Description
With this brief criteria explicate graduates in the european labour market employment, entrepreneurship, initiatives.
Joanna Markiewicz /David Blunck (ed.)
Graduates in the European
Labour Market
Employment, Entrepreneurship, Initiatives
Graduates in the European Labour Market
Herausgegeben von
Prof. Dr. Philip Kunig, Freie Universität Berlin
Joanna Markiewicz / David Blunck (ed.)
Graduates in the European Labour Market
Employment, Entrepreneurship, Initiatives
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning
Programme.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for
any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Scientific work financed from funds for science in 2013–2014 granted to a realization of an international
co-financed project.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in
der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische
Daten sind im Internet überhttp://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.
CXV
© Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg, Halle an der Saale 2014
Printed in Germany. Alle Rechte, auch die des Nachdrucks von Auszügen, der photomechanischen
Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung, vorbehalten.
ISBN 978-3-86977-114-4
5
Preface
We would like to present you the scientific publication, which sets out to explore
the issue of young graduates on the labour market. Young people, even those with
university diploma very often have to face the problem of difficulties in finding a
job. Recent economic crises, uncertain future, untypical forms of employment and
aging society are obstacles rather than facilitators in this situation.
One of the ways to support young people was “Pathways for Graduates”
project, which was funded with the support of the European Commission within
the framework of Leonardo da Vinci programme Transfer of Innovation. The main
aim of the project was to increase the integration of young graduates into the
labour market by producing a multilingual, multicultural training course which
allows young graduates to acquire the competences and transferable work skills
needed to open up progression opportunities either directly to employment and/or
to further vocational qualifications.
There were five partners involved in the project. University of Szczecn played
the role of the project leader. The German partner – Univations GmbH was respon-
sible for the research part. Springboard Opportunities Limited from the Unite
Kingdom for the elaboration of the content. Canice Consulting (also from the
United Kingdom) dealt with the technical realization. Fundacion Laboral del Metal
from Spain conducted the pilot test.
The issue of the situation of young graduates on the labour market was treated
in the project in practical way. To enrich the project results, the partnership decided
to publish scientific papers in order to present a wide spectrum of theoretical dis-
course on this topic, gathering authors from different European countries. Readers
will find interesting papers on the meaning of the entrepreneurship in university
education, learn about the situation of young people through the lenses of the insti-
tutional economy. Some papers provide knowledge for young people from the per-
spective of human resources scope. There are also papers which present initiatives
directed to reinforce young work force on the labour market.
Dr Joanna Markiewicz David Blunck
University of Szczecin Univations GmbH
Manager of Pathways for Graduates project
6
7
Content
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Colin Mason
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum:
Why And How. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Joanna Markiewicz
Institutional Perspective of Polish Labour Market –
Challenges for Young Graduates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
David Blunck
Strategies for SMEs to overcome regional Skill Shortages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Susanne Hübner and Carsten Hummel
A Head Start for Graduates Entering Competitive Markets:
Intrapreneurial Thinking and Entrepreneurial Spirit in College Teaching . . 49
Katarzyna ?obacz and Pawe? G?odek
Development of Human Capital through Entrepreneurial Process –
Perspectives On Labour Force Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Tomasz Norek
Analysis and Assessment of Relation between the Innovativeness
of Polish SME Enterprises and Employment Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Joanna Rzempa?a and Artur Rzempa?a
Intellectual capital audit at enterprises as a monitoring instrument
of employees’ and employers’ needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8 Content
Karin Volpato and David Blunck
Tackling Youth Unemployment & Shortage of Skilled Workforce in Europe –
A Spanish Example of a Transnational Private Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Monika Tomczyk
Learning entrepreneurship by internationalization of Vocational education
case of South Baltic Training Programme project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 9
Putting Entrepreneurship Education
into the Undergraduate Curriculum: Why And How
Colin Mason ( Glasgow)
Contexts
The graduate labour market is undergoing profound changes. There are two sig-
nificant trends at work. The number of graduates is increasing. Adding to the com-
petition for jobs is the internationalisation of the student population. Meanwhile
the number of graduate-level jobs is not keeping pace. More and more graduates
are in jobs where a degree is not necessary. The nature of employment is also
changing as companies increasingly structure their employment around ‘projects’
which require only temporary and freelance staff. The expanding creative economy
is largely organised around projects. The response of an IT industry worker to the
question who he worked for – that “no one works for anyone in IT” – brilliantly
summarises the nature of contemporary labour markets. His remark is no longer
restricted to the IT sector.
These changes were perceptively highlighted some 20 years ago by William Bridges
in his book Jobshift.
1
He was one of the earliest commentators to observe that ‘the
job’, which he defined as “boxes in organisational charts with regular duties” and
offering 9–5 workdays, 12 months of work, promotion and a pension at the age
of 65, would not be part of the 21st century economy. He argued that the job is a
social artefact created to meet the needs of the industrial era but which is incom-
patible with the need for more flexible models of employment in an information-
based and digital-enabled economy. Work is therefore being reconstituted as “the
contingent, just-in-time workforce” (p. 9) and employment categories are losing
1 Bridges, W., 1995. Jobshift: How to prosper in a workplace without jobs. London: Nicholas Break-
ley.
10 Colin Mason
their boundaries as work “is repacked into projects and assignments” (p. 114).
These developments are evident in the decline in permanent employment and
career structures and the notion of ‘the job-for-life’ and the rise in various forms
of contingent jobs (part-time, temporary, agency, freelance), the transformation of
career structures and the increase in self-employment. Employment statistics
underline the pervasiveness of these trends. The UK is estimated to have 1.72m
freelance workers, while the number of self-employed in 2014 is 4.6 million, a rise
of 650,000 (17%) since 2008 and representing 15% of the economically active.
The consequence for workers is that “whether or not you are employed in what
we used to call a job, you are henceforth in business for yourself” (Bridges, 1995,
p. 61).
Equally significant is that since the last quarter of the 20th century, and starting in
the USA, developed nations have been experiencing an increase in entrepreneurial
activity – which is, in turn, creating a new type of economy which Carl Schramm
2
terms “entrepreneurial capitalism”. Indeed, Kuratko and Hodgetts say in their
book that “the opportunities during this century will be immense. Entrepreneurial
opportunities will continue to arise for individuals willing to take the risk.”
3
Sim-
ilarly William Bygrave and Andrew Zacharakis say in their book Entrepreneurship
that “there has never been a better time to practice the art and science of entrepre-
neurship”.
4
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian says that “‘I have a start-up’ is the
new ‘I’m in a band.’ In fact, starting a company is probably easier than starting a
band.” Young people have such a great opportunity. They don’t have dependents,
their room and board are inexpensive, and they have a lot of free time. I get a little
jealous just thinking about what they can accomplish.”
5
There are several reasons why it is claimed that it has never been easier to start a
business.
First, cultural attitudes towards self-employment have become more positive. No
longer are entrepreneurs seen as being the shady operators and tax dodgers as por-
trayed in such TV series as Minder and Only Fools and Horses. Instead, entrepre-
2 Schramm, C. (2006) The Entrepreneurial Imperative, HarperBusiness.
3 Kuratko, D. F. and Hodgetts, R. M. (2001) Entrepreneurship: A Contemporary Approach, Har-
court, 5th edition.
4 Bygrave, W. and Zacharakis, A. (2014) Entrepreneurship, John Wiley and Son, 3
rd
edition
5 Ohanian, A. (2013) Is there such a thing as too many start-ups? Inc Magazine, October, p. 28.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 11
neurs are now praised and celebrated for their economic contributions, and some
receive knighthoods.
Second, the attractions of working for ‘big business’ are much reduced. Few large
companies now offer long term job security and other benefits of working in the
corporate sector have disappeared. Pension schemes have been curtailed or closed,
seniority systems have given way to performance pay, workloads have increased
and work schedules are increasingly long and inflexible. It is suggested that Gen-
eration Y, or Millennials, (born between 1978 and 2001), having been raised on
computers and the internet, are less likely to be attracted by corporate careers and
more likely to want to maintain their independence and ‘own’ their own careers,
and so are also much more likely to work for themselves compared with previous
generations.
