Description
During in this brief information define doing entrepreneurship towards an entrepreneurial method for design and creative.
DOING ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TOWARDS AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL METHOD FOR DESIGN AND
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Andy Connor, Sangeeta Karmokar, and Charles Walker
Faculty of Creative Technology, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT:
The last two decades has seen remarkable growth and development of curricula and programs
devoted to entrepreneurship and new venture creation. In the creative industries, entrepreneurship is
increasingly seen as a catalyst to add value to projects, whether in the form of social, cultural,
environmental or economic returns.
However, Duening & Stock (2013) suggest that entrepreneurship educators have been attempting to
teach entrepreneurship without really understanding what it is or what the proper goals of teaching
should be. As a result, there are today a wide range of approaches to teaching entrepreneurship,
focusing on personality traits, entrepreneurial behaviour or environmental factors, with varying
degrees of apparent effectiveness (Kuratko, 2011; Lautenschlager and Haase 2011; Mason, 2011;
Streeter, Kher and Jacquette 2011; Vetrivel, 2011).
In order to proceed from the impasse above, this paper adopts the theoretical notion of “effectuation”
and the principles of the “entrepreneurial method” articulated by Sarasvathy & Venkataraman (2011).
We put forward a new model for critical entrepreneurship education and its application to creative
start-ups, practice-based learning and ethics for students of design & creative technologies in the
context of a global, digital economy. The entrepreneurial method also plays a major role in providing
bridges between specializations.
The paper will present recent experience in innovation and entrepreneurship delivered in the Faculty
of Design & Creative Technologies at Auckland University of Technology. It explores the design and
delivery of the creative entrepreneurial method in a combination of individual and group projects
across interaction design, serious games and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based
thinking, and reflective practice.
Keywords: Creative Entrepreneurship, Creative Technologies, Innovation and
Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Method
1. INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship is a complex, dynamic process of vision, change, and creation. It is more than just
starting up a business. Although, it is an important step but not a complete picture. It is beyond
starting of business, it is opportunity spotting, taking risk beyond security and having the attitude and
passion to push an idea through to reality combined into a special perspective that permeates
entrepreneurs (Kuratko, 2011a). Entrepreneur requires, willingness to take risk in terms of time,
career; ability to form and work collectively towards a common goal; creative skill to accumulate
required resources, developing an effective business plan and most importantly vision to recognize
and spot opportunity in complex environment.
As the support for entrepreneurship is developing, the role of reinforcing entrepreneurial education in
vocational education institutions and universities will have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial
dynamism. Indeed, besides contributing to the creation of social enterprise and business start-ups,
entrepreneurship education will make young people more employable in their work within existing
organisations, across the social, public and private sectors (Bruxelles, 2013). As a result, educators
have a central role as they have a strong impact on the achievement of learners.
Reflective teachers keep their practice under constant review and adjust it in the light of desired
learning outcomes and of the individual needs of students. As a key competence, entrepreneurship
does not necessarily involve a specific school subject. Rather, it requires a way of teaching in which
practical learning and project work have a main role. Educators do not provide students with the
answers, but help them to research and identify right questions and find the best answers. To inspire
their students, and to help them develop an enterprising attitude, educator need a wide range of
competences related to creativity and entrepreneurship; they require a school environment where
creativity and risk-taking are encouraged, and mistakes are valued as a learning opportunity.
With the change in education and business environment, this paper explores entrepreneurial
approaches and discusses the entrepreneurial method used for teaching creative entrepreneur. Paper
provides some examples of critical entrepreneurship taught in Faculty of Creative Technology across
two courses and present a critical entrepreneurship model based on theoretical notion of
entrepreneurial method (Sarasvathy & Venkataraman, 2011) across interaction design, serious games
and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based thinking, and reflective practice.
2. ENTREPRENEUR EDUCATION: EMERGING TRENDS AND CHALLENGES
Entrepreneur education seeks to propose young generation to be responsible as well as enterprising
individuals, who became entrepreneurs who contribute to economic development and sustainable
communities (Raposo & Paco, 2011). Entrepreneurship education is mainly about development of
personal traits and certain beliefs, values and attitudes, with the aim to get students to really consider
entrepreneurship as an attractive and valid career. The core of entrepreneurial education is different
from business education (Kuratko, 2011b). Entrepreneurial education includes leadership, skill building,
creative thinking, new product development and exposure to technological innovation. It does include
the aspects of venture capital, protection of IP, project management and understanding of different
team personality.
