A widely-suggested educational policy solution for youth unemployment is to increase employability; however, this approach tends to neglect an alternative path—that of education for job creation and self-employment. This study emphasizes the importance of this alternative strategy and calls for greater attention to it for two reasons: 1) increasing employability is no longer sufficient in today’s saturated labor market; and 2) the relationship between skills and successful entrepreneurship is still sketchy at best.
This study investigates how education can play a role in creating one’s own job, and what the best way to foster self-employment competencies is. It is designed to help policy makers capture perspectives on education in relation to self-employment so that they can debate, design, and implement programs in the future. The study specifically focuses on how education, related to human and social capital, might play a role in the business creation process.
The study employs social cartography both to select data for analysis and also to present the final findings of the study. Meta-study procedures were applied for the data analysis. The study found three types of human capital (basic, specific, and entrepreneurial) and two types of social capital (cognitive and structural). The findings from the data-analysis were synthesized and mapped on a time-line of business creation and the management process. This map shows that basic human capital is constantly necessary throughout the process; however, the importance of specific and entrepreneurial human capital shifts along with the progress of business creation. The most effective educational strategies also shift parallel with the type of human capital. The impact of social capital also shifts; cognitive social capital has more of an impact in earlier stages, while structural social capital affects the process more in later stages.
The recommendations for policy implications and further research possibility were made based on what the map shows, and does not show. This theoretical study is an effort to elucidate the underlying structures of human and social capital in the job creation process in an attempt to strengthen entrepreneurial education policy and programs in the future