Third, economic changes have opened up opportunities for small businesses. Size
and economies of scale are no longer important in many sectors; indeed, being big
is now often a disadvantage. This is linked to the growth of services, and especially
knowledge-based work which in many cases requires little in the way of investment
in equipment and infrastructure.
This, in turn, has reduced the costs of starting a business. The costs of doing busi-
ness are becoming variable rather than fixed on account of increasing opportuni-
ties to outsource (e.g. distribution and shipping). ICT technology in the form of
cheap and powerful personal computers and software, and other innovations (e.g.
express parcel delivery, printing and copying) have provided small businesses with
the power, scope and access of large companies but without sacrificing the inde-
pendence and flexibility of being small. Internet-based trading platforms, such as
Ebay, Etsy and Amazon, along with money transfer mechanisms (notably PayPal),
have been particularly important in enabling small businesses to cost-effectively
serve small, geographically dispersed, market niches (the ‘long tail’ phenomenon
6
).
At the same time, consumers have become more comfortable buying online. Small
businesses can access technology through ‘plug and play’ access and open source
software. Advances in production technologies which connect PCs to a wide range
of machine tools have encouraged small scale manufacturing. For many businesses
their only requirement is laptop computers and associated software, mobile phones
6 Anderson, C. (2006) The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more, New York:
Hyperion.
12 Colin Mason
and high speed internet access, enabling them to be run from the owner’s home,
further reducing costs. Meanwhile, crowdfunding platforms have made the financ-
ing of start-ups much easier.
These trends have profound implications for graduates who have recently joined
or will be entering the labour market. First, they need to have an entrepreneurial
mindset regardless of whether they are an employee, or working for themselves. If
they are employees, they need to operate as if they were an external provider,
because their employer will be continually assessing whether the function needs to
be performed in-house. As Bridges
7
states, “workers need to develop a mindset, an
approach to their work, and a way of managing their careers that is more like that
of an external vendor than that of a traditional employee. Workers will be wise to
think that they are ‘in business for themselves’ …” More positively, many large
companies recognise that they need to operate like smaller, nimble companies if
they are to continue to be innovative, and so organise themselves around internal
new venture teams. These companies are therefore actively seeking to recruit entre-
preneurial graduates. Second, whether for positive or negative reasons working on
a self-employed or freelance basis, or starting a business is now a career option for
graduates. As Financial Times columnist Luke Johnson comments, this transfor-
mation of the labour market “should have an impact on what we teach young
people entering the workforce”.
8
Teaching Entrepreneurship: Pedagogical Issues
Universities have traditionally been concerned with the employability of their grad-
uates, especially since this measure has become a performance indicator. But, as
the previous discussion implies, this becomes less relevant in a context of disap-
pearing jobs. Hence, Universities also need to equip their graduates with entrepre-
neurial skills and know-how to create their own employment. However, universi-
ties have given rather less attention to this objective. One of the reasons is the belief
that it is not possible to teach people to become entrepreneurs. This view is now
largely discredited. Entrepreneurship is seen not a personality characteristic, but as
a learned skill. However, there are caveats: “taking an entrepreneurship class isn’t
likely to turn a student with no business smarts into an opportunity-spotting, mon-
7 Op. cit.
8 Johnson, L. 2014. The future is freelance – and that is healthy, Financial Times, 1 April,http://www.
ft.com/cms/s/0/fce447ea-b8f3-11e3-98c5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3AAU8zKeX.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 13
eymaking genius. Yet plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that the classes can
speed the learning curve for people with the right stuff.”
9
Of course, this is not a
challenge that is limited to the teaching of entrepreneurship : “we cannot guarantee
to produce a great entrepreneur from our entrepreneurship courses any more than
a music professor can promise to produce a Mozart or a physical professor an
Einstein. But give us a student with … determination, dedication and inspiration
and we are confident we will produce a better entrepreneur.”
10
In short, as
Kuratko
11
states, “the question whether entrepreneurship can be taught is obso-
lete.” The pertinent question is how should we teach entrepreneurship.
A lot of the teaching that occurs under the entrepreneurship heading is ‘about’
entrepreneurship, covering academic studies of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial
businesses and the entrepreneurial process. This is not intended to teach students
how to be entrepreneurs. Teaching ‘for’ entrepreneurship, in contrast, aims to pro-
duce graduates with mindsets, skills and the capability to identify and shape oppor-
tunities and develop business ventures. However, it is increasingly questioned
whether standard approaches to teach ‘for’ entrepreneurship are effective in
achieving their outcomes. First, they have a classroom-based focus and “lecture
teaching methodology, basically a stand-and-deliver approach”
12
which misses
“the vital stimulation of the ‘knowing how’”
13
and discourages right-brain think-
ing. Indeed, Pittway and Cope
14
argue that “it is not possible to convey the chal-
lenge and complexities surrounding new venture creation using only conventional
pedagogies such as lectures and seminars.” Second, the reliance on theories, con-
tent and pedagogical approaches borrowed from business management results in
a failure to emphasise the distinctiveness of entrepreneurship,
15
defined as the dis-
covery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities to provide goods and serv-
9 Gray, P. B., & Field, A. (2006). Can entrepreneurship be taught? Fortune Small Business, 16(2/3),
34–51.
10 Bygrave and Zacharaksis, op. cit.
11 Kuratko, D. F. (2005) The emergence of entrepreneurship education: developments, trends and
challenges, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29 (5), 577–598.
12 Neck, H. and Greene, P. (2011) Entrepreneurship education: known worlds and new frontiers,
Journal of Small Business Development, 49 (1) p. 58.
13 Gibb, A. A. (1993) Enterprise culture and education: understanding enterprise education and its
links with small business, International Small Business Journal, 11 (3): 11–34.
14 Pittaway, L. and Cope, J. (2007) Simulating entrepreneurial learning: integrating experiential and
collaborative approaches to learning, Management Learning, 38 (2) p. 229.
15 Solomon, G. (2008) Entrepreneurship education in the United States. In J. Potter (ed) Entrepreneur-
ship and Higher Education, Paris: OECD, pp. 95–118.
14 Colin Mason
ices.
16
Third, the focus on the business plan which students write and then present
– Dragon’s Den style – to a panel of entrepreneurs is now hackneyed and its effec-
tiveness in influencing both entrepreneurial intent and subsequent business per-
formance are questioned.
17
It is detached from the start-up process and therefore
ignores the knowledge, skills and aptitude needed to launch and operate a new
business venture.
18
Liñán et al
19
argue that “the business plan which is most often
offered as entrepreneurship education is not enough. It may be useful to increase
feasibility perceptions, but will not affect desirability.” It is also criticised for its
disconnect from the reality of the market place and for being based on assumptions
that are mostly untested. As Jones
20
argues, “why are we assessing proposals for
possible success when we cannot actually know if the ideas contained within the
plan would succeed?”
It is increasingly recognised that effective entrepreneurial learning has to be expe-
riential.
21
This argument has been powerfully made by Neck and Greene (2011:
61) who argue that “teaching entrepreneurship … requires going beyond under-
standing, knowing and talking: it requires using, applying and acting. Entrepre-
neurship requires practice.” Haase and Lautenschläger
22
note that “learning by
doing and experiential learning constitute appropriate modes for instilling the
16 Shane, S. and Venkataranan, S. (2000) The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of excellence,
Academy of Management Review, 25 (1), 217–226.
17 Honig, B. (2004). Entrepreneurship Education: Toward a Model of Contingency-Based Business
Planning. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3 (3), 258–273. Lange, J. E., Mollov,
A., Pearlmutter, M., Singh, S. and Bygrave, W. D. (2007) Pre-start-up formal business plans and
post-start-up performance: a study of 116 new ventures, Venture Capital: an international journal
of entrepreneurial finance, 9 (4), 237–256.
