Description
With this particular detail, resolve is business creation the mean or the end of entrepreneurship education.
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ISSN: 0718-2724. (http://www.jotmi.org)
Journal of Technology Management & Innovation © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios.
(1)1089 albor-
noz
J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
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Universidad del Desarrollo, Av. La Plaza, 680, Las Condes. Santiago, Chile. Phone: 02 23279205. Email: [email protected].
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Este trabajo se ha realizado bajo el apoyo del Proyecto Fondecyt Nº 11121458 “The Effect of Obligatory Entrepreneurship Education
on College Students”.
Received November 15, 2012 / Accepted Jan 07, 2013
Is Business Creation the Mean or the End of Entrepreneurship Education?
A Multiple Case Study Exploring Teaching Goals in
Entrepreneurship Education
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Carlos Albornoz Pardo
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Abstract
Entrepreneurship education within higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion in the last 20 years (Green
& Rice, 2007). However, entrepreneurship education is still in its infancy; professors propose diverse teaching goals and
radically different teaching methods. This represents an obstacle to development of foundational and consistent curricula
across the board (Cone, 2008). This study was designed to understand entrepreneurship instructor’s teaching goals.
Results suggest that the group of instructors studied pursued two types of profoundly different teaching goals. Some of
them were trying to teach how to start a successfully business while another group was trying to develop entrepreneurial
skills. Those two types of teaching goals have important implications in terms of pre selection of students, the mandatory
or voluntary character of the curriculum, and type of teaching methods used. For instance, if the goal is to create business,
students should be selected according to the potential of their ideas, the regimen should be voluntary (students legitimately
may want to become great employees), and business plan as teaching methods should be understood a mean rather than
an end.
Keywords: entrepreneurship education; teaching goals; teaching methods; entrepreneurial skills; potential.
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Journal of Technology Management & Innovation © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios.
J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
neurship as a discipline. With the exception of discovery/
idea generation, most topics included in entrepreneurship
education comes from the established literature of other
disciplines (Fiet, 2000). Motivated in overcoming some barri-
ers related to the teaching practice, Professor Fiet gathered
18 instructors at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to dis-
cuss the learning aspects of entrepreneurship education. The
retreat’s participants shared their syllabi to analyze the top-
ics they covered. One of the conclusions of this meeting was
that content covered was diverse and that entrepreneur-
ship instructors are highly infuenced by their own research
streams when choosing content for their classes (Fiet, 2000).
Six leading topical areas were identifed as the content usu-
ally included in entrepreneurship classes: (a) strategy/com-
petitive analysis, (b) managing growth, (c) discovery/idea gen-
eration, (d) risk and rationality, (e) fnancing, and (f) creativity.
The range of contents considered important by those entre-
preneurship instructors was diverse.
Fiet (2000) suggested that three possible elements could
infuence instructors’ selection of content: (a) academic au-
tobiography, (b) lack of theoretical rigor, and (c) entrepre-
neurship textbooks. Fifteen out of the eighteen instructors
participating in the retreat used reading packets, which is a
symptom that they are not satisfed with textbooks; how-
ever, there was little agreement on what should be included
in the course-reading packet (Fiet, 2000).
There is abundant literature reporting that entrepreneurship
instructors teach different things under the same umbrella
of entrepreneurship courses (Van der Sluis, Van Praag, & Vi-
jverberg, 2008; Weaver, Dickson, & Solomon, 2005). In spite
of this shared diagnosis, little is know about the expected
outcomes and intentions of entrepreneurship instructors.
The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze in
depth what entrepreneurship instructors wants students in
their courses to learn. Before making any appraisal about
the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education we need
to understand what are the teaching goals of entrepreneur-
ship educators and why they pursue those. The research
question guiding this study was: How do higher education
instructors select teaching goals to teach entrepreneurship?
Method
A multiple case study design was appropriate for this re-
search because it facilitates understanding instructors’ per-
spectives and actions related to their selection of goals. The
population for this study consisted of college and university
instructors who teach entrepreneurship. Alan Carsrud, one
of the most cited authors in entrepreneurship (Reader &
Watkins, 2006), was the key informant to fnd the instruc-
tors for this study.
Introduction
Along with the accumulation of evidence supporting the
role of entrepreneurship in economic development (Acs,
2002; Kuratko, 2005; Reynolds et al., 2005), governments
have persisted in encouraging people to become entrepre-
neurs (Brannback & Carsrud, 2009). In Australia, the Federal
Government invested $2.9 billion in 2001 to include a cul-
ture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the educational
system (Jones, 2007). The Kauffman Foundation donated $40
million in 2003 to make entrepreneurship education avail-
able across U.S. university campuses (Kauffman Foundation,
2009). In Chile, 4 million US dollars were allocated in 2011
to fund entrepreneurship education programs. These efforts
tried to reproduce the conditions under which entrepre-
neurship emerges; one of these conditions is the existence
of entrepreneurial skills among students and scientists (Phan
& Foo, 2004). In addition to the interest of governments, the
rise of entrepreneurship programs has been fueled by an
unprecedented student demand for an education that pro-
vides the skills needed to succeed in an increasingly diver-
gent business environment (Cooper, Bottomley, & Gordon,
2004). In response, educational institutions have implement-
ed learning activities associated with entrepreneurship such
as lectures on business concepts, business-planning competi-
tions, interaction with practitioners, and networking events
(Al-Laham, Souitaris, & Zerbinati, 2007). As a consequence
of an increasing demand, entrepreneurship education within
higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion
(Green & Rice, 2007). In the U.S., the number of universities
reporting courses in entrepreneurship grew from 300 in the
early 1980s to 1,050 in 1990 (Dickson, Solomon, & Weaver,
2008). The number of entrepreneurship courses that col-
leges and universities offer, grew from less than ten in 1970
(Kuratko, 2005) to over 2,000 in 2008 (Cone, 2008).
Even though energy and resources dedicated to study how
entrepreneurship is taught, entrepreneurship education is
still in its infancy (Carayannis, Evans, & Hanson, 2003). Sev-
eral reasons may explain why entrepreneurship education
has shown little progress in term of fnding what should in-
form teaching practice. Bechard & Gregoire, (2005) identi-
fed some of those reasons: (a) the need of the feld for le-
gitimacy relegates entrepreneurship teaching to a secondary
place, (b) entrepreneurship education does not generate the
same professional rewards as research in business, (c) the
diffculty in pursuing interdisciplinary research, and (d) the
teaching is done mostly by non tenure track adjunct instruc-
tors are additional diffculties to advance entrepreneurship
education. In addition to that, the appropriate content for
entrepreneurship programs have remained under constant
discussion (Gibb, 2002). Fiet (2000) thinks that an important
reason underlying the different emphasis that entrepreneur-
ship instructors show, it is the eclectic nature of entrepre-
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J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
Literature Review
As a feld of study, entrepreneurship has been under perma-
nent debate about what should be its subject of study (Brush,
Manolova, & Edelman, 2008) (Brush et al., 2008). Given the
multidisciplinary feld of entrepreneurship, the content cov-
ered in most entrepreneurship courses is far reaching. In
an effort to provide a framework to classify entrepreneur-
ship education goals, Jamieson (1984) proposed that teach-
ing goals in entrepreneurship education should be organized
into three major categories: (a) education about enterprises,
(b) education for enterprise, and (c) education in enterprise.
Education about enterprises deals with awareness creation
and would educate students about theories of how busi-
nesses are created and managed. Education for enterprise
deals with the possibility of having a career as an entrepre-
neur and encourages students to start their own business:
“Participants are taught the practical skills required for small
business set-up and management, and the courses are often
geared toward the preparation of a business plan” (Henry
et al., 2005 p.102.). Education in enterprise “deals with man-
agement training for established entrepreneurs and focuses
on ensuring the growth and future development of the busi-
ness” (p.102).