As educators, we have the responsibility to develop the discovery, reasoning, and implementation
skills of our students so they may excel in highly uncertain environments. These skills enhance the
likelihood that our students will identify and capture the right opportunity at the right time for the
right reason. However, this is a significant responsibility and challenge. The current approaches to
entrepreneurship education are based on a world of yesterday, a world where precedent was the
foundation for future action, where history often did predict the future. Yet, entrepreneurship is about
creating new opportunities and executing in uncertain and even currently unknowable environments
(Neck & Greene, 2011).
There are wide number of universities and colleges that offer courses related to entrepreneurship but
it still remains a challenge to teach entrepreneurship across different inter-disciplinary fields. Today
there is wide range of approaches to teaching entrepreneurship, with varying degrees of apparent
effectiveness (Lautenschlager & Haase, 2011; Steeter, Kher, & Jacquette, 2011; Vetrivel, 2011). If
effectiveness is measured on the number of students becoming entrepreneurs after completing
university, then many students don’t become entrepreneurs until long after they have left the
university, and the effect of their university experience on their success is difficult to measure
(Duening & Stock, 2013). Educators have been attempting to teach entrepreneurship without really
understanding what it is or what the proper goals of teaching should be (Duening & Stock, 2013;
Sarasvathy & Venkataraman, 2011). With the mixed record of pedagogical focus and measures of
success, entrepreneurship scholars and researcher continue to search for something more concrete to
teach.
Current education is interdisciplinary in nature, it is no longer focused to one disciplines such as
design, finance, technology and engineering. For examples, students from finance background looks at
technology and game design to see how they can use gamification to teach financial literacy among
teenagers. An entrepreneurship educator is often expected to know everything from every field and
relate it to the entrepreneurial domain. It is not uncommon to teach entrepreneurship along with
accounting, law, education, art, ethics, technology and creative design. It is a challenge to teach that
caters to all students from different disciplines. In additional to that, there is rapidly changing
technology, human mindset, social value, business and personal values, entrepreneurship as a career
path looks different and feels different (Neck & Greene, 2011). We need a framework of teaching that
can accommodate all new waves in the global environment.
With wide ranges of approaches of teaching, a fundamental question has arisen among researchers
and educators as what constitutes entrepreneurship education in creative area? There are growing
trends in pedagogy and practices that have moved beyond profit making firms into social, sustainable
and public entrepreneurship.
There are several teaching approaches such as process-based (Moroz & Hindle, 2011), learning by
doing (Chang, Benamraoui, & Rieple, 2013), scientific method an experimental method (Sarasvathy &
Venkataraman, 2011). The pedagogy of teaching entrepreneur is changing based on broadening
market interest (Kuratko, 2005). New disciplinary programs are developing a new framework for
delivering entrepreneurial skill to non-business students, a growing trend of specially designed for art,
engineering, computer studies and science students.
Creative technologies approach entrepreneurial teaching as a method, a way of thinking and acting. It
is not just understanding, knowing or talking but requires skills of using, applying, interaction,
reaction and transformation. It is the method for students to practice entrepreneurship; we do this
using interaction design, serious games and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based thinking,
and reflective practice. Students were encourage to recognize, find and opportunity spotting to
explore their entrepreneurial domain. Sometimes opportunities were co-created along with
stakeholders that often end up with new opportunities that neither of them could or did anticipate.
They use the notion of effectuation for opportunity identification and new venture creation. According
to Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011), the elements of entrepreneurial method can be same for an
extraordinary successful entrepreneur and an ordinary person; entrepreneurship can be taught and
learnt. Entrepreneurial method unleashes the potential of human nature and the focus is inter-
subjective. It plays a major role in providing opportunities for co-creation in inter disciplinary sector.
In next two sections, we provide an overview of entrepreneurial learning and case study on
entrepreneurial practice in creative technology based on the principles of entrepreneurial method by
Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011).
3. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING: CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Historically, the teaching of entrepreneurship has been conducted in such a manner that the learning
needs of the entrepreneur are not being adequately catered for (Goss, 1989). Entrepreneurship has
it’s roots in the business programmes offered by Universities and at the undergraduate level, many
such programmes are catered to large classes with little or no attempt to break the transmissive
model of learning. Such a learning environment is completely at odds with the learning styles of future
entrepreneurs. Our approach to developing entrepreneurial students extends way beyond the view
that entrepreneurship “belongs in business” and we adopt a learning by doing approach (Cope & Watts,
2000) that enables individuals to identify their own learning needs and adopt an entrepreneurial
approach that suits their own goals.
