actions,
in…
Action through
collaboration for societal
value creation
Research and development
• Mainly interactive
research and
development projects,
in close collaboration
with municipalities
Education
• Campus and distance
courses, regular or on
commission
Competence development
• From inspiration
lectures to longer
programs
Network hub
• A partner in different
networks aimed to
develop EL
Experiences
• Create and run a
entrepreneurial
development lab,
where you try out
your entrepreneurial
competences
However, collaborating between universities that are located in different countries may prove
challenging due to partly different contexts in terms of resources, history and local networks
regarding entrepreneurship development. It is also a daunting task to make this competence
center a sustainable venture that is not dependent on huge efforts of single individuals, but
rather on small contributions from many actors in the entrepreneurship education community.
Based on the above, the following questions or challenges related to entrepreneurship
education are central:
• How to effectively collaborate cross-nationally to reap benefits and avoid pitfalls?
• How can we create a larger community and attract enough attention and action to have
a critical mass and through this a vibrant website?
• How can we successfully integrate current initiatives and get them to be part of the
competence center?
• How to shift the focus from supporting the few towards venture creation to supporting
the mass towards more entrepreneurial potential?
• What are the most pressing research questions we need to address to achieve better
entrepreneurship education in the university sector in general and specifically in our
region?
13
References
Commission of the European Communities (2006). Implementing the Community Lisbon
Programme: Fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learning.
Communication from the commission to the council, the European parliament, the European
economic and social Committee and the committee of the regions
Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education (2008). Entrepreneurship everywhere: The case
for entrepreneurship education. Columbia, USA.
Dew D., Read S., Sarasvathy S. D., and Wiltbank R. (2008). Effectual versus predictive logics
in entrepreneurial decision-making: Differences between expert and novices. Journal of
Business Venturing, 24, 287–309.
European Commission (2003),”Green Paper” – “Entrepreneurship in Europe”.
European Commission (2008). Entrepreneurship in higher education, especially within non-
business studies. Brussels: Final Report of the Expert Group.
Falk-Lundqvist, Å., Hallberg, P-G., Leffler, E. & Svedberg, G. (2011). Entreprenöriell
pedagogik i skolan: drivkrafter för elevers lärande. 1. uppl. Stockholm: Liber.
Fayolle A., and Gailly B. (2008). From craft to science. Teaching models and learning
processes in entrepreneurship education. Journal of European Industrial Training, 32, 569–
593.
Gibb A. (1993). The Enterprise Culture and Education: Understanding Enterprise Education
and its Links with Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Wider Educational Goals.
International Small Business Journal, 3, 11–34.
Heinonen J ., and Poikkijoki S. (2006). An entrepreneurial-directed approach to
entrepreneurship education: mission impossible? Journal of management development, 25,
88–94.
Henry C, Hill F & Leitch C (2005) Entrepreneurship education and training: can
entrepreneurship be taught? Part I. Education + Training, 47, 98–111.
Hytti U., and O’Gorman C. (2004). What is “enterprise education”? An analysis of the
objectives and methods of enterprise education programmes in four European countries.
Education + Training, 46, 11–23.
J amieson, I. (1984). Education for enterprise. In Watts, A.G., & Moran, P. (Eds.). CRAC,
Ballinger: Cambridge, pp. 19-27.
Landström, H., & Sexton, D. (2000). Introduction. In H. Landström & D.L. Sexton (Eds.),
Handbook of entrepreneurship. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, xix-xxiv.
Mitchelmore S. & Rowley J . (2010). Entrepreneurial competencies: a literature review and
development agenda. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 16,
92-111.
14
Nilsson, T. (2012). Entrepreneurship Education – Does it matter? International Journal of
Business and Management; 7, 40-48.
Rae D. (2000). Understanding entrepreneurial learning: a question of how? International
Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 6, 145–159.
Raposo, M. & do Paco, A. (2009). Entrepreneurship and Education: Links Between
Education and Entrepreneurial Activity. University of Beria Interior – Deparment of
Managemnent and Economics: Covilha.
Read S., and Sarasvathy, S. D. (2005). Knowing What to Do and Doing What You Know:
Effectuation as a Form of Entrepreneurial Expertise. The Journal of Private Equity, 9, 45–61.
Reynolds, P.D., Hay, M., & Camp, S.M. (1999). Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: 1999 -
Executive Report. Babson College, London Business Scholl and the Kauffman Center for
Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Sánchez, J .C. (2011). University training for entrepreneurial competencies: Its impact on
intention of venture creation. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7,
239-254
Sanz-Velasco S. A. (2006). Opportunity development as a learning process for Entrepreneurs.