Hills (1988) surveyed 15 entrepreneurship educators in the
U.S. to identify which objectives in entrepreneurship educa-
tion they pursue. Hills (1988) found that entrepreneurship
educators propose two major objectives: (a) increase aware-
ness of entrepreneurship as a career option and (b) increase
understanding of the process of creating a new business.
Based on a survey of deans at 750 business schools and 226
engineering schools, (Vesper & Gartner, 1997) summarized
descriptions of courses at 177 four-year colleges and univer-
sities both inside and outside the U.S. Vesper and Gartner
(1997) found that the standard entrepreneurship course in
1994 used teaching methods such as case studies, speak-
ers, lectures, texts, and the writing of venture plans, both
individually and as a team, often followed by judging panels
including outside professionals for continual feedback (Ves-
per & Gartner, 1997).
Garavan & O’Cinneide, (1994) posited that the teaching
goals for entrepreneurship education should be to undo the
risk-adverse bias of analytical techniques, develop empathy
for the unique aspect of entrepreneurship, encourage a posi-
tive attitude toward change, and stimulate entrepreneurial
intention. Garavan and O’Cinneide (1994) differentiated be-
tween education for business creation and education for ex-
isting business. In regards to education for existing business,
three subtypes of business education can be distinguished:
(a) small business awareness, which aims to increase the
number of people who are suffciently knowledgeable about
small business to consider it an option at some point in life;
The study utilized criterion and maximum variation sampling
strategies (Patton, 2001). Criterion sampling involves select-
ing cases that meet predetermined criteria of importance
(Patton, 2001). The criteria for inclusion in this study were
(a) teaching at least one entrepreneurship course in one
academic year, (b) teaching either at an engineering school
or at a business school, and (c) holding a terminal degree. A
criterion for exclusion is teaching only at the doctoral level.
The reason to exclude instructors who teach at doctoral
level only is that most doctoral programs are designed to
develop research skills and not entrepreneurial skills which
are the focus of this study. For the same reason, instructors
in the sample need to be active as teachers and not solely
as administrators who are no longer in the classroom, even
though they might identify themselves as entrepreneurship
instructors.
Three types of data were collected from each instructor:
(a) documents, such as CVs and syllabi. (b) Surveys, such as
the Teaching Goal Inventory (Angelo & Cross, 1993) and (c)
Interviews. Using a semi-structured guide, the participants
were asked about their defnitions of entrepreneurship,
educational program, backgrounds, work experience, beliefs
about entrepreneurial learning, and how they select teach-
ing goals for an entrepreneurship course. Eight cases were
included: four instructors who taught entrepreneurship at a
business school and four instructors who taught entrepre-
neurship at an engineering school.
To analyze the data, a coding system was developed from the
interview transcripts and documents. To develop a coding
system, chunks of text that represent a concept or a theme
were identifed within transcripts and documents. Within
and across case analysis was performed before to present
conclusion to the key informant and to a committee of ex-
perts. The key informant revised each case draft. The analysis
looked for patterns that provided information about teach-
ing goals of entrepreneurship instructors.
In order to improve construct and internal validity, the study
used several sources of data (interviews, Teaching Goals In-
ventory reports, CVs, and syllabi) (Merriam, 2002; Yin, 2003).
In addition to that, rich descriptions of the participants and
their experiences are provided to achieve external validity
(Berg, 2001). Rich descriptions allowed the transfer of fnd-
ings to other contexts. Finally, fndings were compared with
previous literature about how instructors selected teaching
goals in other educational settings. Because this is a qualita-
tive study, the intention was to be analytic and descriptive
about the eight cases included rather than to generalize to
all higher education entrepreneurship instructors.
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Journal of Technology Management & Innovation © Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Facultad de Economía y Negocios.
J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
was taught at most entrepreneurship programs, there is still
a question about whether the contents under that course’s
name were similar across instructors. A Business Plan De-
velopment course is designed to help students to develop
an effective written implementation plan for a new business
venture. The course deals, in general, with the critical de-
cisions and actions that entrepreneurs must make in both
planning and executing a new venture (Finkle, 2006).
Results
Syllabi, transcripts, and the Teaching Goals Inventory (TGI)
provided data to explore the types of goals instructors try
to accomplish and what might be related to their teach-
ing choices. The TGI categorizes teaching goals into six goal
clusters: (a) higher order thinking skills, (b) basic academic
success skills, (c) discipline specifc knowledge and skills, (d)
liberal arts and academic values, (d) work and career prepa-
ration, and (e) personal development.
The TGI is an instrument designed to identify the teach-
ing goals that instructors consider essentials for a specifc
course. TGI scores provided evidence to suggest that entre-
preneurship instructors present some consistency in their
preferred teaching goals. Higher order thinking skills and
leadership were the teaching goals that instructors reported
most important for their classes.The higher order thinking
skills’ cluster focuses on developing students’ abilities to syn-
thesize and integrate information and ideas to solve prob-
lems (Angelo & Cross, 1993). This cluster refers principally
to problem solving skills and it will be labeled as the problem
solving cluster. The work and career preparation cluster refers
to the student’s ability to work with others productively.
Skills such as “develop leadership skills,” “improve ability to
organize and use time effectively”, “develop management
skills” or “develop a commitment to personal achievement”
are some of the items in this cluster (p. 21). Since the work
and career preparation cluster refers to management skills,
it will be identifed through this article as managerial skills.
After a general view of what goals instructors rated as more
important, different grouping were tested to check if specifc
groups of instructors might look notoriously similar or dif-
ferent in term of preferred teaching goals. After grouping
instructors by teaching appointment, academic background,
and similar levels of teaching experience, it was found that
similar preferences of teaching goals could be observed.
Based on TGI scores, instructors with teaching appoint-
ments in business schools as well as instructors with more
teaching experience had similar teaching goals. Instructors
at business departments preferred goals related to mana-
gerial skills and problem solving while instructors teaching
at engineering schools considered problem-solving skills as
more important.
(b) small business education, which aims to provide practi-
cal help to those seeking to make the transition toward
self-employment; and (c) continuing small business education,
which is designed to enable people to enhance and update
their skills to run a business (Garavan & O’Cinneide, 1994).
Béchard and Toulouse (1998) identifed four types of general
teaching goals for entrepreneurship education: (a) entrepre-
neurship awareness, (b) business creation, (c) small business
development and (d) training of trainers. Programs seeking
to create entrepreneurship awareness provide general in-
formation about entrepreneurship and ask the audience to
refect on entrepreneurship as a career. Business creation
programs train students in technical, human, and managerial
skills to create a business. Small business development pro-
grams usually are created to match specifc learning needs of
small business owners. Training of trainers’ type of programs
teaches educators skills to do consulting, education, and fol-
low up of small business.
Little consistency about what goals they should accomplish
was found on the literature about entrepreneurship. Most
instructors reporting their teaching activities in scholarly
literature do not state what they are trying to accomplish
through their classes. Even though previous work in entre-
preneurship education has pointed out the existence of sev-
eral possible teaching goals in entrepreneurship courses (i.e.
Béchard and Toulouse, 1998; Garavan & O’Cinneide, 1994;
Hills, 1988), most articles within the topic simply describe
what they did without further consideration of the goals
behind the teaching activities described (e.g Rae & Craswell,
2000; Cope, 2003; Rae, 2004; (Shepherd, 2004)).
In 1994, a research project sponsored by the Kauffman Foun-
dation, surveyed a panel of 170 frms (making between fve
and twenty million in sales) about what the learning needs
of entrepreneurs are at different stages of the venture. This
study sought to know what kind of practical knowledge was
useful to run a business. Entrepreneurs were asked to rank,
from one (least) to seven (most), the importance of four
type of content: (a) fnance, (b) marketing, (c) human re-
sources and (d) growth management. The results yielded the
following average needs: fnance (5.193), marketing (4.857),
human resources (4.876) and growth management (4.739)
(Sexton, Upton, Wacholtz, & McDougall, 1997).