For the purpose of entrepreneurial learning, we adopt a broad definition of “entrepreneur” that
extends beyond the corporate entrepreneurship model. We note that entrepreneurial opportunities can
exist outside of the perception of the entrepreneur but this does not preclude some opportunities can
be created (Alvarez & Barney, 2007). We therefore consider an entrepreneurial view one that can
recognise or create opportunities, evaluate them for their feasibility and exploit the opportunity to
some advantage. These opportunities may be social, financial, technological, artistic or indeed have
many other characteristics.
Burgoyne & Hodgson (1983), argue that there are three “levels of learning”, Level 1 learning describes
the assimilation of factual information, which has immediate utility but no real long-term or
developmental implications. Level 2 learning involves assimilating something that is transferable from
the present situation to another, where an individual has "changed his conception about a particular
aspect of his view of the world in general: the aspect being, however, situation . . . specific"
(Burgoyne and Hodgson, 1983; p. 394). Level 3 learning is far more important in terms of stimulating
fundamental change, encouraging the individual to reflect on and question not only their established
ways of doing things but also the underlying values and perceptions that drive this behaviour. It is
third level of learning that enables entrepreneurial thinking to take place and so the challenge of
educators is to consider how to transition students to this level of learning.
It is our belief that that the teaching of entrepreneurship using lectures, case studies and business
plans is not effective because students have not yet reached the third level of learning as identified by
Burgoyne & Hodgson (Burgoyne & Hodgson, 1983). Other researchers agree that traditional
approaches are not sufficient and a number of different approaches have been considered, as
summarised by Carrier (Carrier, 2007) Our entrepreneurial teaching model combines several aspects,
particularly the use of games and promotion of playfulness (Walker, Connor, & Marks, Upcoming)
training students to identify and/or create business opportunities, the integration of practitioners into
the training process and the promotion of creative thinking. Furthermore, our approach to teaching
entrepreneurship is based around the simple concept of developing entrepreneurial skills outside of
the teaching of entrepreneurship. We also utilise an “entrepreneurial method” that is internally
consistent with both the scientific method and the creative process as discussed by Sarasvathy &
Venkataraman (2011). This model is outlined in the next section.
3.1. AN ENTREPRENEURIAL METHOD
The scientific method is a way to explore a problem, form and test a hypothesis, and answer questions
whereas the creative process creates, interprets, and expresses “form”, whether that be art, design or
engineering. A simplified model of the scientific method is shown in figure 1 and the corresponding
view of the creative process is shown in figure 2.
Figure 1: Simplification of the Scientific Method
Figure 2: Simplification of the Creative Process
Our view of entrepreneurship is that is consists of three key phases, namely effectuation, evaluation
and exploitation. Effectuation is a way of thinking that serves entrepreneurs in the processes of
opportunity identification and new venture creation, whatever that venture may be. The role of
effectuation is best considered using an example that distances effectuation from causation, in this
case the example is about a chef cooking a meal. By using causation the client chooses a menu in
advance and the chef prepares this menu by looking for the right ingredients and following the recipes
to make the dishes. In the effectual process the approach is different. The client would not ask for a
specific menu, but he asks the chef to make something with the ingredients available. The chef
chooses one of the many different meals he is able to make with the available ingredients.
Effectuation is therefore a process that encourages divergent thinking as opposed to convergent
thinking.
Figure 3: A simple Entrepreneurial Method
All of these models are essentially each a cycle of three key activities, however each occur at a
different level of granularity. For example, proposing a hypothesis and conducting an experiment are a
specific example of “making” in the creative process. Similarly, the acts of effectuation (Perry &
Chandler, 2011) and evaluation are similarly specific examples of an observation in the creative
process. Through a process of observation, an entrepreneur identifies a possible opportunity and then
applies their entrepreneurial thinking to consider all of the ways that the opportunity can be pursued
and then evaluates between them.
Our full model of the entrepreneurial method can then be realised by considering how the simple
entrepreneurial method combines with the creative process.
Figure 4: Proposed Entrepreneurial Method
This entrepreneurial model embeds two new key activities in the cycle of effectuation, evaluation and
exploitation that embodies entrepreneurship as a creative activity.
Following the identification or creation of an opportunity, the entrepreneur will explore and evaluate
the ways in which the opportunity may be pursued. This is followed by a creative process of reflection
that, is in essence a design process, which the entrepreneur reflects on their previous experiences and
ensures that the opportunity is worth pursuing and to start to create a plan. This creation stage of
reflection and “making” is essentially a way of viewing the creation of a business plan. The exploitation
phase is therefore the actuation of that plan in practice.
This entrepreneurial method forms the backbone of our teaching philosophy and the following
describes how the various elements are addressed in a Creative Technologies curriculum.