18 Dutta, D. K., Li, J. and Merenda, M. (2011) Fostering entrepreneurship: impact of specialisation
and diversity in education, International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7: 163–179.
19 Liñán, F., Rodriguez-Cohard, J. C. and Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. (2011) Factors affecting entrepre-
neurial intention levels: a role for education, International Entrepreneurship and Management
Journal, 7, p 201.
20 Jones, C. (2011) Teaching Entrepreneurship to Undergraduates, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar,
p. 132.
21 Rae, D. and Carswell, M. (2000) Using a life story approach in researching entrepreneurial learning:
the development of a conceptual model and its implications in the design of learning experiences,
Education + Training, 42 (5), 220–228. Minnitti, M. and Bygrave, W. (2001) A dynamic model of
entrepreneurship learning, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 25 (3): 5–16. Lange, J., Marram,
E. and Bygrave, W. (2012) Human assets and entrepreneurial performance: a study of companies
started by business school graduates. Paper to the 2012 Babson Entrepreneurship Research Con-
ference, Dallas.
22 Haase, H. and Lautenschläger, A. (2011) The ‘teachability dilemma’ of entrepreneurship, Interna-
tional Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7, 157.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 15
entrepreneurial ‘know how’.” The NCGE
23
argue that “experience is crucial for
understanding and embedding entrepreneurial concepts,” implying that it is nec-
essary to underpin classroom teaching. Making the contrast with business plan-
centred teaching Jones
24
argues that instead of writing a business plan “our stu-
dents could be living their actual plan through … working closely with customers
and gaining instant feedback.” This is precisely the approach of the lean start up
methodology pioneered by Ries
25
which is based on the idea of developing a min-
imal offering in order to commence a genuine conversation with the target market,
with a view to building in features as they engage with the customer. A further
advantage of experiential learning is that it can be designed to allow failure to
occur – an important source of entrepreneurial learning
26
– but avoiding the finan-
cial and emotional costs of failing that would be encountered in the real world.
27
Experiential learning approaches to entrepreneurship education have important
implications for learning, requiring a change from a supply-led approach to learn-
ing in which students are taught something, expected to store it away and pull it
out when required (what Handy
28
calls ‘warehoused knowledge’) to a demand-led
approach to learning which support students in ways that are unplanned, emer-
gent, short-term and non-sequential. This requires a ‘pull’ model of learning
resources which enables students to access a range of learning sources when
required.
29
In summary, the argument is that “entrepreneurship education needs to go beyond
the classroom and incorporate field based instruction and experience.” The focus
needs to be on “experiencing entrepreneurship, aiming at the development of
entrepreneurial ‘know how’”.
30
This is thought to be the most effective way in
which to equip students with the competences needed to start a business, influence
23 NCGE (2008) Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates: Putting Entrepreneurship at the Heart of
Higher Education, National Council for Graduate Enterprise: Birmingham.
24 Jones, op. cit., p. 132.
25 Ries, E. (2011) The Lean Start-Up: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create
radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.
26 Cope, J. (2011) Entrepreneurial learning from failure: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Journal of Business Venturing, 26 (6). 604–623.
27 Byrne, O. and Shepherd, D. (2013) Different Strokes for Different Folks: Entrepreneurial Narra-
tives of Emotion, Cognition, and Making Sense of Business Failure, Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, published online DOI: 10.1111/etap.12046.
28 Handy, C. (2003) In my opinion, RSA Journal, August, 6.
29 Rae, D. (2012) Action learning in new creative ventures, International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behaviour and Research, 18 (5), 603–623.
30 Hasse and Lautenschläger (2011) p. 157.
16 Colin Mason
their perceptions and desirability of starting a business and having positive impacts
on their self-confidence and creative capacity.
One experiential approach, particularly associated with Babson College in the
USA
31
but also used elsewhere
32
is the business start-up class. This requires stu-
dents, working in small groups, to undertake an entrepreneurial activity that gen-
erates financial value. Assessment takes the form of a reflective essay because “stu-
dents must also reflect on their actions in order to learn.”
33
The following section
examines the outcomes of this type of course.
A Case Study of Experiential Learning
34
A business start-up assignment was introduced into the first year entrepreneurship
class in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde in
Glasgow, Scotland in the 2010–11 academic year. It was modelled on the Value
Challenge, run by the Jim Moran Institute at the University of Florida.
35
Students
worked in groups of three, four or five. Because of the size of the class this meant
that there were a large number of groups (51 in 2010–11 and 71 in 2011–12).
Groups were allowed to invest a maximum of £20 in order to minimise the down-
side financial risk. Some flexibility was introduced in 2011–12 by allowing groups
to re-invest profits from initial trading. There were some obvious restrictions on
what the groups could do, with anything associated with food preparation, chil-
dren, alcohol, sex and gambling being prohibited. Each group donated their profits
to a charity of their own choice. This proved to be very successful, giving groups
an added motivation to maximise their profits. However, there was a downside,
with some groups using this in their sales pitch, opening up the likelihood that their
sales became a ‘pity purchase’.
36
The project ran over one term (10 weeks). Each
group submitted a report and made a presentation. The report was in two parts: a
reasoned description of what the group did, and a learning reflection.
31 Neck and Greene (2011) op. cit.
32 Mason, C. and Arshed, N. (2013) ‘Teaching entrepreneurship to university students: reflections on
an experiential learning experiment’, Industry and Higher Education, 27 (6), 449–464.
33 Pittaway and Cope (2007) op. cit.
34 This section is drawn from Mason and Arshed (2013) op. cit.
35http://www.wix.com/jmichallenge/jmichallenge.
36 Hibbert, (2005) S. A., Hogg, G. and Quinn, T. (2005) Social entrepreneurship: understanding con-
sumer motives for buying The Big Issue, Journal of Consumer |Behaviour, 4 (3), 159–172.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 17
The types of activities undertaken fell into five main categories
• Product-based activities: e.g. T-shirts, key rings, cook book, girls night in
guide, girls night out kit, Mother’s Day and Easter gifts, craft based products
(e.g. Jewellery), music CD
• Events: e.g. ‘new band’ nights, quiz night, race night, fashion show, ceilidh
(for international students)
• B2C Services: e.g. fast food collection service for students, laundry service,
sale of pre-packed sandwiches, private dinner party waiting service
• B2B services: e.g. coffee delivery service to offices, social media consultancy
• Retail: e.g. buying in bulk and selling online – cosmetics, wrist bands, iPhone
covers, stationary services
There were also a few examples of Web based activities: university smart phone
application, web site for selling second hand books. These tended not to be suc-
cessful.
The key decision for each group was whether to offer a service, make/sell a prod-
uct, or organise an event. Many of the groups instinctively followed the practices
of effectual entrepreneurship,
37
following the ‘bird-in-the hand’ principle of start-
ing with what you have, choosing their business idea on the basis of an assessment
of group assets: (i) What knowledge and experience did they possess? (ii) Who did
the group members know (iii) What resources did the group possess? Others chose
their activity on the basis of what group members were passionate about, another
effectual entrepreneurship principle. This included fashion and music-related activ-
ities. Several groups had false starts, starting with an idea which they subsequently
decided not to pursue.
Two further practices of effectual entrepreneurship could also be identified. First,
on the basis of the affordable loss principle, many groups accessed the resources
they needed through bootstrapping. Second, on the basis of the crazy quilt princi-
ple several groups formed partnerships to undertake their activity, creating finan-
cial value for both themselves and their partners. For example, the new band events
gave exposure to new bands who played for free at new bands nights and on the
CD and provided bar income for the venue. A fashion show created financial value
37 Read, S., Sarasvathy, S., Wiltbank, R. and Ohisson, A. (2011) Effectual Entrepreneurship,
Routledge.