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 12, 251-271.
Sarasvathy S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from
economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26,
243–263.
Sarasvathy, S. D. and Venkataraman S. (2011). Entrepreneurship as Method: Open Questions
for an Entrepreneurial Future. Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice, 34, 113–135.
Taatila V (2008). Learning entrepreneurship in higher education. Education + Training 52,
48–61.
doc_601547533.pdf
In such a brief illustration interpret a framework for a northern scandinavian center of competence in entrepreneurial learning.
1
A framework for a Northern Scandinavian Center of Competence in Entrepreneurial
Learning – Opportunities and Challenges
Soili Mäkimurto-Koivumaa, Education Manager, Kemi-Tornio University of Applied
Sciences
Contact information
Address: KTUAS, Technology and Business, Tietokatu 1, FI-94600 Kemi, Finland. E-mail:
[email protected] Ph: +358 40 734 0405 Web: www.tokem.fi
Mats Westerberg, Professor, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Dag Ofstad, PhD Student, University of Nordland, Bodö, Norway
Pekka Belt, Researcher, Oulu University, Finland
Mirja Väänänen, Researcher, Oulu University, Finland
Abstract
Questions we care about. In the entrepreneurship education area, there has been a shift from
mainly focusing on creating new businesses to building entrepreneurial competence more
broadly. Based on Sarasvathy & Venkataraman (2011), we view entrepreneurship as a method
for human action and consider entrepreneurial competences to be valuable for everyone as a
means to provide better opportunities for the individual to lead a fulfilling life and be able to
contribute to a better society.
Approach. As a result of five years of collaboration between higher educational institutions
(HEIs) in the north of Sweden, Finland and Norway, we have decided to form a joint
competence center in entrepreneurial learning. In this paper, we outline the road we have
travelled on regarding entrepreneurship education in the four HEIs and a common framework
we are suggesting as a base for the competence center.
Results. Based on our experiences and informed by earlier research we propose a framework
where we distinguish between personal entrepreneurial competences, entrepreneurial
knowledge linked to the professional knowledge base and context specific entrepreneurial
competences. We hold that it is important to have a base in personal entrepreneurial
competences that help the individual to take action and collaborate with others. However, to
be able to work entrepreneurially in a specific context, there is also a need for a strong
professional knowledge base. It is thus in the intersection between personal entrepreneurial
competence and the professional knowledge base that context specific entrepreneurial
competence is formed and can be utilized. The challenge for entrepreneurship education is to
take this into consideration in the work to enhance entrepreneurship in society. We hope that
the competence center we are setting up will aid to accomplish this.
Implications. With the framework that is geared towards all contexts, we might help to open
up a discussion on what the important aspects in entrepreneurship education are, bridging
different earlier approaches.
Value/Originality. We hope that we can contribute to entrepreneurship education both by our
framework and our competence center that we open up for others to join and contribute to.
Key Words: Entrepreneurial competence center, cross-national, cross-disciplinary
2
Introduction
In the Nordic countries the introduction of entrepreneurial learning into curricula in the entire
school system has prompted a need for competence development and research on the subject
to satisfy the demand for practical guidance on the practical level and policy development at
different government levels. During the last five years several of the main higher educational
institutions (HEIs) in Northern Scandinavia have been working together to promote
entrepreneurship education in their institutions and surrounding regions. These HEIs have
now decided to take the entrepreneurship education to the next level by forming a virtual
competence center for entrepreneurial education. In this center the participating HEIs aim to
work broadly with the promotion of entrepreneurial activities in the region in terms of
supporting venture creation, but also, and mainly, by focusing on developing the
entrepreneurial mindset of the general student population.
We base our work on the notion of entrepreneurship as a method for human action as
proposed by Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011). This means that we consider
entrepreneurial action as something important and useful for everybody, and not only for
those aiming for venture creation. Moreover, the output of entrepreneurial activity is not only
visible in new firm formation, but also in social and cultural entrepreneurship as well as in
intrapreneurship. This further indicates that entrepreneurship also can be seen as a pedagogy,
with the focus to make people more entrepreneurial and become co-creators of the future.
Since the participating HEIs educate a broad range of students, including engineering,
teaching, social sciences and health sciences we are able to learn from the different disciplines
and from each other. Consequently, we are potentially better able to address cross-disciplinary
challenges and also to influence many business and societal sectors in our region.