3.2. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING IN A CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
CURRICULUM
It is our belief that it is very challenging to teach a student to be entrepreneurial under the guise of
traditional models of entrepreneurship. However, by adopting the entrepreneurial method as a
creative process as outlined in the previous section it is possible to expose students to different
elements of entrepreneurial thinking out of context and “by stealth”, later combining those elements
into a wider understanding of how to be entrepreneurial.
During the first year of their programme, students in the Bachelor of Creative Technologies at
Auckland University of Technology are introduced to the creative process as outlined in figure 2. One
of the main foci of the first semester of study is the development of a critically reflective habit. Such
critical reflection is essential to reach the third level of study described by Burgoyne & Hodgson (1983)
and has also been identified as a key factor in entrepreneurial learning (Cope, 2003). Students
predominantly engage in the creative process and critical reflection in their Studio based projects, all
of which are designed to encourage students to adopt divergent thinking, push boundaries, take risks
and consider the multitude of options that are open to them in terms of interpreting the project brief
and coming up with creative outcomes.
Students typically undertake three projects in a semester and each is framed around a process of
making, observing and reflecting. Most projects enter this cycling at the stage of “making” as they are
encouraged to learn through doing. Having introduced this cyclic creative process it becomes easier to
transition students to realising that many projects start with an observation of a possibility as opposed
to a well-defined brief.
This process takes place in the second year of their study where students develop their own project
proposals rather than respond to a brief. This transitions all students in the programme to thinking
about how to shape their project to be a response to the opportunities they perceive. In the
entrepreneurial method shown in figure 3, students start the process by developing many project
concepts that corresponds to the effectuation process. Upon evaluating their initial concepts, students
choose one and need to document the project in terms of their own defined learning goals and also
the creative technologies proposition, essentially a statement of the suitability of the project to the
degree. This directly mirrors the process followed by entrepreneurs in pursuing a new venture.
Not all students undertake the elective course in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, therefore the
“making” phase will be different. For their projects all students create an outcome however students
who enrol in the elective paper will also consider new dimensions that their projects may explore and
how they can formalise the potential for their projects through the creation of a formal business case.
These students are then exposed to all elements of the entrepreneurial method except the actuation
phase, or exploitation. Future curriculum changes will include courses that allow students to then
translate these business cases into practice and also earn academic credit by being entrepreneurial “in
the wild”.
4. CASE STUDIES ON ENTREPRENEURIAL PRACTICES IN CREATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES
Case studies included in this section have a number of common features. They each illustrates a birth
of idea and show how that idea can be realised into an outcome that brings value in the form of
economic, social, artistic or cultural. The case studies illustrate how successful entrepreneurs deploy a
range of entrepreneurial and creative skills.
REFERENCES:
Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2007). Discovery and Creation: Alternative Theories of Entrepreneurial Action.
Strategic Enterpreneurship Journal, 1(11), 11-26.
Bruxelles. (2013). Entrepreneurship Education: A Guide for Educators. Enterprsie and Industry, 3-85.
Burgoyne, J. G., & Hodgson, V. E. (1983). Natural Learning and Managerial Action: a Phenomenological Study in
the Field Setting. Journal of Management Studies, 20(3), 387-399.
Carrier, C. (2007). Strategies for Teaching Entrepreneurship: What else Beyond Lectures, Case Studies and
Business Plans. Handbook of Research in Entrepreneurship Education, 1, 143-159.
Chang, J., Benamraoui, A., & Rieple, A. (2013). Learning-by-doing as an Approach to Teaching Social
Entrepreneurship. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(5), 459-471.
Cope, J. (2003). Entrepreneurial Learning and Critical Reflection Discontinuous Events as Triggers for ‘Higher-level’
Learning. Management Learning, 34(4), 429-450.
Cope, J., & Watts, G. (2000). Learning by doing – An Exploration of Experience, Critical Incidents and Reflection in
Entrepreneurial Learning. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 6(3), 104-124.
Duening, T. N., & Stock, G. N. (2013). The Entrepreneurial Method: A New Paradigm in Entrepreneurship Education
Symposium conducted at the meeting of the NCIIA's Annual Conference, Washington, DC.
Goss, D. M. (1989). Management Development and Small Business Education: The Implications of Diversity.
Management Education and Development, 20(1), 100-110.
Kuratko, D. F. (2005). The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Education: Development, Trends and Challenges.
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 577-597.
Kuratko, D. F. (2011a). Entrepreneurship Education: Emerging Tends and Challenges for the 21
st
Century. Coleman
Foundation White Paper,http://www.usasbe.org.