18 Colin Mason
for the group and visibility for the designer. A race night run in partnership with
local football club generated financial value for both the group and the club.
The creation of financial value was quite limited with the average profit per group
just under £60. However, returns were skewed, with 13% of groups generating
over £100. The calculation of financial returns did not take into account cost of
labour.
Learning Outcomes
The learning reflections of the students suggested that the Value Challenge has had
several learning outcomes. First, it reinforced classroom learning.
• ‘I have managed to put into practice many of the concepts taught throughout
the class. I have seen that a lot of the theoretical learning was directly applied
by myself in our real world business.’
• ‘The assignment has helped me understand some of the concepts of entrepre-
neurship better.’
• ‘The Challenge allowed me to understand concepts that I didn’t grasp from
the class.’
• ‘Putting into practice what we learned in lectures.’
• ‘We feel the Value Challenge allowed our team to actively experience all of
the lessons we had been taught in lectures and tutorials.’
A second outcome was that groups confronted many of the realities of starting a
business. In particular, groups encountered the problems associated with the liabil-
ity of newness. As one group noted, it “has helped our group to fully understand
the liability of newness.” Several groups also experienced the power of bootstrap-
ping.
• ‘We found bootstrapping a very significant factor and managed to negotiate
a free venue, used resources that we already had and free advertising
• ‘Through bootstrapping we promoted our service through Facebook’, recei-
ved free face paints, painted PR employees for [name of club] and printed our
own posters advertising the service.’
• ‘As [name of student] had worked full-time with [name of company] a flier
was designed and printed for no cost.’
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 19
However, pricing was handled less effectively, although some groups recognised
this in retrospect. ‘We did not realise the value of our business in terms of what the
customer would get out of our service, and therefore if we were to start again we
could have put more thought into pricing and priced the service higher.’
A third outcome was that students gained experience of the real world of the start-
up. Insights included the following:
• the scale of regulation and need for authorisation to undertake many activi-
ties;
• the need to find the ‘right’ person in an organisation to make a decision;
• the importance of negotiation: ‘We learnt that negotiation is an important
part of business.’ ‘The main skill [we learnt] … was negotiating skills. This
skill was fairly new to all of us …’ ‘We’ve also learnt, to an extent, how to
negotiate …We realise that negotiation isn’t about throwing a tantrum until
you get your way but is about finding a middle ground that results in both
parties being satisfied.’
• People are not reliable: ‘I have also learnt that entrepreneurs cannot trust
verbal agreements as guarantees … People will let you down’.
• Experience of selling: ‘the most fundamental of business skills’ because it per-
meates across every level of business’.
38
• Experience of ‘pitching’ for resources or engagement: ‘The most important
lesson we learned is pitching to potential sponsors and in particular giving
an elevator pitch. None of us had pitched to businesses before and it was a
great experience and crucial skill that we acquired.’
• The importance of impression management: ‘confidence is a key aspect when
pitching your idea to people and coming across as experienced.’
Fourth, the assignment provided students with the opportunity to derive many
insights about entrepreneurship. This included the following:
• the importance of passion: ‘You must be passionate about what you are
doing.’ ‘Having passion in your venture is the number one key element that
without it you are almost definitely going to fail.’ ‘I have learnt that passion
38 Jones, op. cit.
20 Colin Mason
is vital. An entrepreneur must be passionate about their product if they wish
to succeed: a valuable lesson I will never forget.’
• The importance of being customer centric: ‘It is about satisfying the customer,
solving their problems.’ ‘We learned that entrepreneurs must pay attention
to the customer ...’
• The importance of delivering on promises made: ‘The way we have stuck to
all our promises to [name of club] of what we would offer them has created
a good company image. A strong company image is extremely important for
a company that is looking to grow.’
• Time management: ‘The biggest lesson learned from the experience is that
time is an entrepreneur’s biggest asset and must be treated with respect and
used as efficiently as possible if you are to be a success.’
Finally, there was an opportunity to learn from failure. In this context, the lack of
sales represented failure. In some cases this reflected over-ambition. Students in
groups that failed to generate revenue also highlighted, with the benefit of hind-
sight, the Importance of market research and distribution channels.
Impact on entrepreneurial intent
It is important to bear in mind that the students were all in their first year and so
a long way from thinking about life after university. So a clear impact on entrepre-
neurial intent might not be expected. In quantitative terms. students were, on aver-
age, likely to agree to the statement that the class had made them more likely to
start a business in the future, with an average score of 3.67 on a five point scale
(5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree). Significantly 1 in 5 strongly agreed with
the statement. But, the course impacts were even greater on students’ confidence
in tackling unfamiliar problems (4.09), communication skills (3.94) and confi-
dence (3.92).
The qualitative evidence highlighted mixed reaction. For some students the reali-
sation was that ‘it is surprisingly easy to start a business’. It was also recognised
that ‘you don’t require a vast amount of money to start a business’ and that ‘even
with little money great value can be created’. However, others recognised the chal-
lenges: ‘there is so much effort and detail that goes into a small business like ours’
with ‘… a lot of hard work, effort and determination … needed to start a business’
and that ‘it takes a lot of patience and time to start a business’. There was also the
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 21
recognition that having an idea is not sufficient. What was crucial was that the idea
has to be executed effectively. So, for many students the value challenge has
increased their entrepreneurial intent:
• ‘It has made me believe that I am capable of starting my own business.’
• ‘The major thing I have learnt about myself from the Value Challenge is that
I actually can start a business.’
• ‘I was able to see what it actually means to be an entrepreneur and what kind
of problems he/she faces … Now I feel confident that in the future I will be
able to … convert my ideas into a real business.’
• ‘I feel the idea of becoming an entrepreneur is much more accessible than I
previously thought.’
• ‘It has increased my confidence levels greatly and made me more determined
to start my own business in the future.’
The value challenge has two further positive impacts. First, it has impact on their
personal development, with students reporting favourable outcomes in terms of
organising skills, time and time management, learning to work in teams, trusting
team mates, team communication skill development – communication skills, sell-
ing skills. Second, for some students there was an element of self-discovery:
• I learnt numerous aspects of myself that I would never have discovered if I
didn’t take part in this task ... The challenge helped me discover self-confi-
dence I never knew I had. This was discovered going door-to-door selling,
asking for sponsorship and prizes [from companies].’
• ‘I’ve also realised that I’m more self-confident than I imagined.’
Conclusion
The contemporary university graduate requires to have an entrepreneurial mind-
set and enterprising skills to successfully operate in a labour market increasingly
dominated by project work, self-employment and freelancing and where starting
their own business is seen as increasingly credible, desirable and feasible, offering
the most effective way in which to make a living. Universities have been slow to
recognise these needs, emphasising employability but not enterprise. It is now
accepted that entrepreneurship is a learned skill and so can be taught. At issue is
how this should done. This paper has argued that entrepreneurship has to be
22 Colin Mason
taught experientially and suggests via a case study that this is an effective approach
both to learning and in developing entrepreneurial intent.
Due in particular to the deteriorated
economic situation and the financial
and economic crisis, unemployment
rates in general have increased sig -
nificantly, but the group that suffered
most were young people.
The realities of job searching, eco-
nomic mobility and career lifecycle
approaches in a multi-cultural glob-
alizing world are still relatively new
fields of work. Research has shown
the limitations of existing practical
approaches which tend to focus solely
on generic linguistic or cultural skills
and are not related to the needs of
the present employment market.
This publication gives an overview
on related topics and approaches on
career training and entrepreneurship
education in universities. Readers
learn about the situation of young
people through the lenses of the in-
stitutional economy and innovative
approaches to overcome youth unem-
ployment are presented.
www.uvhw.de
ISBN 978-3-86977-114-4
doc_167955916.pdf
With this brief criteria explicate graduates in the european labour market employment, entrepreneurship, initiatives.