In this paper we will describe and analyze the journey that the Northern HEIs have travelled
so far in relation to different types of entrepreneurship education. Then we will outline a
framework for entrepreneurship education generic to all professional areas. After that, we will
bring forward our basis for the proposed competence center and end by stating the main
challenges that lie before us.
Entrepreneurship education – the ugly duckling of university education?
Entrepreneurial education has from the start had trouble fitting in the university system. There
are several reasons for this. First, its theoretical foundations stem from a multitude of research
subjects, such as economics, psychology, sociology, business administration and
management. Thus, there is no obvious “home” for entrepreneurship at a university. Second,
entrepreneurship courses aimed to develop entrepreneurship skills to start a new venture have
been seen as too practical for a university and have therefore been scorned by academics from
subjects with strong theoretical basis that see entrepreneurship as non-academic. Since many
entrepreneurs have a limited academic schooling this further validates that what entrepreneurs
do is not mainly for universities to teach. Third, entrepreneurship education can have different
aims that sometimes are confounded (cf. J amieson, 1984). One aim is to teach “about”
entrepreneurship, i.e. teaching theories that are shedding light on the phenomena, where the
strong focus is on the cognitive skills of the student. Another aim is to teach “for”
entrepreneurship, where the idea is to train students to start a venture, often using business
plans as tools. A third aim is to attempt to learn “in” an entrepreneurship mode, which from
the start was about training in the different tasks that would happen once the business was
operating. This has later been adapted to a more general entrepreneurial pedagogy (see Falk-
Lundquist et al., 2011) where the focus is on developing entrepreneurial competences that can
be used in any setting. Typically, the students are challenged by an ambiguous situation to
3
take initiative and be creative in response to opportunities. A “lighter” version of this would
be to use action learning more generally, which could be seen as learning “through”
entrepreneurship, as entrepreneurs often learn by doing. Thus, in universities we can teach
entrepreneurship in four different ways – in, for, through and about. We will next look into
the four universities and analyze how the entrepreneurship education have developed in these
institutions over the years.
Analysis of the participating HEIs development in entrepreneurship education
Finland – Kemi-Tornio. The process of developing entrepreneurial education at Kemi-Tornio
University of Applied Sciences (KTUAS) has proceeded in three stages. In the early years
(1992 – 1996) the curriculum in engineering contained 9 ECTS studies linked with the
business context, where the focus was to deliver information about entrepreneurship. In the
second stage (1996-2011) some common courses were added to the curriculum of each
school. The first course of 3 ECTS contained elements of learning skills and personal
development, and the second course included information for building knowledge in
innovation and business, indicating a stronger focus on aspects for entrepreneurship. The third
stage started in 2011, when it was decided that entrepreneurship should be embedded in the
curriculum of each degree program at KTUAS. Therefore, along with the reform towards
competence-based curriculum, some aspects of entrepreneurship have been added to a few
study projects in each degree program. The common decision of the pedagogical team at
KTUAS was that entrepreneurship should be studied through each study program.
As a result of a development project (2009 – 2012) all the engineering education curricula
were modified to meet the standards of CDIO network (www.cdio.org). Therefore the
curricula currently contain some activating (i.e. through entrepreneurship) learning methods,
mainly study projects. In 2011 – 2012 a study module of 15 ECTS titled Technology-based
entrepreneurship was carried out in the degree program of Industrial management. The aim of
the module was, on one hand, to offer information for starting a new company or for
developing an existing one (about/for entrepreneurship). On the other hand, the purpose was
to assist students in opportunity recognition/development and exploitation and realize that
entrepreneurship could be an option in the future (for/in entrepreneurship).
In 1995, an entrepreneurship project called Meri-Lapin YKI (Integration of entrepreneurship
education in Coastal Lapland) was started. The aim of the project was to increase
entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior in the region. Due to the project financing the
focus groups of the activities were teachers and students of the secondary schools in the
region. Several events and activities were implemented, including web-based learning
material. Throughout the years the focus of entrepreneurship education has been in building
the knowledge base (about entrepreneurship). Due to the two projects focusing in
entrepreneurship (Innopreneurship and Innopreneurship 21) the development work has
proceeded more intensively during the last three years and the content in the education has
also changed to include the other forms (i.e. for, in and through) to a greater extent.