Kuratko, D. F. (2011b). Entrepreneurship Education: Emerging Trends and Challenges for the 21
st
Century. White
Paper, 1-39.
Lautenschlager, A., & Haase, H. (2011). The Myth of Entrepreneur- ship Education: Seven Arguments Against
Teaching Business Creation at Universities. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 14, 147-161.
Moroz, P. W., & Hindle, K. (2011). Entrepreneurship as a Process: Toward Harmonizing Multiple Perspectives.
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 781-818.
Neck, H. M., & Greene, P. G. (2011). Entrepreneurship Education: Known Worlds and New Frontiers. Journal of Small
Business Management, 49(1), 55-70.
Perry, J. T., & Chandler, G. N. (2011). Entrepreneurial Effectuation: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research.
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(4), 837-861.
Raposo, M., & Paco, A. d. (2011). Entrepreneurship Education: Relationship Between Education and Entrepreneurial
Activity. Psicothema, 23(3), 453-457.
Sarasvathy, S. D., & Venkataraman, S. (2011). Entrepreneurship as Method: Open Questions for an
Entrepreneurial Future. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 113-135.
Steeter, D. H., Kher, R., & Jacquette, J. (2011). University- Wide Trends in Entrepreneurship Education and the
Rankings: A Dilem- ma. Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 14(75-92).
Vetrivel, S. C. (2011). Entrepreneurship and Education: A Missing Key in Devel- opment Theory and Practice.
Advances in Management, 3, 18-22.
Walker, C., Connor, A. M., & Marks, S. (Upcoming). Creating creative technologists: Playing with(in) education", Creative
Technologies - Create and Engage Using Art and Play: Springer.
doc_389996774.pdf
During in this brief information define doing entrepreneurship towards an entrepreneurial method for design and creative.
DOING ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TOWARDS AN
ENTREPRENEURIAL METHOD FOR DESIGN AND
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Andy Connor, Sangeeta Karmokar, and Charles Walker
Faculty of Creative Technology, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand,
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
ABSTRACT:
The last two decades has seen remarkable growth and development of curricula and programs
devoted to entrepreneurship and new venture creation. In the creative industries, entrepreneurship is
increasingly seen as a catalyst to add value to projects, whether in the form of social, cultural,
environmental or economic returns.
However, Duening & Stock (2013) suggest that entrepreneurship educators have been attempting to
teach entrepreneurship without really understanding what it is or what the proper goals of teaching
should be. As a result, there are today a wide range of approaches to teaching entrepreneurship,
focusing on personality traits, entrepreneurial behaviour or environmental factors, with varying
degrees of apparent effectiveness (Kuratko, 2011; Lautenschlager and Haase 2011; Mason, 2011;
Streeter, Kher and Jacquette 2011; Vetrivel, 2011).
In order to proceed from the impasse above, this paper adopts the theoretical notion of “effectuation”
and the principles of the “entrepreneurial method” articulated by Sarasvathy & Venkataraman (2011).
We put forward a new model for critical entrepreneurship education and its application to creative
start-ups, practice-based learning and ethics for students of design & creative technologies in the
context of a global, digital economy. The entrepreneurial method also plays a major role in providing
bridges between specializations.
The paper will present recent experience in innovation and entrepreneurship delivered in the Faculty
of Design & Creative Technologies at Auckland University of Technology. It explores the design and
delivery of the creative entrepreneurial method in a combination of individual and group projects
across interaction design, serious games and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based
thinking, and reflective practice.
Keywords: Creative Entrepreneurship, Creative Technologies, Innovation and
Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Method
1. INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship is a complex, dynamic process of vision, change, and creation. It is more than just
starting up a business. Although, it is an important step but not a complete picture. It is beyond
starting of business, it is opportunity spotting, taking risk beyond security and having the attitude and
passion to push an idea through to reality combined into a special perspective that permeates
entrepreneurs (Kuratko, 2011a). Entrepreneur requires, willingness to take risk in terms of time,
career; ability to form and work collectively towards a common goal; creative skill to accumulate
required resources, developing an effective business plan and most importantly vision to recognize
and spot opportunity in complex environment.
As the support for entrepreneurship is developing, the role of reinforcing entrepreneurial education in
vocational education institutions and universities will have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial
dynamism. Indeed, besides contributing to the creation of social enterprise and business start-ups,
entrepreneurship education will make young people more employable in their work within existing
organisations, across the social, public and private sectors (Bruxelles, 2013). As a result, educators
have a central role as they have a strong impact on the achievement of learners.