There are some studies (i.e., Finkle 2006; Solomon 2007)
that depict what is the state of the art in entrepreneur-
ship education. In 2006, Finkle surveyed 94 entrepreneur-
ship programs across the U.S. asking what courses were
included in their programs. Finkle (2006) found that 39% of
the entrepreneurship programs surveyed offered a course
called Business Plan Development, 33% offered Introduction
to Entrepreneurship, 22% Entrepreneurial Finance, and 12%
Entrepreneurial Marketing. While the Business Plan class
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Scored on the TGI also showed that teaching experience
and teaching appointment related to the type of goals that
instructors preferred. It seems that as instructors assume
more responsibilities in teaching entrepreneurship they train
themself to learn how and what to teach. More experienced
instructors had participated more in students business plan
contest and knew better the specialized website in the feld
(i.e. Kauffman Foundation, GEM, Stanford e-corner). In the
process of looking for information about how to teach en-
trepreneurship, instructors adopt similar teaching practices
that other colleges nationwide.
In regards of teaching appointment, this might be related to
teaching goals because instructors adapt their goals to the
type of students they teach. For instance, if instructors be-
lieved that students’ learning needs were to success within
the corporate world, then they received a more inspira-
tional education. On the contrary, if students showed high
potential to become entrepreneurs soon, then instructors
focused more on real business creation. The entrepreneur-
ship education focused on business creation had as a fnal
teaching goal to evaluate ideas and leverage resources to
start a business. The inspiration type of entrepreneurship
education focused on how to think entrepreneurially in any
thing the students does.
Across Case Analysis
The raw data for each group was analyzed. The goal was
to understand instructors’ selection of teaching goals. To
come up with fnding a codebook was developed and each
codes was reviewed case by case and across case. Two major
themes were identifed after the coding and the subsequent
analysis: (a) entrepreneurship education is not only about
business creation, and (b) learning needs determine teaching
goals. The following section explains each theme and devel-
ops some implications.
Entrepreneurship education is not only about business creation
Teaching goals in this group of instructors can be divided
in two: (a) business creation or (b) inspiration. Whether
instructors teach one or another depend on the audience
they are training. If professors identify potential in the stu-
dent business idea, they conceived the business plan and its
implementation as the fnal goal of the course. If professors
consider that the students’ insights do not have the poten-
tial to create value for the society they use business creation
as a mean to develop entrepreneurial skills. For some pro-
fessors, the creation of a business is a major product of their
courses. For others, the creation of a business is the mean
to develop entrepreneurial skills. Daniel, Hector, Bob, and
Ken, when teaching to students whose insight have potential
to become a real business, their teaching goal was to craft a
Problem solving skills and managerial skills were the two
clusters that received more preferences by the instructors
studied. However, instructors teaching at engineering school
did not emphasized managerial skills as much as business
instructors did. It seems that, some instructors provided a
slightly different entrepreneurship education than others.
For instance, Daniel and Ken who taught in a business school
at the time of the interview in 2010, used to teach in en-
gineering schools. Daniel and Ken reported to emphasize
different teaching goals at engineering schools adapting their
goals to the interest and capacities of the students.
[My former institution was] an engineering school, and so
many [students] came into the class with the germ of an
idea, but they didn’t know think about commercializing it or
monetizing that idea, and so, a lot of what I focused on at
the entrepreneurship class at xxxx Tech is how you turn an
opportunity, how you think of it from a commercialization
standpoint. So, how do you take it from this idea of this geek
technology to thinking about how do we really build a busi-
ness around that? (Daniel, 748-754)
I mean I would say one thing about [my current students],
again, goes a little bit away from my background is they’re
less focused on technology than other students I’ve had at
xxxxxx or at xxxxx just because of their background and
the things they are interested in. They don’t typically -- I
haven’t been able to get them real excited about technology
ventures. They’re mostly looking at sort of service ventures
that you might expect [in this city] type of market (Ken,
261-266).
Daniel and Ken modifed their teaching goal depending on
the characteristics of the students being trained. When ana-
lyzed the data related to Bob and Hector, it is possible to
note that they teach different that the rest of the group. Bob
and Hector teach similar to what Daniel and Ken used to
do at engineering schools. That is to say, an education more
centered on business creation in contrast to an education
more centered on an entrepreneurial mindset.
Some instructors in the sample, such as Kathy and Donna
did not tie entrepreneurship education to the action of
business creation as, for instance, Bob and Hector did. Bob
and Hector, the two instructors teaching engineering stu-
dents, reported that starting a real company was part of the
course’ goals. The rest of the professors did not included
on their syllabus a real business creation. Hector ‘syllabus
included as a goal: apply venture opportunity screening tech-
niques to an actual start-up idea, and Bob’ syllabus included:
Those with ideas will learn how to attract a team and turn
ideas into reality.
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those courses is building a business around new technologi-
cal development and not looking at somebody who wants
to start a sandwich shop” (Hector, 96-104). Hector sought
for students who want to be entrepreneurs “if you think you
might want to be an entrepreneur, this is the course that
you would take” (Hector, 252) although he might have some
who “take the elective because it fts with their schedule”
(Hector, 262).
Daniel, Donna, and Ken taught entrepreneurship expecting
to help students perform better in the corporate world.
These instructors did not understand entrepreneurship ed-
ucation necessarily as a business creation. Entrepreneurship
for them was something beyond than starting a business; it
was the opportunity to integrate the different disciplines of
management and learn to think as an entrepreneur, which is
not the same as founding a company. Hector and Bob were
more pragmatic. Bob taught what students need to start
their business or to perform better as business founders.
To do that, Bob engaged alumni entrepreneurs or local en-
trepreneurs who could teach the topics students needed to
learn. Bob was teaching students how to create businesses.
We try to focus the class on students who either have iden-
tifed a problem but are looking for a team to help them fnd
the solution or that have an idea and don’t know how to
evaluate different possible ways of building business around
it (Bob, 98-107)
The analysis showed two types of teaching goals. Some in-
structors expect to teach students how to start a business,
others how to develop entrepreneurial skills to perform
better in the corporate world including skills such as crea-
tivity and leadership. After identifying these types of teaching
goals, the question became about what makes instructors to
emphasize a specifc teaching goal within an entrepreneur-
ship course. One important factor infuencing the type of
goals that this group of instructors pursued was the student
learning needs.
Students’ learning needs
Instructors’ teaching goals can be reviewed in the light of the
students demand for entrepreneurship education: there are
students seeking to learn how to think entrepreneurially to
succeed the corporate world and students seeking to be-
come self-employed. Between the groups who want to be-
come self-employed there are high potential entrepreneurs
(eventually serial entrepreneurs) and life style entrepreneurs.
Donna did not seem to be teaching high tech entrepreneur-
ship because her students were not great in technology nor
had the experience to start a business soon after gradua-
tion. Daniel, Ken, and Mary were teaching entrepreneurship
to students who most probably would go to the corporate
plan for a real business. When working with undergraduate
students whose more possible future will be to work for
a large corporation the teaching goal became to increase
students’ self-confdence to create value and legitimize en-
trepreneurship as a possible career path.
Daniel and Ken raised as a theme the fact that business
schools prepare people for the corporate world more than
anything else. Some of the students that take entrepreneur-
ship classes may start a business, but not soon after gradu-
ation. Therefore, these instructors adopt a different angle
for entrepreneurship education. As important as starting
a business, entrepreneurship courses is an opportunity to
integrate others’ disciplines, such as fnance, marketing and
general management. Entrepreneurship courses also offer a
window to teach how to manage organizations in the hectic
business environment of the 21st century. In addition to that,
entrepreneurship education is the opportunity to show that
entrepreneurship can be a legitimate path in the future. This
is Daniel view of entrepreneurship education.
At the undergraduate level, it’s much more inception. It is
I think frst and foremost to help them see entrepreneur-
ship as a legitimate career path. Because when they’re tak-
ing their accounting classes and they’re taking their fnancial
classes, primarily all that they get with this corporate life,
corporate work and that’s the only legitimate career. That
you go to work for a bank. You go to work for a Fortune 500
company. In the entrepreneurship classes, I want them to
come out of the class understanding that entrepreneurship
is a legitimate career path. And that while they may go work
in the corporate world for four, fve, or six years, that it is
very legitimate for them to have a long-term life plan that at
some point they will focus on starting their own businesses
(Daniel, 599-617).
