Creating a Different Kind of Innovator: Using health communication theory in entrepreneurship education to foster behavior change among entrepreneurship students in sub-Saharan Africa
There is a broad scholarly consensus that entrepreneurship can be taught and that entrepreneurship education benefits societies (Charney & Libecap, 2003). However, technical entrepreneurship education interventions are still the norm in the West (Alberti & Poli, 2005), and especially in sub-Saharan Africa (North, 2002; Ladzani & van Vuuren, 2002). In this study, we argue that entrepreneurship education in sub-Saharan Africa follows a special pattern, and that health communication theory can inform improvements in enterprise training in the African context because of its particular effectiveness in inducing behavior change where environmental norms would normally constrain the development of such new behavior. The overall goal of the present paper is threefold; to contribute to the understudied domain of entrepreneurship education theory for economic development, to inform more effective enterprise training interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, and to foster the generation of more entrepreneurs capable of contributing to wealth generation in this region