Reflective teachers keep their practice under constant review and adjust it in the light of desired
learning outcomes and of the individual needs of students. As a key competence, entrepreneurship
does not necessarily involve a specific school subject. Rather, it requires a way of teaching in which
practical learning and project work have a main role. Educators do not provide students with the
answers, but help them to research and identify right questions and find the best answers. To inspire
their students, and to help them develop an enterprising attitude, educator need a wide range of
competences related to creativity and entrepreneurship; they require a school environment where
creativity and risk-taking are encouraged, and mistakes are valued as a learning opportunity.
With the change in education and business environment, this paper explores entrepreneurial
approaches and discusses the entrepreneurial method used for teaching creative entrepreneur. Paper
provides some examples of critical entrepreneurship taught in Faculty of Creative Technology across
two courses and present a critical entrepreneurship model based on theoretical notion of
entrepreneurial method (Sarasvathy & Venkataraman, 2011) across interaction design, serious games
and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based thinking, and reflective practice.
2. ENTREPRENEUR EDUCATION: EMERGING TRENDS AND CHALLENGES
Entrepreneur education seeks to propose young generation to be responsible as well as enterprising
individuals, who became entrepreneurs who contribute to economic development and sustainable
communities (Raposo & Paco, 2011). Entrepreneurship education is mainly about development of
personal traits and certain beliefs, values and attitudes, with the aim to get students to really consider
entrepreneurship as an attractive and valid career. The core of entrepreneurial education is different
from business education (Kuratko, 2011b). Entrepreneurial education includes leadership, skill building,
creative thinking, new product development and exposure to technological innovation. It does include
the aspects of venture capital, protection of IP, project management and understanding of different
team personality.
As educators, we have the responsibility to develop the discovery, reasoning, and implementation
skills of our students so they may excel in highly uncertain environments. These skills enhance the
likelihood that our students will identify and capture the right opportunity at the right time for the
right reason. However, this is a significant responsibility and challenge. The current approaches to
entrepreneurship education are based on a world of yesterday, a world where precedent was the
foundation for future action, where history often did predict the future. Yet, entrepreneurship is about
creating new opportunities and executing in uncertain and even currently unknowable environments
(Neck & Greene, 2011).
There are wide number of universities and colleges that offer courses related to entrepreneurship but
it still remains a challenge to teach entrepreneurship across different inter-disciplinary fields. Today
there is wide range of approaches to teaching entrepreneurship, with varying degrees of apparent
effectiveness (Lautenschlager & Haase, 2011; Steeter, Kher, & Jacquette, 2011; Vetrivel, 2011). If
effectiveness is measured on the number of students becoming entrepreneurs after completing
university, then many students don’t become entrepreneurs until long after they have left the
university, and the effect of their university experience on their success is difficult to measure
(Duening & Stock, 2013). Educators have been attempting to teach entrepreneurship without really
understanding what it is or what the proper goals of teaching should be (Duening & Stock, 2013;
Sarasvathy & Venkataraman, 2011). With the mixed record of pedagogical focus and measures of
success, entrepreneurship scholars and researcher continue to search for something more concrete to
teach.
Current education is interdisciplinary in nature, it is no longer focused to one disciplines such as
design, finance, technology and engineering. For examples, students from finance background looks at
technology and game design to see how they can use gamification to teach financial literacy among
teenagers. An entrepreneurship educator is often expected to know everything from every field and
relate it to the entrepreneurial domain. It is not uncommon to teach entrepreneurship along with
accounting, law, education, art, ethics, technology and creative design. It is a challenge to teach that
caters to all students from different disciplines. In additional to that, there is rapidly changing
technology, human mindset, social value, business and personal values, entrepreneurship as a career
path looks different and feels different (Neck & Greene, 2011). We need a framework of teaching that
can accommodate all new waves in the global environment.
With wide ranges of approaches of teaching, a fundamental question has arisen among researchers
and educators as what constitutes entrepreneurship education in creative area? There are growing
trends in pedagogy and practices that have moved beyond profit making firms into social, sustainable
and public entrepreneurship.
There are several teaching approaches such as process-based (Moroz & Hindle, 2011), learning by
doing (Chang, Benamraoui, & Rieple, 2013), scientific method an experimental method (Sarasvathy &
Venkataraman, 2011). The pedagogy of teaching entrepreneur is changing based on broadening
market interest (Kuratko, 2005). New disciplinary programs are developing a new framework for
delivering entrepreneurial skill to non-business students, a growing trend of specially designed for art,
engineering, computer studies and science students.