Joanna Markiewicz /David Blunck (ed.)
Graduates in the European
Labour Market
Employment, Entrepreneurship, Initiatives
Graduates in the European Labour Market
Herausgegeben von
Prof. Dr. Philip Kunig, Freie Universität Berlin
Joanna Markiewicz / David Blunck (ed.)
Graduates in the European Labour Market
Employment, Entrepreneurship, Initiatives
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning
Programme.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for
any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Scientific work financed from funds for science in 2013–2014 granted to a realization of an international
co-financed project.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in
der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische
Daten sind im Internet überhttp://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.
CXV
© Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg, Halle an der Saale 2014
Printed in Germany. Alle Rechte, auch die des Nachdrucks von Auszügen, der photomechanischen
Wiedergabe und der Übersetzung, vorbehalten.
ISBN 978-3-86977-114-4
5
Preface
We would like to present you the scientific publication, which sets out to explore
the issue of young graduates on the labour market. Young people, even those with
university diploma very often have to face the problem of difficulties in finding a
job. Recent economic crises, uncertain future, untypical forms of employment and
aging society are obstacles rather than facilitators in this situation.
One of the ways to support young people was “Pathways for Graduates”
project, which was funded with the support of the European Commission within
the framework of Leonardo da Vinci programme Transfer of Innovation. The main
aim of the project was to increase the integration of young graduates into the
labour market by producing a multilingual, multicultural training course which
allows young graduates to acquire the competences and transferable work skills
needed to open up progression opportunities either directly to employment and/or
to further vocational qualifications.
There were five partners involved in the project. University of Szczecn played
the role of the project leader. The German partner – Univations GmbH was respon-
sible for the research part. Springboard Opportunities Limited from the Unite
Kingdom for the elaboration of the content. Canice Consulting (also from the
United Kingdom) dealt with the technical realization. Fundacion Laboral del Metal
from Spain conducted the pilot test.
The issue of the situation of young graduates on the labour market was treated
in the project in practical way. To enrich the project results, the partnership decided
to publish scientific papers in order to present a wide spectrum of theoretical dis-
course on this topic, gathering authors from different European countries. Readers
will find interesting papers on the meaning of the entrepreneurship in university
education, learn about the situation of young people through the lenses of the insti-
tutional economy. Some papers provide knowledge for young people from the per-
spective of human resources scope. There are also papers which present initiatives
directed to reinforce young work force on the labour market.
Dr Joanna Markiewicz David Blunck
University of Szczecin Univations GmbH
Manager of Pathways for Graduates project
6
7
Content
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Colin Mason
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum:
Why And How. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Joanna Markiewicz
Institutional Perspective of Polish Labour Market –
Challenges for Young Graduates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
David Blunck
Strategies for SMEs to overcome regional Skill Shortages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Susanne Hübner and Carsten Hummel
A Head Start for Graduates Entering Competitive Markets:
Intrapreneurial Thinking and Entrepreneurial Spirit in College Teaching . . 49
Katarzyna ?obacz and Pawe? G?odek
Development of Human Capital through Entrepreneurial Process –
Perspectives On Labour Force Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Tomasz Norek
Analysis and Assessment of Relation between the Innovativeness
of Polish SME Enterprises and Employment Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Joanna Rzempa?a and Artur Rzempa?a
Intellectual capital audit at enterprises as a monitoring instrument
of employees’ and employers’ needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8 Content
Karin Volpato and David Blunck
Tackling Youth Unemployment & Shortage of Skilled Workforce in Europe –
A Spanish Example of a Transnational Private Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Monika Tomczyk
Learning entrepreneurship by internationalization of Vocational education
case of South Baltic Training Programme project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 9
Putting Entrepreneurship Education
into the Undergraduate Curriculum: Why And How
Colin Mason ( Glasgow)
Contexts
The graduate labour market is undergoing profound changes. There are two sig-
nificant trends at work. The number of graduates is increasing. Adding to the com-
petition for jobs is the internationalisation of the student population. Meanwhile
the number of graduate-level jobs is not keeping pace. More and more graduates
are in jobs where a degree is not necessary. The nature of employment is also
changing as companies increasingly structure their employment around ‘projects’
which require only temporary and freelance staff. The expanding creative economy
is largely organised around projects. The response of an IT industry worker to the
question who he worked for – that “no one works for anyone in IT” – brilliantly
summarises the nature of contemporary labour markets. His remark is no longer
restricted to the IT sector.
These changes were perceptively highlighted some 20 years ago by William Bridges
in his book Jobshift.
1
He was one of the earliest commentators to observe that ‘the
job’, which he defined as “boxes in organisational charts with regular duties” and
offering 9–5 workdays, 12 months of work, promotion and a pension at the age
of 65, would not be part of the 21st century economy. He argued that the job is a
social artefact created to meet the needs of the industrial era but which is incom-
patible with the need for more flexible models of employment in an information-
based and digital-enabled economy. Work is therefore being reconstituted as “the
contingent, just-in-time workforce” (p. 9) and employment categories are losing
1 Bridges, W., 1995. Jobshift: How to prosper in a workplace without jobs. London: Nicholas Break-
ley.
10 Colin Mason
their boundaries as work “is repacked into projects and assignments” (p. 114).
These developments are evident in the decline in permanent employment and
career structures and the notion of ‘the job-for-life’ and the rise in various forms
of contingent jobs (part-time, temporary, agency, freelance), the transformation of
career structures and the increase in self-employment. Employment statistics
underline the pervasiveness of these trends. The UK is estimated to have 1.72m
freelance workers, while the number of self-employed in 2014 is 4.6 million, a rise
of 650,000 (17%) since 2008 and representing 15% of the economically active.
The consequence for workers is that “whether or not you are employed in what
we used to call a job, you are henceforth in business for yourself” (Bridges, 1995,
p. 61).
Equally significant is that since the last quarter of the 20th century, and starting in
the USA, developed nations have been experiencing an increase in entrepreneurial
activity – which is, in turn, creating a new type of economy which Carl Schramm
2
terms “entrepreneurial capitalism”. Indeed, Kuratko and Hodgetts say in their
book that “the opportunities during this century will be immense. Entrepreneurial
opportunities will continue to arise for individuals willing to take the risk.”
3
Sim-
ilarly William Bygrave and Andrew Zacharakis say in their book Entrepreneurship
that “there has never been a better time to practice the art and science of entrepre-
neurship”.
4
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian says that “‘I have a start-up’ is the
new ‘I’m in a band.’ In fact, starting a company is probably easier than starting a
band.” Young people have such a great opportunity. They don’t have dependents,
their room and board are inexpensive, and they have a lot of free time. I get a little
jealous just thinking about what they can accomplish.”
5
There are several reasons why it is claimed that it has never been easier to start a
business.
First, cultural attitudes towards self-employment have become more positive. No
longer are entrepreneurs seen as being the shady operators and tax dodgers as por-
trayed in such TV series as Minder and Only Fools and Horses. Instead, entrepre-
2 Schramm, C. (2006) The Entrepreneurial Imperative, HarperBusiness.
3 Kuratko, D. F. and Hodgetts, R. M. (2001) Entrepreneurship: A Contemporary Approach, Har-
court, 5th edition.
4 Bygrave, W. and Zacharakis, A. (2014) Entrepreneurship, John Wiley and Son, 3
rd
edition
5 Ohanian, A. (2013) Is there such a thing as too many start-ups? Inc Magazine, October, p. 28.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 11
neurs are now praised and celebrated for their economic contributions, and some
receive knighthoods.
Second, the attractions of working for ‘big business’ are much reduced. Few large
companies now offer long term job security and other benefits of working in the
corporate sector have disappeared. Pension schemes have been curtailed or closed,
seniority systems have given way to performance pay, workloads have increased
and work schedules are increasingly long and inflexible. It is suggested that Gen-
eration Y, or Millennials, (born between 1978 and 2001), having been raised on
computers and the internet, are less likely to be attracted by corporate careers and
more likely to want to maintain their independence and ‘own’ their own careers,
and so are also much more likely to work for themselves compared with previous
generations.