The following quote refected Ken’s answer to the question
about what were his learning outcomes.
So to me, the balance with all these courses is giving them
some pragmatic skills that they can actually use particular-
ly because they’re seniors and they are going out into the
world. So in a way, we’re trying to apply all the different
things they’ve learned up until this point which I think is ap-
propriate particularly for these capstone experiences (Ken,
301-305).
As we can see in Ken’s quote, and in the following quote
from Daniel, these instructors were equally concerned for
the future performance of their students as employees as
well as entrepreneurs.
On the other hand, Hector prepares a class thinking in high
potential entrepreneurs. “So what they are looking for in
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J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
motivated. They want to get a good job so they tend to be
more pragmatic. They are more practical. Ken believes that
creative people tend to go in creative areas where they can
do creative things and people that are more pragmatic end
up majoring in more pragmatic things.
Daniel and Ken emphasized different teaching goals at en-
gineering and business schools, adapting their goals to the
interests and capacities of the students. Bob and Hector had
similar goals to those Daniel and Ken used to have at engi-
neering schools. Kathy and Donna, on the other hand, never
tied entrepreneurship to business creation.
Findings and Discussion
Business creation and general entrepreneurial skills were
found to be the extreme of a continuum where many teach-
ing goals may fall in between. Business creation had as a ma-
jor goal learning how to evaluate ideas and leverage resourc-
es to start a real business. General management and people
skills were targeted to teach how to think entrepreneurially
in anything a person does.
Instructors select teaching goals by paying attention pri-
marily to the learning needs and interests of the students.
For some instructors, the students taking entrepreneurship
classes will enter the corporate world soon after gradua-
tion. For them, instructors seek to develop an entrepreneur-
ial mindset that helps to succeed in the corporate world.
Other groups of students have the interests and abilities to
become business founders. For this group, instructors seek
to help them to start their own business.
To become entrepreneurs, individuals need two type of
knowledge: a breadth of knowledge about business and a
depth of knowledge about a technical discipline (Hampden-
Turner, 2010; Seelig, 2010). This is what McKinsey (2010)
has defned as the T-shaped people. A technical specializa-
tion that has been developed mainly through undergraduate
education is complemented by the horizontal appreciation
and understanding of other disciplines and a professional
context. Through postgraduate degrees and early career
experience, an appreciation and understanding of other dis-
ciplines is often developed. Tim Brown, CEO of design frm
IDEO described this ideal employee as a “specialist with a
passion and empathy for people and for other subject ar-
eas” (HEFCE, 2010, p.14). High impact entrepreneurs man-
age the technique (or know-how related to an industry) and
the skills to enact a vision that brings the beneft of that
technique or know-how to the people. The professional that
becomes an entrepreneur is a type T professional (Seeling,
2011; McKinsey, 2010). A breath of knowledge about busi-
ness composes the horizontal part of the T, and a depth of
knowledge in a technical discipline composes the vertical
part of the T.
world for six or seven years before to eventually become
entrepreneurs. Selma and Kathy were not teaching business
creation but other important skills that entrepreneurs seem
to have (creativity and leadership). Bon and Hector were
teaching high potential entrepreneurship.
Ken referred to the different types of entrepreneurship stu-
dents he has had along their career and how he adjusted to
those different realities.
I mean I would say one thing about my current students,
again, goes a little bit away from my background is they’re
less focused on technology than other students I’ve had at
University A or at University B just because of their back-
ground and the things they are interested in. I haven’t been
able to get them real excited about technology ventures
(Ken, 261-266).
Ken modifed their teaching goal depending on the char-
acteristics of the students. Students’ learning needs were
identifed as the most important infuencer of instructors
teaching goals. Instructors adapted their goals to the stu-
dents’ learning needs. For instance, if instructors believed
that students would work in the corporate world, then
their focus in the entrepreneurship curriculum was on gen-
eral skills teaching--those skills that entrepreneurs have that
make a positive difference for a corporate executive. On the
contrary, if the instructor believed that students were inter-
ested in starting a real company if they had the chance to do
it, the course focused on planning the business and meeting
potential investors.
Daniel and Ken, while teaching to high tech students focused
on business creation. But later in their careers, while teach-
ing undergraduate business students, they focused more on
entrepreneurial thinking and people skills. Ken distinguished
between engineering and business students: engineering stu-
dents are more creative and business students more prag-
matic. Engineers and managers need different emphasis in
entrepreneurship education. “Tech students can be very
creative in terms of the technology and everything, but they
don’t really understand the pragmatic aspects of how you
go about turning some cool technology into a real business”
(Ken, 637). Business students, however, understand the pro-
cess of building an organization because they have taken f-
nance, marketing, and accounting courses.
Ken pointed out a self-selection process between who de-
cides to major in business as an undergraduate. If someone
has skills like being great at technology, math, or science,
they will major in one of those things. The ones who want
to major in business tend to be kids that do not have one of
those particular skills or they are not great web designers
or good at computer coding but they are smart. They are
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schedule convenience would be very different than students
who think have a good product and take an entrepreneur-
ship class for the sake of learning whether they could launch
a business.
Implications for practice
This study was designed to understand instructors’ perspec-
tives and actions related to their teaching goals. Results sug-
gest that the group of instructors studied pursued two types
of profoundly diferent teaching goals. Some of them were
trying to teach how to start a sucessfully business while
another group was trying to develop entrepreneurial skills.
Those two tyopes of teaching goals have imporrtant implica-
tions in terms of pre selection of students, the mandatory or
voluntary character of the curriculum, and type of teaching
methods used. For instance, if the goals is to create busi-
ness students selected should be those with ideas with high
potential of sucess, the regimen should be voluntary (some
people may legimitately want to be a great employee), and
business plan as teaching methods would be a mean rather
than an end.
The instructors studied suggested that entrepreneurship
education complements the technical knowledge of high
technology students. Through entrepreneurship educa-
tion, high technology students became, to some extent, T-
shaped professionals. Undergraduate business students, on
the other hand, become T-shaped professionals after early
career experiences. Most undergraduate business students
will need 6 or 7 years of work experience before they have
a serious chance of succeeding as entrepreneurs. In contrast,
MBA students or graduate students who already have that
experience may have the real opportunity to start a business
during their graduate education. Once you are a T-shaped
professional, an entrepreneurship class could be a natural
place to give serious thought about starting a company.
This study suggests that, entrepreneurship instructors, con-
scious about the work experience needed by most under-
graduate students, adapt their teaching goals to inspire them,
hoping they gain experience to become entrepreneurs
someday. In this sense, business and technology students
may have a slightly difference, Technology students may have
the technical skills to overcome some market barriers of
entries. For them, entrepreneurship education becomes the
basis to develop the general business skills needed to create
a business around those technical skills.
In consequence, this study suggests that there is not one
type of entrepreneurship education; at least two types of
entrepreneurship education were identifed: (a) student
centered and (b) business centered. A student centered en-
trepreneurship education is targeted to students that are
preparing to go to the corporate world. Business centered
entrepreneurship education is targeted to those who need
to go through the process invention-innovation to a busi-
ness.
Business and engineering students usually have different ca-
reer paths. Business students are trained to become func-
tional managers (Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2008) and
most of them will spend their careers as such. Engineers
are trained to apply engineering sciences to the improve-
ment of products and processes. As such, they will have
chances to start businesses in more innovative industries,
with less competition and higher chances to succeed. U.S.-
born technology company founders tend to have diverse
educational backgrounds but the largest group (55%) had
terminal degrees in STEM-related felds (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics), and 33% had degrees in busi-
ness, fnance, and accounting (Wadhwa & Freeman, 2010).