Creative technologies approach entrepreneurial teaching as a method, a way of thinking and acting. It
is not just understanding, knowing or talking but requires skills of using, applying, interaction,
reaction and transformation. It is the method for students to practice entrepreneurship; we do this
using interaction design, serious games and simulations, transmedia narratives, design-based thinking,
and reflective practice. Students were encourage to recognize, find and opportunity spotting to
explore their entrepreneurial domain. Sometimes opportunities were co-created along with
stakeholders that often end up with new opportunities that neither of them could or did anticipate.
They use the notion of effectuation for opportunity identification and new venture creation. According
to Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011), the elements of entrepreneurial method can be same for an
extraordinary successful entrepreneur and an ordinary person; entrepreneurship can be taught and
learnt. Entrepreneurial method unleashes the potential of human nature and the focus is inter-
subjective. It plays a major role in providing opportunities for co-creation in inter disciplinary sector.
In next two sections, we provide an overview of entrepreneurial learning and case study on
entrepreneurial practice in creative technology based on the principles of entrepreneurial method by
Sarasvathy and Venkataraman (2011).
3. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING: CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Historically, the teaching of entrepreneurship has been conducted in such a manner that the learning
needs of the entrepreneur are not being adequately catered for (Goss, 1989). Entrepreneurship has
it’s roots in the business programmes offered by Universities and at the undergraduate level, many
such programmes are catered to large classes with little or no attempt to break the transmissive
model of learning. Such a learning environment is completely at odds with the learning styles of future
entrepreneurs. Our approach to developing entrepreneurial students extends way beyond the view
that entrepreneurship “belongs in business” and we adopt a learning by doing approach (Cope & Watts,
2000) that enables individuals to identify their own learning needs and adopt an entrepreneurial
approach that suits their own goals.
For the purpose of entrepreneurial learning, we adopt a broad definition of “entrepreneur” that
extends beyond the corporate entrepreneurship model. We note that entrepreneurial opportunities can
exist outside of the perception of the entrepreneur but this does not preclude some opportunities can
be created (Alvarez & Barney, 2007). We therefore consider an entrepreneurial view one that can
recognise or create opportunities, evaluate them for their feasibility and exploit the opportunity to
some advantage. These opportunities may be social, financial, technological, artistic or indeed have
many other characteristics.
Burgoyne & Hodgson (1983), argue that there are three “levels of learning”, Level 1 learning describes
the assimilation of factual information, which has immediate utility but no real long-term or
developmental implications. Level 2 learning involves assimilating something that is transferable from
the present situation to another, where an individual has "changed his conception about a particular
aspect of his view of the world in general: the aspect being, however, situation . . . specific"
(Burgoyne and Hodgson, 1983; p. 394). Level 3 learning is far more important in terms of stimulating
fundamental change, encouraging the individual to reflect on and question not only their established
ways of doing things but also the underlying values and perceptions that drive this behaviour. It is
third level of learning that enables entrepreneurial thinking to take place and so the challenge of
educators is to consider how to transition students to this level of learning.
It is our belief that that the teaching of entrepreneurship using lectures, case studies and business
plans is not effective because students have not yet reached the third level of learning as identified by
Burgoyne & Hodgson (Burgoyne & Hodgson, 1983). Other researchers agree that traditional
approaches are not sufficient and a number of different approaches have been considered, as
summarised by Carrier (Carrier, 2007) Our entrepreneurial teaching model combines several aspects,
particularly the use of games and promotion of playfulness (Walker, Connor, & Marks, Upcoming)
training students to identify and/or create business opportunities, the integration of practitioners into
the training process and the promotion of creative thinking. Furthermore, our approach to teaching
entrepreneurship is based around the simple concept of developing entrepreneurial skills outside of
the teaching of entrepreneurship. We also utilise an “entrepreneurial method” that is internally
consistent with both the scientific method and the creative process as discussed by Sarasvathy &
Venkataraman (2011). This model is outlined in the next section.
3.1. AN ENTREPRENEURIAL METHOD
The scientific method is a way to explore a problem, form and test a hypothesis, and answer questions
whereas the creative process creates, interprets, and expresses “form”, whether that be art, design or
engineering. A simplified model of the scientific method is shown in figure 1 and the corresponding
view of the creative process is shown in figure 2.
Figure 1: Simplification of the Scientific Method
Figure 2: Simplification of the Creative Process
Our view of entrepreneurship is that is consists of three key phases, namely effectuation, evaluation
and exploitation. Effectuation is a way of thinking that serves entrepreneurs in the processes of
opportunity identification and new venture creation, whatever that venture may be. The role of
effectuation is best considered using an example that distances effectuation from causation, in this
case the example is about a chef cooking a meal. By using causation the client chooses a menu in
advance and the chef prepares this menu by looking for the right ingredients and following the recipes
to make the dishes. In the effectual process the approach is different. The client would not ask for a
specific menu, but he asks the chef to make something with the ingredients available. The chef
chooses one of the many different meals he is able to make with the available ingredients.