Third, economic changes have opened up opportunities for small businesses. Size
and economies of scale are no longer important in many sectors; indeed, being big
is now often a disadvantage. This is linked to the growth of services, and especially
knowledge-based work which in many cases requires little in the way of investment
in equipment and infrastructure.
This, in turn, has reduced the costs of starting a business. The costs of doing busi-
ness are becoming variable rather than fixed on account of increasing opportuni-
ties to outsource (e.g. distribution and shipping). ICT technology in the form of
cheap and powerful personal computers and software, and other innovations (e.g.
express parcel delivery, printing and copying) have provided small businesses with
the power, scope and access of large companies but without sacrificing the inde-
pendence and flexibility of being small. Internet-based trading platforms, such as
Ebay, Etsy and Amazon, along with money transfer mechanisms (notably PayPal),
have been particularly important in enabling small businesses to cost-effectively
serve small, geographically dispersed, market niches (the ‘long tail’ phenomenon
6
).
At the same time, consumers have become more comfortable buying online. Small
businesses can access technology through ‘plug and play’ access and open source
software. Advances in production technologies which connect PCs to a wide range
of machine tools have encouraged small scale manufacturing. For many businesses
their only requirement is laptop computers and associated software, mobile phones
6 Anderson, C. (2006) The Long Tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more, New York:
Hyperion.
12 Colin Mason
and high speed internet access, enabling them to be run from the owner’s home,
further reducing costs. Meanwhile, crowdfunding platforms have made the financ-
ing of start-ups much easier.
These trends have profound implications for graduates who have recently joined
or will be entering the labour market. First, they need to have an entrepreneurial
mindset regardless of whether they are an employee, or working for themselves. If
they are employees, they need to operate as if they were an external provider,
because their employer will be continually assessing whether the function needs to
be performed in-house. As Bridges
7
states, “workers need to develop a mindset, an
approach to their work, and a way of managing their careers that is more like that
of an external vendor than that of a traditional employee. Workers will be wise to
think that they are ‘in business for themselves’ …” More positively, many large
companies recognise that they need to operate like smaller, nimble companies if
they are to continue to be innovative, and so organise themselves around internal
new venture teams. These companies are therefore actively seeking to recruit entre-
preneurial graduates. Second, whether for positive or negative reasons working on
a self-employed or freelance basis, or starting a business is now a career option for
graduates. As Financial Times columnist Luke Johnson comments, this transfor-
mation of the labour market “should have an impact on what we teach young
people entering the workforce”.
8
Teaching Entrepreneurship: Pedagogical Issues
Universities have traditionally been concerned with the employability of their grad-
uates, especially since this measure has become a performance indicator. But, as
the previous discussion implies, this becomes less relevant in a context of disap-
pearing jobs. Hence, Universities also need to equip their graduates with entrepre-
neurial skills and know-how to create their own employment. However, universi-
ties have given rather less attention to this objective. One of the reasons is the belief
that it is not possible to teach people to become entrepreneurs. This view is now
largely discredited. Entrepreneurship is seen not a personality characteristic, but as
a learned skill. However, there are caveats: “taking an entrepreneurship class isn’t
likely to turn a student with no business smarts into an opportunity-spotting, mon-
7 Op. cit.
8 Johnson, L. 2014. The future is freelance – and that is healthy, Financial Times, 1 April,http://www.
ft.com/cms/s/0/fce447ea-b8f3-11e3-98c5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3AAU8zKeX.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 13
eymaking genius. Yet plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that the classes can
speed the learning curve for people with the right stuff.”
9
Of course, this is not a
challenge that is limited to the teaching of entrepreneurship : “we cannot guarantee
to produce a great entrepreneur from our entrepreneurship courses any more than
a music professor can promise to produce a Mozart or a physical professor an
Einstein. But give us a student with … determination, dedication and inspiration
and we are confident we will produce a better entrepreneur.”
10
In short, as
Kuratko
11
states, “the question whether entrepreneurship can be taught is obso-
lete.” The pertinent question is how should we teach entrepreneurship.
A lot of the teaching that occurs under the entrepreneurship heading is ‘about’
entrepreneurship, covering academic studies of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial
businesses and the entrepreneurial process. This is not intended to teach students
how to be entrepreneurs. Teaching ‘for’ entrepreneurship, in contrast, aims to pro-
duce graduates with mindsets, skills and the capability to identify and shape oppor-
tunities and develop business ventures. However, it is increasingly questioned
whether standard approaches to teach ‘for’ entrepreneurship are effective in
achieving their outcomes. First, they have a classroom-based focus and “lecture
teaching methodology, basically a stand-and-deliver approach”
12
which misses
“the vital stimulation of the ‘knowing how’”
13
and discourages right-brain think-
ing. Indeed, Pittway and Cope
14
argue that “it is not possible to convey the chal-
lenge and complexities surrounding new venture creation using only conventional
pedagogies such as lectures and seminars.” Second, the reliance on theories, con-
tent and pedagogical approaches borrowed from business management results in
a failure to emphasise the distinctiveness of entrepreneurship,
15
defined as the dis-
covery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities to provide goods and serv-
9 Gray, P. B., & Field, A. (2006). Can entrepreneurship be taught? Fortune Small Business, 16(2/3),
34–51.
10 Bygrave and Zacharaksis, op. cit.
11 Kuratko, D. F. (2005) The emergence of entrepreneurship education: developments, trends and
challenges, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29 (5), 577–598.
12 Neck, H. and Greene, P. (2011) Entrepreneurship education: known worlds and new frontiers,
Journal of Small Business Development, 49 (1) p. 58.
13 Gibb, A. A. (1993) Enterprise culture and education: understanding enterprise education and its
links with small business, International Small Business Journal, 11 (3): 11–34.
14 Pittaway, L. and Cope, J. (2007) Simulating entrepreneurial learning: integrating experiential and
collaborative approaches to learning, Management Learning, 38 (2) p. 229.
15 Solomon, G. (2008) Entrepreneurship education in the United States. In J. Potter (ed) Entrepreneur-
ship and Higher Education, Paris: OECD, pp. 95–118.
14 Colin Mason
ices.
16
Third, the focus on the business plan which students write and then present
– Dragon’s Den style – to a panel of entrepreneurs is now hackneyed and its effec-
tiveness in influencing both entrepreneurial intent and subsequent business per-
formance are questioned.
17
It is detached from the start-up process and therefore
ignores the knowledge, skills and aptitude needed to launch and operate a new
business venture.
18
Liñán et al
19
argue that “the business plan which is most often
offered as entrepreneurship education is not enough. It may be useful to increase
feasibility perceptions, but will not affect desirability.” It is also criticised for its
disconnect from the reality of the market place and for being based on assumptions
that are mostly untested. As Jones
20
argues, “why are we assessing proposals for
possible success when we cannot actually know if the ideas contained within the
plan would succeed?”
It is increasingly recognised that effective entrepreneurial learning has to be expe-
riential.
21
This argument has been powerfully made by Neck and Greene (2011:
61) who argue that “teaching entrepreneurship … requires going beyond under-
standing, knowing and talking: it requires using, applying and acting. Entrepre-
neurship requires practice.” Haase and Lautenschläger
22
note that “learning by
doing and experiential learning constitute appropriate modes for instilling the
16 Shane, S. and Venkataranan, S. (2000) The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of excellence,
Academy of Management Review, 25 (1), 217–226.
17 Honig, B. (2004). Entrepreneurship Education: Toward a Model of Contingency-Based Business
Planning. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 3 (3), 258–273. Lange, J. E., Mollov,
A., Pearlmutter, M., Singh, S. and Bygrave, W. D. (2007) Pre-start-up formal business plans and
post-start-up performance: a study of 116 new ventures, Venture Capital: an international journal
of entrepreneurial finance, 9 (4), 237–256.