Finland – Oulu. At the University of Oulu (UO), entrepreneurship has been acknowledged in
the university strategy. According to the strategy, UO aims to advance entrepreneurship and
business activities by actively contributing to innovation centers and other forms of strategic
cooperation. The university also examines its own operations from the point of view of
entrepreneurship and business operations, and the exceptionally comprehensive dialog with
the actors in private industry provides an excellent setting for this. Thus there is a strong focus
for entrepreneurship. This is also evidenced in the concrete entrepreneurship education at the
4
university. In the Faculty of Technology, the Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management is offering a course where mainly engineering students develop business plans.
In the Faculty of Economics, the unit of International Business is offering its students at least
three directly entrepreneurship-related courses and a number of other courses supporting
entrepreneurs in their actions. In the faculty of Science, the unit of Information Processing is
offering two courses related to software entrepreneurship. At the University of Oulu, there is
also the Center of Internet Excellence (CIE), focusing on internet-based business
development, both in research and promoting internet-based entrepreneurship education.
There are also entrepreneurship educations activities that are more linked to the in category.
For instance, OU in cooperation with Oulu university of Applied Sciences launched the
Business Kitchen (BK) in 2012 to advance growth entrepreneurship and international business
as well as the entrepreneurial skills of higher education institutes’ graduates. Demola Oulu is
a BK activity that integrates students into business life by providing companies’ practical
challenges for students to solve. In BK you also find Oulu Student Entrepreneurship Society
(Oulu SES) that is an open and independent student led community encouraging and
supporting an entrepreneurial mindset among students in Oulu area HEIs. OuluSES works in
close cooperation with regional entrepreneurs and arranges competitions, seminars and get-
togethers. Currently, Business Kitchen is operating as a focal actor connecting students from
different higher education institutes as well as students with real life business challenges,
while, there is room for improvement regarding cooperation between the different units of
university teaching entrepreneurial capabilities.
Sweden – Luleå. At Luleå University of Technology entrepreneurship education was first
found in a voluntary 15 ECTS course aimed at business creation between 1995 and 2005.
Students entered the course with an idea that was developed during the course (using a
business plan as a guiding framework). Many of the students taking these courses started
companies and performed well as entrepreneurs based on an evaluation by Nilsson (2012),
indicating that the for focus worked. However, despite the apparent success with this course,
it was cancelled in 2005. Then, in line with the university’s strategy to work cross-
functionally, new courses linking design, product development and business development
emerged. These courses challenged the students and prompted them to be more active than
traditional courses indicating an in or through approach. At this time there was still no
entrepreneurship subject at the university, but in 2006 the subject was established and new
courses in entrepreneurship added. The first course was “Entrepreneurial learning” targeting
teacher education and focusing on the pedagogy of entrepreneurship and providing challenges
for students, thus a clear in perspective. After this several courses have emerged where the
focus is on business development, business establishment and high-growth venturing,
indicating an about/for perspective. During the last few years a renewed focus on the
pedagogical aspects of entrepreneurial education has emerged as the Swedish school system
have adopted entrepreneurial learning. In response to this, LTU have provided courses for
teachers both in the region and in other parts of Sweden.
Norway – Bodö. At Bodø University Collage entrepreneurship was on the agenda in education
from the mid-1980s, then under the name ”working life knowledge” as a strategy to enhance
the knowledge of school teachers, key persons within labor market training concepts and
people working with intrapreneurial projects inside enterprises to be better qualified to
support and motivate young people to open their eyes for local resource utilization and self-
employment – thus a for perspective in connection with the increased governmental focus on
regional development issues and the aims to raise the business development activity in the
5
remote regions of Norway as a buffer against depopulation. The for perspective was also clear
when the concept entrepreneurship was first mentioned in governmental documents in the
budget in 1995 – 96, where the government promoted a future priority on building
entrepreneurship and resource understanding among the young generation as a strategy for
motivating them to see the opportunities not only as employees but also as ”work creators”
Linked to this, Nordland County Council initiated in 1996, together with local municipalities
in Nordland, Bodø University College and partners in 5 European countries, a three year pilot
project on entrepreneurship education called “Europrise” (an acronym of European trainee
enterprise). During the pilot the “Europrise” partners developed a 30 credit point University
course, first of all adapted to unemployed people between 20 – 35 years. After the pilot, Bodø
University College has been offering both ”Europrise courses” for potential entrepreneurs
(until 2007 when it was transferred to Innovation Norway) and further educational courses for
teachers in education and key persons within community development (30 ECTS). Although a
strong focus on for, the in aspect has also got more attention. With the establishment of the
Centre of Pedagogical Entrepreneurship (SPEnt) in 2011 this latter in component became key
together with the through component, as the center’s purpose is to promote and motivate
action oriented and entrepreneurial education methods and research. SPEnt aims to develop
and promote a creative, innovative, entrepreneurial & originative culture in training and
education at the faculty and aims to act as University of Nordland’s (the new name for the
institution from November 2011) strategic tool for teaching research activities - and for the
dissemination and promotion of educational entrepreneurship/pedagogical entrepreneurship in
different contexts regionally, nationally and internationally. Regionally, the university is
offering schools further education courses. Internationally, the university is involved in a pilot
project offering a Nordic Master degree for teachers in cooperation with the University of
Umeå and the University of Iceland.
