Unleashing the Potential of University Entrepreneurship Education: A Mandate for a Broader Perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which traditional views of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have inadvertently limited entrepreneurship education. The authors propose a broader view of what it means to be an entrepreneur and describe a disruptive approach to entrepreneurship education, one that centers around building students’ entrepreneurial mindset. By tapping into students’ “inner entrepreneur” and nurturing their abilities to think and act creatively, embrace failure, effect change and be resilient, the authors are preparing them for the challenges of the twenty-first century labor market. Design/methodology/approach – This is a perspective paper about how the traditional views of entrepreneurship education may be limiting its potential to create entrepreneurial college graduates set to take on twenty-first century careers. Findings – Teaching the entrepreneurial mindset and process will allow us, as educators, to best prepare our students for the complexities of the current and future workforce. Originality/value – By embracing the original meanings of the word “entrepreneur” – an act of reaching out and capturing and undertaking – the authors demystify what it means to be an entrepreneur. When we adopt a broader and more accurate conceptualization of “the entrepreneur,” we can teach our students to be the entrepreneurs of their lives

Senior management aspirations of managers and professionals: a career decision-making perspective

A number of demographic, technological, and economic shifts have redefined the composition of todayâs workforce and the concept of a career. Corporate downsizing and the delayering of management have affected the career advancement prospects available to individuals pursuing a managerial career path. The traditional means of rewarding employees through promotion appears to be an infrequent option in the current business environment. Subsequently, the level of competition among those individuals aspiring to higher levels in organizations is expected to increase. Because the responsibilities associated with positions in senior management are vast, and competition for entry into those positions is arduous, an important question arises: what factors influence an individualsâ aspirations to advance to senior level management? This dissertation examined the determinants of managersâ and professionalsâ aspirations to achieve senior management positions within the context of a career decision. Findings suggest that individuals whose career self-concepts âmatchâ their perception of the roles, responsibilities, and rewards of positions in senior management aspire to senior management positions. Furthermore, advancement prospects, personal life involvements, and gender play significant roles in aspirations to pursue a career in senior management. An examination of the precursors of senior management aspirations within the context of career decision-making contributes to theory development in a number of ways. First, while a variety of theoretical approaches touch upon the issue, a review of the existing literature reveals that to this point there has been very little empirical work done in the area of senior management aspirations. Furthermore, much of the prior research in the area of aspirations has neglected to distinguish between attitudes and behaviors regarding aspirations. Having employed a conceptually rich and methodologically sound measure of aspirations, this study was able to make the distinction between the attitudes individuals possess regarding aspirations and the behaviors they engage in which reflect those attitudes. Additionally, this study examined both lifestyle and work-related factors that influence an individualâs aspirations to senior management. Prior studies have tended to look at either work or non-work factors, very few have included factors from both domains for investigation.Ph.D., Organizational Sciences -- Drexel University, 200

Achieving Success or Avoiding Failure? Motivational Orientations of Entrepreneurship Students

Entrepreneurship education received renewed attention in the recent years due to the decline in entrepreneurial activity in the U.S. In this paper, a supplement to entrepreneurship curriculum is presented through the classification and study of entrepreneurship students’ motivational orientations. The typology proposed by the authors will be helpful in understanding the students’ perceptions of success and failure in relation to their level of intent to create a new venture and provide educators with insight to develop more effective instructional content and methodologies to meet the needs of entrepreneurship students

Encouraging Employees to Support Corporate Sustainability Efforts

When implementing a new sustainability project, how would your company gain employee buy-in? Employees resist change for various reasons, which is challenging for companies to overcome. Discover how some companies motivate their employees beyond the C-suite to invest in sustainable business practices

The Reformation of Business Education: Purposes and Objectives

Business education is at a critical juncture. How are we to justify the curriculum in undergraduate business awards in Aotearoa New Zealand? This essay suggests a philosophical framework for the analysis the business curriculum in Western countries. This framework helps us to see curriculum in a context of global academic communities and national needs. It situates the business degree in the essential tension which modernity (Western metaphysics) creates and which is expressed in an increasingly globalised economy. The tension is between those who insist that the degree is to serve modernity and those who hope that it may contribute to a new era of justice and harmony with nature. One critical battle ground for the business curriculum is the subject Business Ethics. The business ethics curriculum often indicates the intention of the business ethics degree itself. Kant's distinction between heteronomy (rule following) and autonomy (making your own decisions) provides us with a means to judge the purposes of business ethics courses: there are courses which seek to produce reliable and compliant (heteronomous) employees, and there are those which seek to produce independent creative (autonomous) human beings. The question for this conference is: what do we as business educators see as our task