18 Dutta, D. K., Li, J. and Merenda, M. (2011) Fostering entrepreneurship: impact of specialisation
and diversity in education, International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7: 163–179.
19 Liñán, F., Rodriguez-Cohard, J. C. and Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. (2011) Factors affecting entrepre-
neurial intention levels: a role for education, International Entrepreneurship and Management
Journal, 7, p 201.
20 Jones, C. (2011) Teaching Entrepreneurship to Undergraduates, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar,
p. 132.
21 Rae, D. and Carswell, M. (2000) Using a life story approach in researching entrepreneurial learning:
the development of a conceptual model and its implications in the design of learning experiences,
Education + Training, 42 (5), 220–228. Minnitti, M. and Bygrave, W. (2001) A dynamic model of
entrepreneurship learning, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 25 (3): 5–16. Lange, J., Marram,
E. and Bygrave, W. (2012) Human assets and entrepreneurial performance: a study of companies
started by business school graduates. Paper to the 2012 Babson Entrepreneurship Research Con-
ference, Dallas.
22 Haase, H. and Lautenschläger, A. (2011) The ‘teachability dilemma’ of entrepreneurship, Interna-
tional Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7, 157.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 15
entrepreneurial ‘know how’.” The NCGE
23
argue that “experience is crucial for
understanding and embedding entrepreneurial concepts,” implying that it is nec-
essary to underpin classroom teaching. Making the contrast with business plan-
centred teaching Jones
24
argues that instead of writing a business plan “our stu-
dents could be living their actual plan through … working closely with customers
and gaining instant feedback.” This is precisely the approach of the lean start up
methodology pioneered by Ries
25
which is based on the idea of developing a min-
imal offering in order to commence a genuine conversation with the target market,
with a view to building in features as they engage with the customer. A further
advantage of experiential learning is that it can be designed to allow failure to
occur – an important source of entrepreneurial learning
26
– but avoiding the finan-
cial and emotional costs of failing that would be encountered in the real world.
27
Experiential learning approaches to entrepreneurship education have important
implications for learning, requiring a change from a supply-led approach to learn-
ing in which students are taught something, expected to store it away and pull it
out when required (what Handy
28
calls ‘warehoused knowledge’) to a demand-led
approach to learning which support students in ways that are unplanned, emer-
gent, short-term and non-sequential. This requires a ‘pull’ model of learning
resources which enables students to access a range of learning sources when
required.
29
In summary, the argument is that “entrepreneurship education needs to go beyond
the classroom and incorporate field based instruction and experience.” The focus
needs to be on “experiencing entrepreneurship, aiming at the development of
entrepreneurial ‘know how’”.
30
This is thought to be the most effective way in
which to equip students with the competences needed to start a business, influence
23 NCGE (2008) Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates: Putting Entrepreneurship at the Heart of
Higher Education, National Council for Graduate Enterprise: Birmingham.
24 Jones, op. cit., p. 132.
25 Ries, E. (2011) The Lean Start-Up: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create
radically successful businesses. New York: Crown Business.
26 Cope, J. (2011) Entrepreneurial learning from failure: an interpretative phenomenological analysis.
Journal of Business Venturing, 26 (6). 604–623.
27 Byrne, O. and Shepherd, D. (2013) Different Strokes for Different Folks: Entrepreneurial Narra-
tives of Emotion, Cognition, and Making Sense of Business Failure, Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, published online DOI: 10.1111/etap.12046.
28 Handy, C. (2003) In my opinion, RSA Journal, August, 6.
29 Rae, D. (2012) Action learning in new creative ventures, International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behaviour and Research, 18 (5), 603–623.
30 Hasse and Lautenschläger (2011) p. 157.
16 Colin Mason
their perceptions and desirability of starting a business and having positive impacts
on their self-confidence and creative capacity.
One experiential approach, particularly associated with Babson College in the
USA
31
but also used elsewhere
32
is the business start-up class. This requires stu-
dents, working in small groups, to undertake an entrepreneurial activity that gen-
erates financial value. Assessment takes the form of a reflective essay because “stu-
dents must also reflect on their actions in order to learn.”
33
The following section
examines the outcomes of this type of course.
A Case Study of Experiential Learning
34
A business start-up assignment was introduced into the first year entrepreneurship
class in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde in
Glasgow, Scotland in the 2010–11 academic year. It was modelled on the Value
Challenge, run by the Jim Moran Institute at the University of Florida.
35
Students
worked in groups of three, four or five. Because of the size of the class this meant
that there were a large number of groups (51 in 2010–11 and 71 in 2011–12).
Groups were allowed to invest a maximum of £20 in order to minimise the down-
side financial risk. Some flexibility was introduced in 2011–12 by allowing groups
to re-invest profits from initial trading. There were some obvious restrictions on
what the groups could do, with anything associated with food preparation, chil-
dren, alcohol, sex and gambling being prohibited. Each group donated their profits
to a charity of their own choice. This proved to be very successful, giving groups
an added motivation to maximise their profits. However, there was a downside,
with some groups using this in their sales pitch, opening up the likelihood that their
sales became a ‘pity purchase’.
36
The project ran over one term (10 weeks). Each
group submitted a report and made a presentation. The report was in two parts: a
reasoned description of what the group did, and a learning reflection.
31 Neck and Greene (2011) op. cit.
32 Mason, C. and Arshed, N. (2013) ‘Teaching entrepreneurship to university students: reflections on
an experiential learning experiment’, Industry and Higher Education, 27 (6), 449–464.
33 Pittaway and Cope (2007) op. cit.
34 This section is drawn from Mason and Arshed (2013) op. cit.
35http://www.wix.com/jmichallenge/jmichallenge.
36 Hibbert, (2005) S. A., Hogg, G. and Quinn, T. (2005) Social entrepreneurship: understanding con-
sumer motives for buying The Big Issue, Journal of Consumer |Behaviour, 4 (3), 159–172.
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 17
The types of activities undertaken fell into five main categories
• Product-based activities: e.g. T-shirts, key rings, cook book, girls night in
guide, girls night out kit, Mother’s Day and Easter gifts, craft based products
(e.g. Jewellery), music CD
• Events: e.g. ‘new band’ nights, quiz night, race night, fashion show, ceilidh
(for international students)
• B2C Services: e.g. fast food collection service for students, laundry service,
sale of pre-packed sandwiches, private dinner party waiting service
• B2B services: e.g. coffee delivery service to offices, social media consultancy
• Retail: e.g. buying in bulk and selling online – cosmetics, wrist bands, iPhone
covers, stationary services
There were also a few examples of Web based activities: university smart phone
application, web site for selling second hand books. These tended not to be suc-
cessful.
The key decision for each group was whether to offer a service, make/sell a prod-
uct, or organise an event. Many of the groups instinctively followed the practices
of effectual entrepreneurship,
37
following the ‘bird-in-the hand’ principle of start-
ing with what you have, choosing their business idea on the basis of an assessment
of group assets: (i) What knowledge and experience did they possess? (ii) Who did
the group members know (iii) What resources did the group possess? Others chose
their activity on the basis of what group members were passionate about, another
effectual entrepreneurship principle. This included fashion and music-related activ-
ities. Several groups had false starts, starting with an idea which they subsequently
decided not to pursue.
Two further practices of effectual entrepreneurship could also be identified. First,
on the basis of the affordable loss principle, many groups accessed the resources
they needed through bootstrapping. Second, on the basis of the crazy quilt princi-
ple several groups formed partnerships to undertake their activity, creating finan-
cial value for both themselves and their partners. For example, the new band events
gave exposure to new bands who played for free at new bands nights and on the
CD and provided bar income for the venue. A fashion show created financial value
37 Read, S., Sarasvathy, S., Wiltbank, R. and Ohisson, A. (2011) Effectual Entrepreneurship,
Routledge.