At Bodø Graduate School of business, entrepreneurship has been a strong research focus for a
long period and education about entrepreneurship has been the focus. However, as part of one
of the first courses in the program, students have developed business ideas and based on this
started and run their own business, indicating an in/through and for focus. Today, this course
is elective and the level of the business ideas is more advanced which have led to that the
course has a stronger in focus as students are challenged to a higher degree. To further support
extra-curricular entrepreneurial behavior among students the graduate school of business has
organized a student lab where students are assisted in further developing potential business
ideas. Despite its extra-curricular mode, outside of the traditional education system, it might
be the strongest entrepreneurial education where there is focus on in, for and through.
History of entrepreneurial education - From political rhetoric to practical pedagogy
The first time Entrepreneurship was expressed officially as a powerful tool in European
education and mentioned as something more than a concept linked to business and enterprise
development, was in the speech of the British delegate Colin Ball at the OECD conference
“Education and economy in a changing society” in Paris in 1989 where he stated:
“In short, people will need to be creative rather than passive, capable of self-initiated
action, rather than dependent; they will need to know how to learn rather than expect to be
taught; they will need to be enterprising in their outlook, and not think or act like an
‘employee’ or ‘client’. The organisations in which they work, communities in which they
live, and societies in which they belong will, in turn, also need to possess all these
qualities.”
OECD/CERI - report “Towards an enterprising Culture – a challenge for education and
training (Paris 1989)
6
When tracing further the concept of entrepreneurship and its contextualization into the
educational system, this Paris meeting has become a milestone. Politicians, bureaucrats,
business and industry actors were given a “wake-up call” about the importance of
entrepreneurship as a vital factor in education. About 15 years later, the European
Commission launched the Green Paper – Entrepreneurship in Europe, where they stated that
“Entrepreneurship is about people, their choices and actions in starting, taking over or running
a business, or their involvement in a firms strategic decision making. It covers an individual’s
motivation and capacity, independently or within an organization to identify an opportunity
and to pursue it in order to produce new value or economic success” (2003:5). Then, a couple
of years later, the commission presented “Fostering entrepreneurial mindsets through
education and learning” describing entrepreneurship as follows:
“Entrepreneurship refers to an individual’s ability to turn ideas into action. It includes
creativity, innovation and risk taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in
order to achieve objectives. This supports everyone in day-to-day life at home and in
society, makes employees more aware of the context of their work and better able to seize
opportunities, and provides a foundation for entrepreneurs establishing a social or
commercial activity” Commission of the European Communities, 2006: 4
Later, both the European Commission (2008) in Europe and “The Consortium for
Entrepreneurship Education” (2008) in US states that entrepreneurship education is not just
about teaching someone to run a business. It is also about encouraging creative thinking and
promoting a strong sense of self-confidence and empowerment. Through entrepreneurship
education, students could be able to learn a lot about how to handle challenges, work in a
problem solving way, how to work project oriented and also how to set up a business. The
core knowledge created via entrepreneurship education includes:
• The ability to recognize opportunities in one’s life.
• The ability to pursue opportunities, by generating new ideas and find the needed
recourses.
• The ability to think in a creative and critical manner.
• The ability to create and operate a new enterprise – both traditional companies but also
community projects.
So, beside knowledge and skills in business, entrepreneurship education is mainly about the
development of certain beliefs, values and attitudes, with the aim to get students to really
consider entrepreneurship as an attractive and valid alternative to paid employment or
unemployment (Sánchez, 2011).