Therefore, engineers are more likely to start a business
than undergraduate business students are. Entrepreneur-
ship instructors should consider this reality when selecting
teaching goals for entrepreneurship education. The learning
needs of students who take a 3-credit course because of
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doc_879286231.pdf
With this particular detail, resolve is business creation the mean or the end of entrepreneurship education.
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(1)1089 albor-
noz
J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2013, Volume 8, Issue 1
1
Universidad del Desarrollo, Av. La Plaza, 680, Las Condes. Santiago, Chile. Phone: 02 23279205. Email: [email protected].
2
Este trabajo se ha realizado bajo el apoyo del Proyecto Fondecyt Nº 11121458 “The Effect of Obligatory Entrepreneurship Education
on College Students”.
Received November 15, 2012 / Accepted Jan 07, 2013
Is Business Creation the Mean or the End of Entrepreneurship Education?
A Multiple Case Study Exploring Teaching Goals in
Entrepreneurship Education
2
Carlos Albornoz Pardo
1
Abstract
Entrepreneurship education within higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion in the last 20 years (Green
& Rice, 2007). However, entrepreneurship education is still in its infancy; professors propose diverse teaching goals and
radically different teaching methods. This represents an obstacle to development of foundational and consistent curricula
across the board (Cone, 2008). This study was designed to understand entrepreneurship instructor’s teaching goals.
Results suggest that the group of instructors studied pursued two types of profoundly different teaching goals. Some of
them were trying to teach how to start a successfully business while another group was trying to develop entrepreneurial
skills. Those two types of teaching goals have important implications in terms of pre selection of students, the mandatory
or voluntary character of the curriculum, and type of teaching methods used. For instance, if the goal is to create business,
students should be selected according to the potential of their ideas, the regimen should be voluntary (students legitimately
may want to become great employees), and business plan as teaching methods should be understood a mean rather than
an end.
Keywords: entrepreneurship education; teaching goals; teaching methods; entrepreneurial skills; potential.
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neurship as a discipline. With the exception of discovery/
idea generation, most topics included in entrepreneurship
education comes from the established literature of other
disciplines (Fiet, 2000). Motivated in overcoming some barri-
ers related to the teaching practice, Professor Fiet gathered
18 instructors at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to dis-
cuss the learning aspects of entrepreneurship education. The
retreat’s participants shared their syllabi to analyze the top-
ics they covered. One of the conclusions of this meeting was
that content covered was diverse and that entrepreneur-
ship instructors are highly infuenced by their own research
streams when choosing content for their classes (Fiet, 2000).
Six leading topical areas were identifed as the content usu-
ally included in entrepreneurship classes: (a) strategy/com-
petitive analysis, (b) managing growth, (c) discovery/idea gen-
eration, (d) risk and rationality, (e) fnancing, and (f) creativity.
The range of contents considered important by those entre-
preneurship instructors was diverse.
Fiet (2000) suggested that three possible elements could
infuence instructors’ selection of content: (a) academic au-
tobiography, (b) lack of theoretical rigor, and (c) entrepre-
neurship textbooks. Fifteen out of the eighteen instructors
participating in the retreat used reading packets, which is a
symptom that they are not satisfed with textbooks; how-
ever, there was little agreement on what should be included
in the course-reading packet (Fiet, 2000).
There is abundant literature reporting that entrepreneurship
instructors teach different things under the same umbrella
of entrepreneurship courses (Van der Sluis, Van Praag, & Vi-
jverberg, 2008; Weaver, Dickson, & Solomon, 2005). In spite
of this shared diagnosis, little is know about the expected
outcomes and intentions of entrepreneurship instructors.
The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze in
depth what entrepreneurship instructors wants students in
their courses to learn. Before making any appraisal about
the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education we need
to understand what are the teaching goals of entrepreneur-
ship educators and why they pursue those. The research
question guiding this study was: How do higher education
instructors select teaching goals to teach entrepreneurship?
Method
A multiple case study design was appropriate for this re-
search because it facilitates understanding instructors’ per-
spectives and actions related to their selection of goals. The
population for this study consisted of college and university
instructors who teach entrepreneurship. Alan Carsrud, one
of the most cited authors in entrepreneurship (Reader &
Watkins, 2006), was the key informant to fnd the instruc-
tors for this study.
Introduction
Along with the accumulation of evidence supporting the
role of entrepreneurship in economic development (Acs,
2002; Kuratko, 2005; Reynolds et al., 2005), governments
have persisted in encouraging people to become entrepre-
neurs (Brannback & Carsrud, 2009). In Australia, the Federal
Government invested $2.9 billion in 2001 to include a cul-
ture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the educational
system (Jones, 2007). The Kauffman Foundation donated $40
million in 2003 to make entrepreneurship education avail-
able across U.S. university campuses (Kauffman Foundation,
2009). In Chile, 4 million US dollars were allocated in 2011
to fund entrepreneurship education programs. These efforts
tried to reproduce the conditions under which entrepre-
neurship emerges; one of these conditions is the existence
of entrepreneurial skills among students and scientists (Phan
& Foo, 2004). In addition to the interest of governments, the
rise of entrepreneurship programs has been fueled by an
unprecedented student demand for an education that pro-
vides the skills needed to succeed in an increasingly diver-
gent business environment (Cooper, Bottomley, & Gordon,
2004). In response, educational institutions have implement-
ed learning activities associated with entrepreneurship such
as lectures on business concepts, business-planning competi-
tions, interaction with practitioners, and networking events
(Al-Laham, Souitaris, & Zerbinati, 2007). As a consequence
of an increasing demand, entrepreneurship education within
higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion
(Green & Rice, 2007). In the U.S., the number of universities
reporting courses in entrepreneurship grew from 300 in the
early 1980s to 1,050 in 1990 (Dickson, Solomon, & Weaver,
2008). The number of entrepreneurship courses that col-
leges and universities offer, grew from less than ten in 1970
(Kuratko, 2005) to over 2,000 in 2008 (Cone, 2008).
Even though energy and resources dedicated to study how
entrepreneurship is taught, entrepreneurship education is
still in its infancy (Carayannis, Evans, & Hanson, 2003). Sev-
eral reasons may explain why entrepreneurship education
has shown little progress in term of fnding what should in-
form teaching practice. Bechard & Gregoire, (2005) identi-
fed some of those reasons: (a) the need of the feld for le-
gitimacy relegates entrepreneurship teaching to a secondary
place, (b) entrepreneurship education does not generate the
same professional rewards as research in business, (c) the
diffculty in pursuing interdisciplinary research, and (d) the
teaching is done mostly by non tenure track adjunct instruc-
tors are additional diffculties to advance entrepreneurship
education. In addition to that, the appropriate content for
entrepreneurship programs have remained under constant
discussion (Gibb, 2002). Fiet (2000) thinks that an important
reason underlying the different emphasis that entrepreneur-
ship instructors show, it is the eclectic nature of entrepre-
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Literature Review
As a feld of study, entrepreneurship has been under perma-
nent debate about what should be its subject of study (Brush,
Manolova, & Edelman, 2008) (Brush et al., 2008). Given the
multidisciplinary feld of entrepreneurship, the content cov-
ered in most entrepreneurship courses is far reaching. In
an effort to provide a framework to classify entrepreneur-
ship education goals, Jamieson (1984) proposed that teach-
ing goals in entrepreneurship education should be organized
into three major categories: (a) education about enterprises,
(b) education for enterprise, and (c) education in enterprise.
Education about enterprises deals with awareness creation
and would educate students about theories of how busi-
nesses are created and managed. Education for enterprise
deals with the possibility of having a career as an entrepre-
neur and encourages students to start their own business:
“Participants are taught the practical skills required for small
business set-up and management, and the courses are often
geared toward the preparation of a business plan” (Henry
et al., 2005 p.102.). Education in enterprise “deals with man-
agement training for established entrepreneurs and focuses
on ensuring the growth and future development of the busi-
ness” (p.102).
Hills (1988) surveyed 15 entrepreneurship educators in the
U.S. to identify which objectives in entrepreneurship educa-
tion they pursue. Hills (1988) found that entrepreneurship
educators propose two major objectives: (a) increase aware-
ness of entrepreneurship as a career option and (b) increase
understanding of the process of creating a new business.
