Dr David Bozward

Category: Experiential Learning

Entrepreneurship education increasingly emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning, where students actively create and manage real ventures. This approach allows them to apply theoretical knowledge in practical situations, fostering problem-solving skills and creativity.

  • What entrepreneurship capital is driven from your economic activity?

    What entrepreneurship capital is driven from your economic activity?

    The impact of any economic activity on the individual should be to develop a ‘sustainable livelihood’ or value. This is measured through the resources which are available to that person, in terms of capital. Here we define capital as a resource which can be stored, held or used for the benefit of the entrepreneur.A number of academic papers have discussed what forms of capital should be measured and how this should be analysed (Scoones, 1998; Berkes &  Folke, 1992; Bebbington, 1999) especially when analysing sustainable rural businesses. The impact of the economic activity should therefore be measured by evaluating the development of the entrepreneurs’ capital, based on the eight forms of capital:

    1. Cultural – Cultural capital functions as a social-relation within an economy of practices (system of exchange), and comprises all of the material and symbolic goods, without distinction, that society considers rare and worth seeking.
    2. Experiential (Human) – We accumulate experiential capital through actually organizing a project or solving problems and developing solutions. 
    3. Financial – Money, currencies, securities and other instruments of the financial system
    4. Intellectual – The value of a company or organization’s employee knowledge or any proprietary information that may provide the business or entrepreneur with a competitive advantage
    5. Material – Non-living physical objects form material capital
    6. Natural – Made up of the world’s stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms
    7. Social – The networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society
    8. Spiritual – Practices of personal values, religion, spirituality, or other means of connection to self and universe.

    Entrepreneurial activity may increase one or more of these capitals depending on the entrepreneur, the type of business and the stage of the business. This connection to capital also connects with Ahmad & Hoffman (2008) who specify the ecosystem of entrepreneurship as the combination of three factors: opportunities, skilled people and resources. These factors can be driven from our Capitals. Skilled People is intellectual capital. Entrepreneurial opportunity from our social and spiritual capital. 

    I think we should look at this set of capitals at both a personal, business and community level, its about a set of ecosystems. At any level not all of the capitals have to be used (A Buddhist priest on a personal level may never use Financial capital, An online blogger on a business level may never use Natural capital, A town council may never use the Spiritual capital).

    Each entrepreneur has a unique set of capitals, which have specific generic root causes from the entrepreneur themselves, the business industry, the addressed market and locality ecosystem they are active. The skill is understanding which and a what level is required to lead a successful business at what stage.

  • A Strategic Vision for Student Entrepreneurship

    Entrepreneurship is undeniably a significant asset for students and young adults. More than hard skills as experience and technical knowledge, entrepreneurship has an intrinsic high dimension of creativity, self building, confidence and self realisation (Quality Assurance Agency 2012). A European Commission report on the effects and impact of entrepreneurship programmes in higher education stated: “Entrepreneurship education has a positive impact on the entrepreneurial mindset of young people, their intentions towards entrepreneurship, their employability and finally on their role in society and the economy.”(EC 2012)

    Entrepreneurship as extra-curriculum activity might increasingly become critical for the professional development and students’ careers. As noted in High Fliers Research (2011), nearly two-thirds of recruiters warn that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes.

    Sir Tim Wilson’s review of university-business collaboration stated “Networking between universities and the business community is a critical component of an efficient innovation ecosystem. There are several established networking tools at national and regional levels that create links between universities, business and research technology organisations. These mechanisms need to be constantly evaluated, reviewed and updated as media innovations change communications capability and expectation.” (Wilson 2012)

    The National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) has the potential to be a major contributor to the development of entrepreneurialism amongst our student body. It deserves support from business sponsors, universities and government in promoting entrepreneurship. Such support should be conditional on NACUE retaining its close connectivity student entrepreneurial societies, and its active engagement in the Enterprise Alliance.” (Wilson 2012).

    The World Economic Forum (2011) suggested four global challenges; Transform the Educational System, Build the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Strive for Effective Outcomes and Impact and Leverage Technology as an Enabler. The growth and advancement of entrepreneurship have been considered objectives for many EU and Member State policies over numerous years, and have grown in prominence over time. The European Commission and individual Member States have started to adopt a range of actions, including driving the build up of a more prominent culture of ‘entrepreneurial mindsets’ amongst European citizens, predominantly young people. This was partnered with the view that all students should have access to entrepreneurship education.

    To make sure ‘entrepreneurship education’ does not become another extra-curricular ‘add on’ there needs to be certain changes that are made a necessity, and the following ‘actions’ are taken from McCoshan (2010) which will ensure they become an essential part of the curriculum:

    • Changes in teaching methods: greater use of experiential learning and a new coach/moderator role for teachers which helps students to become more independent and to take the initiative in their education;
    • Changes in the education context, which takes students out of the classroom into the local community and real businesses, and which establishes less hierarchical relationships within schools;
    • A key role for governments: only they can bring about the required step change in the spread and quality of entrepreneurship education.

    Therefore, an ‘education in entrepreneurship’ needs to go through a conceptual shift from an education in ‘how to run a business’ to how to achieve competency in all areas of the curriculum and be able to apply entrepreneurial thinking into all those areas.