Effectuation is therefore a process that encourages divergent thinking as opposed to convergent
thinking.
Figure 3: A simple Entrepreneurial Method
All of these models are essentially each a cycle of three key activities, however each occur at a
different level of granularity. For example, proposing a hypothesis and conducting an experiment are a
specific example of “making” in the creative process. Similarly, the acts of effectuation (Perry &
Chandler, 2011) and evaluation are similarly specific examples of an observation in the creative
process. Through a process of observation, an entrepreneur identifies a possible opportunity and then
applies their entrepreneurial thinking to consider all of the ways that the opportunity can be pursued
and then evaluates between them.
Our full model of the entrepreneurial method can then be realised by considering how the simple
entrepreneurial method combines with the creative process.
Figure 4: Proposed Entrepreneurial Method
This entrepreneurial model embeds two new key activities in the cycle of effectuation, evaluation and
exploitation that embodies entrepreneurship as a creative activity.
Following the identification or creation of an opportunity, the entrepreneur will explore and evaluate
the ways in which the opportunity may be pursued. This is followed by a creative process of reflection
that, is in essence a design process, which the entrepreneur reflects on their previous experiences and
ensures that the opportunity is worth pursuing and to start to create a plan. This creation stage of
reflection and “making” is essentially a way of viewing the creation of a business plan. The exploitation
phase is therefore the actuation of that plan in practice.
This entrepreneurial method forms the backbone of our teaching philosophy and the following
describes how the various elements are addressed in a Creative Technologies curriculum.
3.2. ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING IN A CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
CURRICULUM
It is our belief that it is very challenging to teach a student to be entrepreneurial under the guise of
traditional models of entrepreneurship. However, by adopting the entrepreneurial method as a
creative process as outlined in the previous section it is possible to expose students to different
elements of entrepreneurial thinking out of context and “by stealth”, later combining those elements
into a wider understanding of how to be entrepreneurial.
During the first year of their programme, students in the Bachelor of Creative Technologies at
Auckland University of Technology are introduced to the creative process as outlined in figure 2. One
of the main foci of the first semester of study is the development of a critically reflective habit. Such
critical reflection is essential to reach the third level of study described by Burgoyne & Hodgson (1983)
and has also been identified as a key factor in entrepreneurial learning (Cope, 2003). Students
predominantly engage in the creative process and critical reflection in their Studio based projects, all
of which are designed to encourage students to adopt divergent thinking, push boundaries, take risks
and consider the multitude of options that are open to them in terms of interpreting the project brief
and coming up with creative outcomes.
Students typically undertake three projects in a semester and each is framed around a process of
making, observing and reflecting. Most projects enter this cycling at the stage of “making” as they are
encouraged to learn through doing. Having introduced this cyclic creative process it becomes easier to
transition students to realising that many projects start with an observation of a possibility as opposed
to a well-defined brief.
This process takes place in the second year of their study where students develop their own project
proposals rather than respond to a brief. This transitions all students in the programme to thinking
about how to shape their project to be a response to the opportunities they perceive. In the
entrepreneurial method shown in figure 3, students start the process by developing many project
concepts that corresponds to the effectuation process. Upon evaluating their initial concepts, students
choose one and need to document the project in terms of their own defined learning goals and also
the creative technologies proposition, essentially a statement of the suitability of the project to the
degree. This directly mirrors the process followed by entrepreneurs in pursuing a new venture.
Not all students undertake the elective course in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, therefore the
“making” phase will be different. For their projects all students create an outcome however students
who enrol in the elective paper will also consider new dimensions that their projects may explore and
how they can formalise the potential for their projects through the creation of a formal business case.
These students are then exposed to all elements of the entrepreneurial method except the actuation
phase, or exploitation. Future curriculum changes will include courses that allow students to then
translate these business cases into practice and also earn academic credit by being entrepreneurial “in
the wild”.
4. CASE STUDIES ON ENTREPRENEURIAL PRACTICES IN CREATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES
Case studies included in this section have a number of common features. They each illustrates a birth
of idea and show how that idea can be realised into an outcome that brings value in the form of
economic, social, artistic or cultural. The case studies illustrate how successful entrepreneurs deploy a
range of entrepreneurial and creative skills.
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