Based on a survey of deans at 750 business schools and 226
engineering schools, (Vesper & Gartner, 1997) summarized
descriptions of courses at 177 four-year colleges and univer-
sities both inside and outside the U.S. Vesper and Gartner
(1997) found that the standard entrepreneurship course in
1994 used teaching methods such as case studies, speak-
ers, lectures, texts, and the writing of venture plans, both
individually and as a team, often followed by judging panels
including outside professionals for continual feedback (Ves-
per & Gartner, 1997).
Garavan & O’Cinneide, (1994) posited that the teaching
goals for entrepreneurship education should be to undo the
risk-adverse bias of analytical techniques, develop empathy
for the unique aspect of entrepreneurship, encourage a posi-
tive attitude toward change, and stimulate entrepreneurial
intention. Garavan and O’Cinneide (1994) differentiated be-
tween education for business creation and education for ex-
isting business. In regards to education for existing business,
three subtypes of business education can be distinguished:
(a) small business awareness, which aims to increase the
number of people who are suffciently knowledgeable about
small business to consider it an option at some point in life;
The study utilized criterion and maximum variation sampling
strategies (Patton, 2001). Criterion sampling involves select-
ing cases that meet predetermined criteria of importance
(Patton, 2001). The criteria for inclusion in this study were
(a) teaching at least one entrepreneurship course in one
academic year, (b) teaching either at an engineering school
or at a business school, and (c) holding a terminal degree. A
criterion for exclusion is teaching only at the doctoral level.
The reason to exclude instructors who teach at doctoral
level only is that most doctoral programs are designed to
develop research skills and not entrepreneurial skills which
are the focus of this study. For the same reason, instructors
in the sample need to be active as teachers and not solely
as administrators who are no longer in the classroom, even
though they might identify themselves as entrepreneurship
instructors.
Three types of data were collected from each instructor:
(a) documents, such as CVs and syllabi. (b) Surveys, such as
the Teaching Goal Inventory (Angelo & Cross, 1993) and (c)
Interviews. Using a semi-structured guide, the participants
were asked about their defnitions of entrepreneurship,
educational program, backgrounds, work experience, beliefs
about entrepreneurial learning, and how they select teach-
ing goals for an entrepreneurship course. Eight cases were
included: four instructors who taught entrepreneurship at a
business school and four instructors who taught entrepre-
neurship at an engineering school.
To analyze the data, a coding system was developed from the
interview transcripts and documents. To develop a coding
system, chunks of text that represent a concept or a theme
were identifed within transcripts and documents. Within
and across case analysis was performed before to present
conclusion to the key informant and to a committee of ex-
perts. The key informant revised each case draft. The analysis
looked for patterns that provided information about teach-
ing goals of entrepreneurship instructors.
In order to improve construct and internal validity, the study
used several sources of data (interviews, Teaching Goals In-
ventory reports, CVs, and syllabi) (Merriam, 2002; Yin, 2003).
In addition to that, rich descriptions of the participants and
their experiences are provided to achieve external validity
(Berg, 2001). Rich descriptions allowed the transfer of fnd-
ings to other contexts. Finally, fndings were compared with
previous literature about how instructors selected teaching
goals in other educational settings. Because this is a qualita-
tive study, the intention was to be analytic and descriptive
about the eight cases included rather than to generalize to
all higher education entrepreneurship instructors.
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was taught at most entrepreneurship programs, there is still
a question about whether the contents under that course’s
name were similar across instructors. A Business Plan De-
velopment course is designed to help students to develop
an effective written implementation plan for a new business
venture. The course deals, in general, with the critical de-
cisions and actions that entrepreneurs must make in both
planning and executing a new venture (Finkle, 2006).
Results
Syllabi, transcripts, and the Teaching Goals Inventory (TGI)
provided data to explore the types of goals instructors try
to accomplish and what might be related to their teach-
ing choices. The TGI categorizes teaching goals into six goal
clusters: (a) higher order thinking skills, (b) basic academic
success skills, (c) discipline specifc knowledge and skills, (d)
liberal arts and academic values, (d) work and career prepa-
ration, and (e) personal development.
The TGI is an instrument designed to identify the teach-
ing goals that instructors consider essentials for a specifc
course. TGI scores provided evidence to suggest that entre-
preneurship instructors present some consistency in their
preferred teaching goals. Higher order thinking skills and
leadership were the teaching goals that instructors reported
most important for their classes.The higher order thinking
skills’ cluster focuses on developing students’ abilities to syn-
thesize and integrate information and ideas to solve prob-
lems (Angelo & Cross, 1993). This cluster refers principally
to problem solving skills and it will be labeled as the problem
solving cluster. The work and career preparation cluster refers
to the student’s ability to work with others productively.
Skills such as “develop leadership skills,” “improve ability to
organize and use time effectively”, “develop management
skills” or “develop a commitment to personal achievement”
are some of the items in this cluster (p. 21). Since the work
and career preparation cluster refers to management skills,
it will be identifed through this article as managerial skills.
After a general view of what goals instructors rated as more
important, different grouping were tested to check if specifc
groups of instructors might look notoriously similar or dif-
ferent in term of preferred teaching goals. After grouping
instructors by teaching appointment, academic background,
and similar levels of teaching experience, it was found that
similar preferences of teaching goals could be observed.
Based on TGI scores, instructors with teaching appoint-
ments in business schools as well as instructors with more
teaching experience had similar teaching goals. Instructors
at business departments preferred goals related to mana-
gerial skills and problem solving while instructors teaching
at engineering schools considered problem-solving skills as
more important.
(b) small business education, which aims to provide practi-
cal help to those seeking to make the transition toward
self-employment; and (c) continuing small business education,
which is designed to enable people to enhance and update
their skills to run a business (Garavan & O’Cinneide, 1994).
Béchard and Toulouse (1998) identifed four types of general
teaching goals for entrepreneurship education: (a) entrepre-
neurship awareness, (b) business creation, (c) small business
development and (d) training of trainers. Programs seeking
to create entrepreneurship awareness provide general in-
formation about entrepreneurship and ask the audience to
refect on entrepreneurship as a career. Business creation
programs train students in technical, human, and managerial
skills to create a business. Small business development pro-
grams usually are created to match specifc learning needs of
small business owners. Training of trainers’ type of programs
teaches educators skills to do consulting, education, and fol-
low up of small business.
Little consistency about what goals they should accomplish
was found on the literature about entrepreneurship. Most
instructors reporting their teaching activities in scholarly
literature do not state what they are trying to accomplish
through their classes. Even though previous work in entre-
preneurship education has pointed out the existence of sev-
eral possible teaching goals in entrepreneurship courses (i.e.
Béchard and Toulouse, 1998; Garavan & O’Cinneide, 1994;
Hills, 1988), most articles within the topic simply describe
what they did without further consideration of the goals
behind the teaching activities described (e.g Rae & Craswell,
2000; Cope, 2003; Rae, 2004; (Shepherd, 2004)).
In 1994, a research project sponsored by the Kauffman Foun-
dation, surveyed a panel of 170 frms (making between fve
and twenty million in sales) about what the learning needs
of entrepreneurs are at different stages of the venture. This
study sought to know what kind of practical knowledge was
useful to run a business. Entrepreneurs were asked to rank,
from one (least) to seven (most), the importance of four
type of content: (a) fnance, (b) marketing, (c) human re-
sources and (d) growth management. The results yielded the
following average needs: fnance (5.193), marketing (4.857),
human resources (4.876) and growth management (4.739)
(Sexton, Upton, Wacholtz, & McDougall, 1997).