The narrow and the broad approach to the concept of Entrepreneurship Education. Based on
the previous section we can divide entrepreneurship education into two aspects– a narrow and
a broad approach. Activities based on the narrow definition refer to “business activities” and
how students learn to start and operate an enterprise. These activities are rapidly spreading
into all corners of the education system from “Kindergarden” to University and these
activities are still growing fast. Activities based on the broad definition are referring to “the
entrepreneurs coming into the world process“, where human qualities and skills that makes it
possible for individuals within organizations and communities to act flexibly and creatively
when meeting rapid social and economic changes – an entrepreneurial mindset. Educational
entrepreneurship is often used as a concept when discussing adjusted learning approaches
with the aim to strengthen the entrepreneurial abilities of the students. Entrepreneurship has
7
mostly to do with the ability that an individual has to turn his/her inspirations into actions
(Raposo & do Paco 2009:454 -55) and with more education and encouragement students
should be able to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations. This outcome will increase
economic growth in communities and open new job and career opportunities, regardless of
economic circumstances. Although not all youth will become entrepreneurs, all students and
society benefit when individuals have a solid education, that gives them entrepreneurial
knowledge and skills to use over their lifetime (ibid).
Pedagogical Entrepreneurship. Pedagogical Entrepreneurship is both theoretically and
practically oriented. Training in entrepreneurship can be organized as a separate subject or be
integrated as a way of working in other subjects. Entrepreneurship can be a tool and a
working method to stimulate learning in different subjects and in basic skills.
Entrepreneurship in education and training may also further develop personal characteristics
and attitudes. The training may focus on importing knowledge on how to start, run and
evaluate an initiated and planned event together with others (groups, communities of practice
etc.) and moreover about innovative and ground-breaking processes in our community (in
schools, businesses, voluntary organizations) Education seems important for stimulating
entrepreneurship based on several reasons (Reynolds, Hay, & Camp, 1999; Sánchez, 2011).
First, education provides individuals with a sense of autonomy independence and self-
confidence. Secondly, education makes people aware of alternative career choices. Third,
education makes the horizons of individuals broader, thereby making people better equipped
to perceive opportunities, and finally, education provides knowledge that can be used by
individuals to develop new entrepreneurial opportunities. Landström and Sexton (2000) hold
that children are entrepreneurial by birth. Therefore entrepreneurship education should begin
at the youngest age possible. It is imperative to have in mind that entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurship education, from an early age in one’s life, does not only concern business,
start-ups and new ventures. Entrepreneurship has mostly to do with the ability that an
individual has to turn his/her inspirations into actions. Entrepreneurship education seeks to
propose people, especially young people, to be responsible, as well as enterprising individuals
who become entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial thinkers and contribute to economic
development and sustainable communities.
In pedagogical entrepreneurship, the teachers are invited to act in a new role as mentors and
facilitators, whose primarily role is to support and motivate students to think differently – “out
of the box”, to find new experiences. Instead of being the speaker of knowledge the teachers
should be involved and take part together with the students within the students’ learning
context – and the learning methodology for them should be asking good questions, which
preferably could generate new answers. By doing that, they will be able to contribute to
bringing the students closer to satisfactory solutions to their challenges or problem solving
processes. What we then achieve is that the students are designing their own learning process
within team-oriented communities of practice, commonly through creating a constructive
environment where they have ownership relation to their own plans, processes, methods and
the final result. The process does not stop when they have come to satisfactory solutions and
accomplished their aims. They should also use extra time to evaluate their work and work-
process and learn what has been OK – and what could be done or resolved better – or has to
be improved the next time they are into team-working. Doing that, they will encourage self-
awareness and self-management, personal development with in a “learn – to learn” from
experience process. Entrepreneurship can thus be seen as a method, both teachable and
learnable that is heavily relying on practice. Therefore, entrepreneurial pedagogy will never
be successful within the frames of a static content-oriented teaching approach.
8
Entrepreneurship is a dynamic method requiring dynamic people and dynamic environments
which fits our rapidly changing and highly complex societies in the 21st century.
Building entrepreneurial competence in higher education
Entrepreneurial competence is defined here to mean individual’s ability to act
entrepreneurially and utilize entrepreneurial mindset in different situations and environments.
Thus, entrepreneurial competence is considered important both for an entrepreneur and an
employee. Entrepreneurial competences have been outlined to cover skills needed in
successful entrepreneurship (Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2010). Entrepreneurial behavior has
been defined to include such elements as seeking, identifying and grasping opportunities,
solving problems creatively, networking effectively and acting proactively in complexity
(Gibb, 1993). An entrepreneurial mindset, which reflects individual’s attitude, contains
his/hers ability to be dynamic, flexible, and self-regulating in given dynamic and uncertain
task environments (Heinonen & Poikkijoki, 2006).
