Re-Focusing - Building a Future for Entrepreneurial Education & Learning

The field of entrepreneurship has struggled with fundamental questions concerning the subject’s nature and purpose. To whom and to what means are educational and training agendas ultimately directed? Such questions have become of central importance to policy makers, practitioners and academics alike. There are suggestions that university business schools should engage more critically with the lived experiences of practising entrepreneurs through alternative pedagogical approaches and methods, seeking to account for and highlighting the social, political and moral aspects of entrepreneurial practice. In the UK, where funding in higher education has become increasingly dependent on student fees, there are renewed pressures to educate students for entrepreneurial practice as opposed to educating them about the nature and effects of entrepreneurship. Government and EU policies are calling on business schools to develop and enhance entrepreneurial growth and skill sets, to make their education and training programmes more proactive in providing innovative educational practices which help and facilitate life experiences and experiential learning. This paper makes the case for critical frameworks to be applied so that complex social processes become a source of learning for educators and entrepreneurs and so that innovative pedagogical approaches can be developed in terms both of context (curriculum design) and process (delivery methods)

Creating the future together: Toward a framework for research synthesis in entrepreneurship

To develop a body of evidence-based knowledge on entrepreneurship, findings and contributions from the positivist, narrative and design research traditions in this area need to be combined. Therefore, a framework for research synthesis in terms of social mechanisms, contextual conditions and outcome patterns is developed in this paper. Subsequently, a synthesis of the existing body of research findings on entrepreneurial opportunities serves to illustrate how this framework can be applied and provides results that inform entrepreneurial action. Finally, we discuss how this synthetic approach serves to systematically connect the fragmented landscape of entrepreneurship research, and thus gradually build a cumulative and evidence-based body of knowledge on entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial knowledge and aspirations of dentistry students in South Africa

An investigation of the intentions and knowledge of entrepreneurship of final-year university dentistry students is reported, with particular regard to the factors of gender and race. A questionnaire survey was used with final-year dentistry students, over two years, at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. The findings show that dentistry students across race and gender groups believed that entrepreneurship education was important. At least half of the students showed an interest in starting a business practice soon after their graduation and completion of a mandatory one-year internship, with more male students indicating an interest in starting a business than female students. More Black African students indicated interest compared to other race groups (Coloureds, Whites and Indians). There were no significant differences between male and female students with regard to knowledge of entrepreneurship, but there were significant differences with regard to race in the scores for knowledge of entrepreneurship, with White students scoring the highest and African students the lowest. The authors conclude that entrepreneurship education should be included in the curriculum in the final year of dentistry studies to encourage business practice start-up soon after the one-year internship period, with the aim of contributing to growth in employment.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Strukturanalyse des deutschen Marktes für Beteiligungskapital

In unserem Beitrag analysieren wir die Struktur des deutschen Marktes für Beteiligungskapital unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rollen der unabhängigen, der bankenassoziierten und der öffentlichen Investoren. Wir finden substantielle Unterschiede im Verhalten der Akteure in einem regionalen Kontext. Hier lässt sich feststellen, dass öffentliche Investoren in Regionen investieren, in denen es bei privaten und bankenassoziierten Investoren nicht zu einem Engagement kommt. Des Weiteren sind die gefundenen Ergebnisse insofern überraschend, da öffentliche Geber von Venture Capital (VC) nicht häufiger Syndikate als andere nutzen, um eine möglichst breite Verwendung ihrer Fördermittel zu erzielen. Bezüglich der Investitionen wäre es wichtig, eine stärkere Verzahnung von Privatwirtschaft und öffentlichen Geldern mittels Syndizierung anzustreben, um auf diesem Wege zu einer räumlichen Ausweitung der privaten VC-Initiativen durch die gemeinsame Verbindung der Tätigkeiten der privaten und öffentlichen Investoren zu gelangen. Abstract In this paper we analyze the structure of the German market for Venture Capital. We consider the differing roles of market participants namely public, banking dependent and independent VC investors. We find that the players differ in their regional investment scope, such that public investors invest in areas considered unprofitable by independent and bank dependent VCs. In addition we find that public VCs do not differ in their use of syndication efforts to other VC providers. We conclude that it will be important for future efforts to explicitly strengthen the ties between private and public investors to enlarge the regional coverage and the effectiveness of investment activities

Chapter 10 Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship and the Voice-of-the-Consumer

The founder of paperbackswap.com, Bobby Swarthout, developed the idea for his venture while he was a college student. As a student on a limited budget, he had become tired of paying high prices for textbooks. So he developed and launched an online textbook swapping service. Along with a small group of students, he managed to assemble a group of 12 colleges and universities across the United States to participate in textbook swapping. However, after a few months, very few students had used the site. By listening to the potential customers who chose not to participate, Bobby found out that there were too many easy substitutes for the swapping service (e.g. bookstore returns, half.com, efollett, etc.). These alternatives offered either greater convenience or cash in return for used books (especially appealing to students who did not pay for their books themselves), or other appealing features. However, Mr. Swarthout believed in his concept and also listened to the ‘voice-of-the-consumer’ (VOC) and moved his business idea into different consumer/product space: that of paperback books. Along with a few lead users attracted to his original idea, he refined the original idea, gathered resources (an angel who invested in the business) and added technological capabilities. One year later he launched paperbackswap.com. From inception, the firm embraced the VOC as the key tool in driving product development and improvement efforts. For paperbackswap.com listening to the VOC has become part of a closed-loop system where inputs from consumers are analysed and product improvements developed in response and where the loop is closed by listening to how consumers respond to product changes