There are some studies (i.e., Finkle 2006; Solomon 2007)
that depict what is the state of the art in entrepreneur-
ship education. In 2006, Finkle surveyed 94 entrepreneur-
ship programs across the U.S. asking what courses were
included in their programs. Finkle (2006) found that 39% of
the entrepreneurship programs surveyed offered a course
called Business Plan Development, 33% offered Introduction
to Entrepreneurship, 22% Entrepreneurial Finance, and 12%
Entrepreneurial Marketing. While the Business Plan class
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Scored on the TGI also showed that teaching experience
and teaching appointment related to the type of goals that
instructors preferred. It seems that as instructors assume
more responsibilities in teaching entrepreneurship they train
themself to learn how and what to teach. More experienced
instructors had participated more in students business plan
contest and knew better the specialized website in the feld
(i.e. Kauffman Foundation, GEM, Stanford e-corner). In the
process of looking for information about how to teach en-
trepreneurship, instructors adopt similar teaching practices
that other colleges nationwide.
In regards of teaching appointment, this might be related to
teaching goals because instructors adapt their goals to the
type of students they teach. For instance, if instructors be-
lieved that students’ learning needs were to success within
the corporate world, then they received a more inspira-
tional education. On the contrary, if students showed high
potential to become entrepreneurs soon, then instructors
focused more on real business creation. The entrepreneur-
ship education focused on business creation had as a fnal
teaching goal to evaluate ideas and leverage resources to
start a business. The inspiration type of entrepreneurship
education focused on how to think entrepreneurially in any
thing the students does.
Across Case Analysis
The raw data for each group was analyzed. The goal was
to understand instructors’ selection of teaching goals. To
come up with fnding a codebook was developed and each
codes was reviewed case by case and across case. Two major
themes were identifed after the coding and the subsequent
analysis: (a) entrepreneurship education is not only about
business creation, and (b) learning needs determine teaching
goals. The following section explains each theme and devel-
ops some implications.
Entrepreneurship education is not only about business creation
Teaching goals in this group of instructors can be divided
in two: (a) business creation or (b) inspiration. Whether
instructors teach one or another depend on the audience
they are training. If professors identify potential in the stu-
dent business idea, they conceived the business plan and its
implementation as the fnal goal of the course. If professors
consider that the students’ insights do not have the poten-
tial to create value for the society they use business creation
as a mean to develop entrepreneurial skills. For some pro-
fessors, the creation of a business is a major product of their
courses. For others, the creation of a business is the mean
to develop entrepreneurial skills. Daniel, Hector, Bob, and
Ken, when teaching to students whose insight have potential
to become a real business, their teaching goal was to craft a
Problem solving skills and managerial skills were the two
clusters that received more preferences by the instructors
studied. However, instructors teaching at engineering school
did not emphasized managerial skills as much as business
instructors did. It seems that, some instructors provided a
slightly different entrepreneurship education than others.
For instance, Daniel and Ken who taught in a business school
at the time of the interview in 2010, used to teach in en-
gineering schools. Daniel and Ken reported to emphasize
different teaching goals at engineering schools adapting their
goals to the interest and capacities of the students.
[My former institution was] an engineering school, and so
many [students] came into the class with the germ of an
idea, but they didn’t know think about commercializing it or
monetizing that idea, and so, a lot of what I focused on at
the entrepreneurship class at xxxx Tech is how you turn an
opportunity, how you think of it from a commercialization
standpoint. So, how do you take it from this idea of this geek
technology to thinking about how do we really build a busi-
ness around that? (Daniel, 748-754)
I mean I would say one thing about [my current students],
again, goes a little bit away from my background is they’re
less focused on technology than other students I’ve had at
xxxxxx or at xxxxx just because of their background and
the things they are interested in. They don’t typically -- I
haven’t been able to get them real excited about technology
ventures. They’re mostly looking at sort of service ventures
that you might expect [in this city] type of market (Ken,
261-266).
Daniel and Ken modifed their teaching goal depending on
the characteristics of the students being trained. When ana-
lyzed the data related to Bob and Hector, it is possible to
note that they teach different that the rest of the group. Bob
and Hector teach similar to what Daniel and Ken used to
do at engineering schools. That is to say, an education more
centered on business creation in contrast to an education
more centered on an entrepreneurial mindset.
Some instructors in the sample, such as Kathy and Donna
did not tie entrepreneurship education to the action of
business creation as, for instance, Bob and Hector did. Bob
and Hector, the two instructors teaching engineering stu-
dents, reported that starting a real company was part of the
course’ goals. The rest of the professors did not included
on their syllabus a real business creation. Hector ‘syllabus
included as a goal: apply venture opportunity screening tech-
niques to an actual start-up idea, and Bob’ syllabus included:
Those with ideas will learn how to attract a team and turn
ideas into reality.
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those courses is building a business around new technologi-
cal development and not looking at somebody who wants
to start a sandwich shop” (Hector, 96-104). Hector sought
for students who want to be entrepreneurs “if you think you
might want to be an entrepreneur, this is the course that
you would take” (Hector, 252) although he might have some
who “take the elective because it fts with their schedule”
(Hector, 262).
Daniel, Donna, and Ken taught entrepreneurship expecting
to help students perform better in the corporate world.
These instructors did not understand entrepreneurship ed-
ucation necessarily as a business creation. Entrepreneurship
for them was something beyond than starting a business; it
was the opportunity to integrate the different disciplines of
management and learn to think as an entrepreneur, which is
not the same as founding a company. Hector and Bob were
more pragmatic. Bob taught what students need to start
their business or to perform better as business founders.
To do that, Bob engaged alumni entrepreneurs or local en-
trepreneurs who could teach the topics students needed to
learn. Bob was teaching students how to create businesses.
We try to focus the class on students who either have iden-
tifed a problem but are looking for a team to help them fnd
the solution or that have an idea and don’t know how to
evaluate different possible ways of building business around
it (Bob, 98-107)
The analysis showed two types of teaching goals. Some in-
structors expect to teach students how to start a business,
others how to develop entrepreneurial skills to perform
better in the corporate world including skills such as crea-
tivity and leadership. After identifying these types of teaching
goals, the question became about what makes instructors to
emphasize a specifc teaching goal within an entrepreneur-
ship course. One important factor infuencing the type of
goals that this group of instructors pursued was the student
learning needs.
Students’ learning needs
Instructors’ teaching goals can be reviewed in the light of the
students demand for entrepreneurship education: there are
students seeking to learn how to think entrepreneurially to
succeed the corporate world and students seeking to be-
come self-employed. Between the groups who want to be-
come self-employed there are high potential entrepreneurs
(eventually serial entrepreneurs) and life style entrepreneurs.
Donna did not seem to be teaching high tech entrepreneur-
ship because her students were not great in technology nor
had the experience to start a business soon after gradua-
tion. Daniel, Ken, and Mary were teaching entrepreneurship
to students who most probably would go to the corporate
plan for a real business. When working with undergraduate
students whose more possible future will be to work for
a large corporation the teaching goal became to increase
students’ self-confdence to create value and legitimize en-
trepreneurship as a possible career path.
Daniel and Ken raised as a theme the fact that business
schools prepare people for the corporate world more than
anything else. Some of the students that take entrepreneur-
ship classes may start a business, but not soon after gradu-
ation. Therefore, these instructors adopt a different angle
for entrepreneurship education. As important as starting
a business, entrepreneurship courses is an opportunity to
integrate others’ disciplines, such as fnance, marketing and
general management. Entrepreneurship courses also offer a
window to teach how to manage organizations in the hectic
business environment of the 21st century. In addition to that,
entrepreneurship education is the opportunity to show that
entrepreneurship can be a legitimate path in the future. This
is Daniel view of entrepreneurship education.
At the undergraduate level, it’s much more inception. It is
I think frst and foremost to help them see entrepreneur-
ship as a legitimate career path. Because when they’re tak-
ing their accounting classes and they’re taking their fnancial
classes, primarily all that they get with this corporate life,
corporate work and that’s the only legitimate career. That
you go to work for a bank. You go to work for a Fortune 500
company. In the entrepreneurship classes, I want them to
come out of the class understanding that entrepreneurship
is a legitimate career path. And that while they may go work
in the corporate world for four, fve, or six years, that it is
very legitimate for them to have a long-term life plan that at
some point they will focus on starting their own businesses
(Daniel, 599-617).