As emphasized by Sarasvathy (2001) effectuation is needed in today’s entrepreneurial
processes. The fast changes and turbulent environments challenge the individual to become
aware of his/hers available means in opportunity recognition and exploitation. Due to the
rapid change processes, it is not possible to predict or control future events. Therefore the
individual needs to be able to use the means at hand in generating different options
(Sarasvathy, 2001). In addition, the individual has to handle uncertainty/ambiguity and be
aware of the affordable loss, i.e. how much the person is prepared to venture. Sarasvathy uses
the term causation for the more traditional process of decision making. When using causation
the entrepreneur first decides the goal or way to take and thereafter chooses the means how to
get there. The success in a causation process requires that the entrepreneur collects
information for predicting future events and for minimizing risk that way. Recent studies
argue that for being successful today the entrepreneur should be agile and aware of situational
elements, and rather use effectuation than causation (see Sanz-Velasco 2006, Dew et al. 2008,
Read & Sarasvathy 2005).
The challenge for educators is thus how to find ways to train and prepare students to behave
entrepreneurially. In the early years of entrepreneurship education the main aim was in
delivering explicit knowledge about entrepreneurship. Along with the expansion of the
concept of entrepreneurship it has been clear that increasing the student’s knowledge about
entrepreneurship might not lead to a more entrepreneurial student. Therefore, another three
aspects of entrepreneurship education have been specified; to train in entrepreneurship (use of
teaching methods which support entrepreneurial behavior), through entrepreneurship (e.g.
different activating methods) and for entrepreneurship (education to support becoming an
entrepreneur) (Hytti & O’Gorman, 2004; Rae, 2000; Fayolle & Gailly 2008; Taatila 2010,
Henry et al. 2005). These three aspects combine entrepreneurship education with pedagogy
and practical teaching skills as well. The aim of entrepreneurship education is to develop
entrepreneurial competence during the study path of the individual. The Fig. 1 below outlines
the framework which could be utilized in entrepreneurship education.
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Fig. 1 Process of entrepreneurial competence
The main idea of the figure 1 is that entrepreneurial competence grows throughout studies and
entrepreneurship education is the key in the process. In the beginning of the study path the
focus should be in supporting personal entrepreneurial competencies, which becomes visible
through entrepreneurial behaviors such as responsibility, creativity, tolerance for ambiguity.
In the first years the other side of entrepreneurship, that is the hard side or knowledge base,
has a minor role in the process. Later, the emphasis of entrepreneurship education is
transferred to increasing the student’s knowledge and skills in the area where he or she should
work. If it is as an entrepreneur in the engineering sector, important aspects of the
professional knowledge base would include business knowledge and engineering knowledge.
If it instead is as a teacher in the school system, the professional knowledge base would apart
from their domain knowledge contain pedagogics, didactics and leadership. The idea is that to
be able to act entrepreneurially in the specific context you choose, you need to have both the
personal entrepreneurial competence and the professional knowledge base. With only
personal entrepreneurial competencies you lack the tools needed to be an actor in the
professional context and with only the professional knowledge base, you lack the tools to find
and exploit opportunities in your professional context.
To support the process, entrepreneurship education should be using different pedagogic
approaches. The most basic is utilizing the idea of teaching through entrepreneurship which in
practice means using an activating learning method – learning by doing, for instance, project
based learning, or realistic case studies. Activating learning methods usually enable students
to train collaboration and teamwork which is central to personal entrepreneurial competence.
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The action learning approach can also be used when diving into the core of the knowledge
base, where the modes through and about are central. Here, learning about the entrepreneurial
process in theory might be linked to trying out the steps in (limited) practice. In the third step
the toolbox of entrepreneurship education expands with learning in entrepreneurship, where
the students are faced with real life ambiguous situations where they need to act
entrepreneurially to succeed. In a business school this could involve becoming familiar with
authentic business situations that demands action. For a teacher student it could involve real
interaction with pupils or parents. The last part the tool box should enable the student to test
their entrepreneurial competence in full practice by taking the first steps to establishing an
enterprise or working as an intrapreneur in a school setting.
In addition, the whole learning process should contain elements of effectuation. Therefore, the
pedagogy of entrepreneurship education could be supported such elements as developing
student’s awareness of personal skills and abilities and enable co-operation and networking.
At the very early stage of education students should be challenged to ponder about their
personal abilities and skills and consider ways how to utilize them during their studies. In
practice this could done by outlining a personal development map which could be updated
yearly. The map should challenge the student to evaluate aspects of entrepreneurship and
entrepreneurial behavior as well. The role of effectuation in this process can be confirmed by
different activating learning methods which enable the student to solve problems, search for
new solutions and co-operate with other students.