18 Colin Mason
for the group and visibility for the designer. A race night run in partnership with
local football club generated financial value for both the group and the club.
The creation of financial value was quite limited with the average profit per group
just under £60. However, returns were skewed, with 13% of groups generating
over £100. The calculation of financial returns did not take into account cost of
labour.
Learning Outcomes
The learning reflections of the students suggested that the Value Challenge has had
several learning outcomes. First, it reinforced classroom learning.
• ‘I have managed to put into practice many of the concepts taught throughout
the class. I have seen that a lot of the theoretical learning was directly applied
by myself in our real world business.’
• ‘The assignment has helped me understand some of the concepts of entrepre-
neurship better.’
• ‘The Challenge allowed me to understand concepts that I didn’t grasp from
the class.’
• ‘Putting into practice what we learned in lectures.’
• ‘We feel the Value Challenge allowed our team to actively experience all of
the lessons we had been taught in lectures and tutorials.’
A second outcome was that groups confronted many of the realities of starting a
business. In particular, groups encountered the problems associated with the liabil-
ity of newness. As one group noted, it “has helped our group to fully understand
the liability of newness.” Several groups also experienced the power of bootstrap-
ping.
• ‘We found bootstrapping a very significant factor and managed to negotiate
a free venue, used resources that we already had and free advertising
• ‘Through bootstrapping we promoted our service through Facebook’, recei-
ved free face paints, painted PR employees for [name of club] and printed our
own posters advertising the service.’
• ‘As [name of student] had worked full-time with [name of company] a flier
was designed and printed for no cost.’
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 19
However, pricing was handled less effectively, although some groups recognised
this in retrospect. ‘We did not realise the value of our business in terms of what the
customer would get out of our service, and therefore if we were to start again we
could have put more thought into pricing and priced the service higher.’
A third outcome was that students gained experience of the real world of the start-
up. Insights included the following:
• the scale of regulation and need for authorisation to undertake many activi-
ties;
• the need to find the ‘right’ person in an organisation to make a decision;
• the importance of negotiation: ‘We learnt that negotiation is an important
part of business.’ ‘The main skill [we learnt] … was negotiating skills. This
skill was fairly new to all of us …’ ‘We’ve also learnt, to an extent, how to
negotiate …We realise that negotiation isn’t about throwing a tantrum until
you get your way but is about finding a middle ground that results in both
parties being satisfied.’
• People are not reliable: ‘I have also learnt that entrepreneurs cannot trust
verbal agreements as guarantees … People will let you down’.
• Experience of selling: ‘the most fundamental of business skills’ because it per-
meates across every level of business’.
38
• Experience of ‘pitching’ for resources or engagement: ‘The most important
lesson we learned is pitching to potential sponsors and in particular giving
an elevator pitch. None of us had pitched to businesses before and it was a
great experience and crucial skill that we acquired.’
• The importance of impression management: ‘confidence is a key aspect when
pitching your idea to people and coming across as experienced.’
Fourth, the assignment provided students with the opportunity to derive many
insights about entrepreneurship. This included the following:
• the importance of passion: ‘You must be passionate about what you are
doing.’ ‘Having passion in your venture is the number one key element that
without it you are almost definitely going to fail.’ ‘I have learnt that passion
38 Jones, op. cit.
20 Colin Mason
is vital. An entrepreneur must be passionate about their product if they wish
to succeed: a valuable lesson I will never forget.’
• The importance of being customer centric: ‘It is about satisfying the customer,
solving their problems.’ ‘We learned that entrepreneurs must pay attention
to the customer ...’
• The importance of delivering on promises made: ‘The way we have stuck to
all our promises to [name of club] of what we would offer them has created
a good company image. A strong company image is extremely important for
a company that is looking to grow.’
• Time management: ‘The biggest lesson learned from the experience is that
time is an entrepreneur’s biggest asset and must be treated with respect and
used as efficiently as possible if you are to be a success.’
Finally, there was an opportunity to learn from failure. In this context, the lack of
sales represented failure. In some cases this reflected over-ambition. Students in
groups that failed to generate revenue also highlighted, with the benefit of hind-
sight, the Importance of market research and distribution channels.
Impact on entrepreneurial intent
It is important to bear in mind that the students were all in their first year and so
a long way from thinking about life after university. So a clear impact on entrepre-
neurial intent might not be expected. In quantitative terms. students were, on aver-
age, likely to agree to the statement that the class had made them more likely to
start a business in the future, with an average score of 3.67 on a five point scale
(5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree). Significantly 1 in 5 strongly agreed with
the statement. But, the course impacts were even greater on students’ confidence
in tackling unfamiliar problems (4.09), communication skills (3.94) and confi-
dence (3.92).
The qualitative evidence highlighted mixed reaction. For some students the reali-
sation was that ‘it is surprisingly easy to start a business’. It was also recognised
that ‘you don’t require a vast amount of money to start a business’ and that ‘even
with little money great value can be created’. However, others recognised the chal-
lenges: ‘there is so much effort and detail that goes into a small business like ours’
with ‘… a lot of hard work, effort and determination … needed to start a business’
and that ‘it takes a lot of patience and time to start a business’. There was also the
Putting Entrepreneurship Education into the Undergraduate Curriculum 21
recognition that having an idea is not sufficient. What was crucial was that the idea
has to be executed effectively. So, for many students the value challenge has
increased their entrepreneurial intent:
• ‘It has made me believe that I am capable of starting my own business.’
• ‘The major thing I have learnt about myself from the Value Challenge is that
I actually can start a business.’
• ‘I was able to see what it actually means to be an entrepreneur and what kind
of problems he/she faces … Now I feel confident that in the future I will be
able to … convert my ideas into a real business.’
• ‘I feel the idea of becoming an entrepreneur is much more accessible than I
previously thought.’
• ‘It has increased my confidence levels greatly and made me more determined
to start my own business in the future.’
The value challenge has two further positive impacts. First, it has impact on their
personal development, with students reporting favourable outcomes in terms of
organising skills, time and time management, learning to work in teams, trusting
team mates, team communication skill development – communication skills, sell-
ing skills. Second, for some students there was an element of self-discovery:
• I learnt numerous aspects of myself that I would never have discovered if I
didn’t take part in this task ... The challenge helped me discover self-confi-
dence I never knew I had. This was discovered going door-to-door selling,
asking for sponsorship and prizes [from companies].’
• ‘I’ve also realised that I’m more self-confident than I imagined.’
Conclusion
The contemporary university graduate requires to have an entrepreneurial mind-
set and enterprising skills to successfully operate in a labour market increasingly
dominated by project work, self-employment and freelancing and where starting
their own business is seen as increasingly credible, desirable and feasible, offering
the most effective way in which to make a living. Universities have been slow to
recognise these needs, emphasising employability but not enterprise. It is now
accepted that entrepreneurship is a learned skill and so can be taught. At issue is
how this should done. This paper has argued that entrepreneurship has to be
22 Colin Mason
taught experientially and suggests via a case study that this is an effective approach
both to learning and in developing entrepreneurial intent.
Due in particular to the deteriorated
economic situation and the financial
and economic crisis, unemployment
rates in general have increased sig -
nificantly, but the group that suffered
most were young people.
The realities of job searching, eco-
nomic mobility and career lifecycle
approaches in a multi-cultural glob-
alizing world are still relatively new
fields of work. Research has shown
the limitations of existing practical
approaches which tend to focus solely
on generic linguistic or cultural skills
and are not related to the needs of
the present employment market.
This publication gives an overview
on related topics and approaches on
career training and entrepreneurship
education in universities. Readers
learn about the situation of young
people through the lenses of the in-
stitutional economy and innovative
approaches to overcome youth unem-
ployment are presented.
www.uvhw.de
ISBN 978-3-86977-114-4
doc_167955916.pdf