The following quote refected Ken’s answer to the question
about what were his learning outcomes.
So to me, the balance with all these courses is giving them
some pragmatic skills that they can actually use particular-
ly because they’re seniors and they are going out into the
world. So in a way, we’re trying to apply all the different
things they’ve learned up until this point which I think is ap-
propriate particularly for these capstone experiences (Ken,
301-305).
As we can see in Ken’s quote, and in the following quote
from Daniel, these instructors were equally concerned for
the future performance of their students as employees as
well as entrepreneurs.
On the other hand, Hector prepares a class thinking in high
potential entrepreneurs. “So what they are looking for in
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motivated. They want to get a good job so they tend to be
more pragmatic. They are more practical. Ken believes that
creative people tend to go in creative areas where they can
do creative things and people that are more pragmatic end
up majoring in more pragmatic things.
Daniel and Ken emphasized different teaching goals at en-
gineering and business schools, adapting their goals to the
interests and capacities of the students. Bob and Hector had
similar goals to those Daniel and Ken used to have at engi-
neering schools. Kathy and Donna, on the other hand, never
tied entrepreneurship to business creation.
Findings and Discussion
Business creation and general entrepreneurial skills were
found to be the extreme of a continuum where many teach-
ing goals may fall in between. Business creation had as a ma-
jor goal learning how to evaluate ideas and leverage resourc-
es to start a real business. General management and people
skills were targeted to teach how to think entrepreneurially
in anything a person does.
Instructors select teaching goals by paying attention pri-
marily to the learning needs and interests of the students.
For some instructors, the students taking entrepreneurship
classes will enter the corporate world soon after gradua-
tion. For them, instructors seek to develop an entrepreneur-
ial mindset that helps to succeed in the corporate world.
Other groups of students have the interests and abilities to
become business founders. For this group, instructors seek
to help them to start their own business.
To become entrepreneurs, individuals need two type of
knowledge: a breadth of knowledge about business and a
depth of knowledge about a technical discipline (Hampden-
Turner, 2010; Seelig, 2010). This is what McKinsey (2010)
has defned as the T-shaped people. A technical specializa-
tion that has been developed mainly through undergraduate
education is complemented by the horizontal appreciation
and understanding of other disciplines and a professional
context. Through postgraduate degrees and early career
experience, an appreciation and understanding of other dis-
ciplines is often developed. Tim Brown, CEO of design frm
IDEO described this ideal employee as a “specialist with a
passion and empathy for people and for other subject ar-
eas” (HEFCE, 2010, p.14). High impact entrepreneurs man-
age the technique (or know-how related to an industry) and
the skills to enact a vision that brings the beneft of that
technique or know-how to the people. The professional that
becomes an entrepreneur is a type T professional (Seeling,
2011; McKinsey, 2010). A breath of knowledge about busi-
ness composes the horizontal part of the T, and a depth of
knowledge in a technical discipline composes the vertical
part of the T.
world for six or seven years before to eventually become
entrepreneurs. Selma and Kathy were not teaching business
creation but other important skills that entrepreneurs seem
to have (creativity and leadership). Bon and Hector were
teaching high potential entrepreneurship.
Ken referred to the different types of entrepreneurship stu-
dents he has had along their career and how he adjusted to
those different realities.
I mean I would say one thing about my current students,
again, goes a little bit away from my background is they’re
less focused on technology than other students I’ve had at
University A or at University B just because of their back-
ground and the things they are interested in. I haven’t been
able to get them real excited about technology ventures
(Ken, 261-266).
Ken modifed their teaching goal depending on the char-
acteristics of the students. Students’ learning needs were
identifed as the most important infuencer of instructors
teaching goals. Instructors adapted their goals to the stu-
dents’ learning needs. For instance, if instructors believed
that students would work in the corporate world, then
their focus in the entrepreneurship curriculum was on gen-
eral skills teaching--those skills that entrepreneurs have that
make a positive difference for a corporate executive. On the
contrary, if the instructor believed that students were inter-
ested in starting a real company if they had the chance to do
it, the course focused on planning the business and meeting
potential investors.
Daniel and Ken, while teaching to high tech students focused
on business creation. But later in their careers, while teach-
ing undergraduate business students, they focused more on
entrepreneurial thinking and people skills. Ken distinguished
between engineering and business students: engineering stu-
dents are more creative and business students more prag-
matic. Engineers and managers need different emphasis in
entrepreneurship education. “Tech students can be very
creative in terms of the technology and everything, but they
don’t really understand the pragmatic aspects of how you
go about turning some cool technology into a real business”
(Ken, 637). Business students, however, understand the pro-
cess of building an organization because they have taken f-
nance, marketing, and accounting courses.
Ken pointed out a self-selection process between who de-
cides to major in business as an undergraduate. If someone
has skills like being great at technology, math, or science,
they will major in one of those things. The ones who want
to major in business tend to be kids that do not have one of
those particular skills or they are not great web designers
or good at computer coding but they are smart. They are
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schedule convenience would be very different than students
who think have a good product and take an entrepreneur-
ship class for the sake of learning whether they could launch
a business.
Implications for practice
This study was designed to understand instructors’ perspec-
tives and actions related to their teaching goals. Results sug-
gest that the group of instructors studied pursued two types
of profoundly diferent teaching goals. Some of them were
trying to teach how to start a sucessfully business while
another group was trying to develop entrepreneurial skills.
Those two tyopes of teaching goals have imporrtant implica-
tions in terms of pre selection of students, the mandatory or
voluntary character of the curriculum, and type of teaching
methods used. For instance, if the goals is to create busi-
ness students selected should be those with ideas with high
potential of sucess, the regimen should be voluntary (some
people may legimitately want to be a great employee), and
business plan as teaching methods would be a mean rather
than an end.
The instructors studied suggested that entrepreneurship
education complements the technical knowledge of high
technology students. Through entrepreneurship educa-
tion, high technology students became, to some extent, T-
shaped professionals. Undergraduate business students, on
the other hand, become T-shaped professionals after early
career experiences. Most undergraduate business students
will need 6 or 7 years of work experience before they have
a serious chance of succeeding as entrepreneurs. In contrast,
MBA students or graduate students who already have that
experience may have the real opportunity to start a business
during their graduate education. Once you are a T-shaped
professional, an entrepreneurship class could be a natural
place to give serious thought about starting a company.
This study suggests that, entrepreneurship instructors, con-
scious about the work experience needed by most under-
graduate students, adapt their teaching goals to inspire them,
hoping they gain experience to become entrepreneurs
someday. In this sense, business and technology students
may have a slightly difference, Technology students may have
the technical skills to overcome some market barriers of
entries. For them, entrepreneurship education becomes the
basis to develop the general business skills needed to create
a business around those technical skills.
In consequence, this study suggests that there is not one
type of entrepreneurship education; at least two types of
entrepreneurship education were identifed: (a) student
centered and (b) business centered. A student centered en-
trepreneurship education is targeted to students that are
preparing to go to the corporate world. Business centered
entrepreneurship education is targeted to those who need
to go through the process invention-innovation to a busi-
ness.
Business and engineering students usually have different ca-
reer paths. Business students are trained to become func-
tional managers (Dyer, Gregersen, & Christensen, 2008) and
most of them will spend their careers as such. Engineers
are trained to apply engineering sciences to the improve-
ment of products and processes. As such, they will have
chances to start businesses in more innovative industries,
with less competition and higher chances to succeed. U.S.-
born technology company founders tend to have diverse
educational backgrounds but the largest group (55%) had
terminal degrees in STEM-related felds (science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics), and 33% had degrees in busi-
ness, fnance, and accounting (Wadhwa & Freeman, 2010).
Therefore, engineers are more likely to start a business
than undergraduate business students are. Entrepreneur-
ship instructors should consider this reality when selecting
teaching goals for entrepreneurship education. The learning
needs of students who take a 3-credit course because of
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