Later the process of effectuation could continue by exposing student to different events or
learning experiences which force the students to test their abilities and skills (that is to find
new opportunities in new situations). Different challenging study projects can be very
effective in that respect. Effectuation strongly emphasizes networking. Therefore students
should be able to create contacts with other students and different organizations as well. In
case the study project is an assignment given by a company it could meet that need well.
Additionally, the process of effectuation can be strengthened later when students are training
in different organizations, because training circumstances can contain unexpected events, for
example. During the last phase of the study path students are able to combine their knowledge
about entrepreneurship with the learning experiences they have had so far if they for instance
start a company or pursue an enterprise in the public sector. Again, this learning event can
utilize the idea of effectuation when the students need to co-operate and use their creativity
during the process.
It is argued here that if the education contains several elements of active learning they can
force the students to use effectuation in different situations (for instance in solving problems
or study projects). Again, this contains different situations in which the students first are able
to become aware of the available means and thereafter create different ways (opportunities)
how and with whom to utilize them.
The proposed competence center
In the project Innopreneurship, the four HEIs have worked with entrepreneurship education in
different ways, for different focus groups and with different resources. When starting in 2008,
we had quite different views on what entrepreneurship education actually was, where the
majority held the view that it was only, or at least mainly, about getting students to start new
businesses. Today, we have a broader view where the focus is on developing entrepreneurial
competences which can be used for many purposes – where starting a business is only one
option. Based on that we have agreed on this broader view on entrepreneurship education, we
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have seen more opportunities in collaborating closely and sharing ideas and tools. This
provided a good basis for a common competence center where we can bring together our
combined resources and create an attractive source for those interested in developing
entrepreneurial competences. The core of the competence center is a web site
“Innopreneurship.org” which will be launched in May 2013. From the start it will contain
material from the four HEIs, but the idea is to invite other HEIs and other organizations to
become partners and share their resources too. The web site will have two main platforms –
one open for everybody and one open only to members granted an account. On the restricted
platform, we plan to build a library of tools and materials, give courses, and provide
opportunities to interact with other members. On the open platform, we will post news and
advertise events, give access to some of the tools and material in the library, and have twitter
feeds loading all tweets having #innopreneurship as hashtag. A logo for the competence
center have been developed. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. The logo for the proposed competence center
At each HEI, there will be a campus entrepreneurial competence center pooling the local
resources in entrepreneurial competence and delivering courses, inspiration seminars and
workshops, etc. The size and scope of this campus competence center will vary based on the
focus of the respective HEI. However, in Table 1 the characteristics in terms of content, roles
and culture that provide a common ground are listed.
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Table 1. The roles, core values and content of the proposed competence center
Roles Core values Content
Functions as meeting place –
both IRL and on-line.
• Regular events at the
universities and a lively
homepage
“Innopreneurship.org”
Pools resources
• All those who want to
contribute to the
development of
entrepreneurial
learning will be asked
to be partners
Enables interaction
• One main task is to
make people meet each
other and find new
potential partners
Runs and spreads research
& development
• Both own and others
research and
development in the
area of entrepreneurial
learning will be spread
The competent human
being – a belief that each
individual want to and have
an ability to learn and
develop throughout life
Diversity enriches – in
people, in ideas, in actions,
in…
Action through
collaboration for societal
value creation
Research and development
• Mainly interactive
research and
development projects,
in close collaboration
with municipalities
Education
• Campus and distance
courses, regular or on
commission
Competence development
• From inspiration
lectures to longer
programs
Network hub
• A partner in different
networks aimed to
develop EL
Experiences
• Create and run a
entrepreneurial
development lab,
where you try out
your entrepreneurial
competences
However, collaborating between universities that are located in different countries may prove
challenging due to partly different contexts in terms of resources, history and local networks
regarding entrepreneurship development. It is also a daunting task to make this competence
center a sustainable venture that is not dependent on huge efforts of single individuals, but
rather on small contributions from many actors in the entrepreneurship education community.
Based on the above, the following questions or challenges related to entrepreneurship
education are central:
• How to effectively collaborate cross-nationally to reap benefits and avoid pitfalls?
• How can we create a larger community and attract enough attention and action to have
a critical mass and through this a vibrant website?
• How can we successfully integrate current initiatives and get them to be part of the
competence center?
• How to shift the focus from supporting the few towards venture creation to supporting
the mass towards more entrepreneurial potential?
• What are the most pressing research questions we need to address to achieve better
entrepreneurship education in the university sector in general and specifically in our
region?
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