    The UK Quality Assurance Agency (2012) for Higher Education has also published ‘guidance’ on the incorporation of Entrepreneurship in every teaching curriculum, qualifying this action as imperative. They acknowledged the need for entrepreneurship to enhance education across the curriculum (Quality Assurance Agency 2012).

    Entrepreneurship as extra-curriculum activity might increasingly become critical for the professional development and students’ careers. As noted in High Fliers Research (2011):“Nearly two-thirds of recruiters warn that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes”.

    The Royal Bank of Scotland Inspiring Enterprise report 2012 shows that across almost all industrialised countries, unemployment rates are highest among people just out of college, despite the international evidence that shows that young people have a lot of entrepreneurial potential. More awareness of entrepreneurship and engaging with entrepreneurship in education and training will inspire many young people (RBS 2012).

    This is why the development of self help, peer led groups provides an important strategy for developing both employability and enterprise skills and should be incorporated into the national and every education institution enterprise strategy.

     

  • Why is student led enterprise so important?

    It is universal accepted by policy-makers, businesses and academics that entrepreneurship is an essential skill for the survival and advancement of both large and small businesses. Therefore, an important skill to obtain whilst at university or college. There is also strong evidence exists that educational programmes in entrepreneurship have a positive effect on developing individuals’ entrepreneurial attributes (The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Intention), raising awareness of career options in entrepreneurship and advancing a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship.

    However, its in the extra curricular activities that the students mindset is developed, through empowerment, self actualization and the further development of the entrepreneurial mindset. This is bore out with the wikipida definition of Entrepreneurship which is the act and art of being an entrepreneur or one who undertakes innovations or introducing new things, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods.

    This means that the development of the entrepreneur is through experimentation, the tried and tested process of trial and error, with reflection and fine running at each stage. Never giving up but also taking a clear judgment of the progress and opportunities. This was presented by Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s model (based on David Kolb’s model of experiential learning  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles).

    This is why student led societies are so important in the development of enterprise within our universities and colleges.  If we list of attributes of an entrepreneur we can start to see why Societies are great places for the development of these skills and why employers should be looking for these students.

    1. Ambition. Society leaders not only want to be successful, they need to be successful, driven by the ambition they put in 70 hour weeks. They are obsessed by their sports, the goals of the society (RAG, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag_%28student_society%29) and also driven to ensure they will leave the society in better shape than any previous leader.

    2. Persistence. Failure is not an option. However learning from your mistakes, failures and the continual persistence to drive forward to create a winning team. I see societies such as the Eco-House Initiative (http://www.ecohouseinitiative.org/ who gained RBS ESSA Accreditation) who are trying to fix major world problems whilst still a student society.

    3. Creativity. Solving problems is the name of the game. Developing solutions for life’s problems creates opportunities , if its trying to run five minibuses for the team, developing a speaker series (http://manchesterentrepreneurs.org.uk/events) of successful entrepreneur on no budget or organizing twenty committee members to be in one place.

    4.  Tenacity. Everyone learns to the walk the same way, you try to stand, fall over, try again, fall over again and continue with this, many many times until you get it right. You know you will succeed, everyone around you walks. So just be stubborn and get on with it. Again sports teams know this, other societies learn it over a period of time.

    5. Risk tolerance. Life is full of risks, we survive by learning to gauge, understand and control these to an acceptable level. However, it’s the tolerance to risk which is personal, some people like to take larger risks than others. So standing for president of a society may be too risky for some, as failure and ridicule are too much to handle. Others will see this as an opportunity to promote themselves and get to know a wider social circle which ensures the have a more powerful network. The management of the society also handles risk as any other business, and this learning within a society is invaluable when applied to business.

    6. Personality. People like people who like them, so developing your personality whilst at university is, some will say the only reason, the main reason to go to university. Whilst some of the most successful entrepreneurs are geeks, the majority of successful people have a great personality, which engages others. In most societies the leaders are voted in and therefore presenting and conveying your personality is important for a successful outcome.

    7. Communications. In a worlds with several social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, pin interest, Youtube..) and emails coming in from all directions, the average student is very difficult to get hold of. The importance is understanding the medium which works with your community and putting in a way your audience understands.

    8. Leadership. While an entrepreneurial leader organizes and assumes the risk of his or her society, there will likely be others who follow to help make the society a success, typically a management team. Managing members and key team members is an important ingredient for a successful entrepreneur. Motivating the team to take 400 students on a skiing trip (http://theessa.com/case-study/skum-2/#.UV6aFxlAuBU) might sound easy but the research, planning, resource allocation and responsibility can not be under estimated.

    9. Adaptability. The average society has around 200 members from numerous schools which run their own timetable. Change is inevitable and is the only constant in an evolving world. An entrepreneur leader will adapt to technology, market trends, financial pressures and their customers/members. Those that have tried to organize students will know that adaptability is the core skill.

    10. Intuition. Understanding the trends and having an idea of what people want without doing a market survey (Steve Jobs never did one market survey) will allow our entrepreneurial leader to have a vision which others can only buy-in to and also have to follow.

    This is why being part of a society is so important in developing student enterprise and also creating an entrepreneurial environment for students to learn and tune these valuable skills. Enterprise Societies can help create this space for student reflection on their extra curricular activities.