The entrepreneurship in the curriculum

Comenius Contact SeminarThe entrepreneurship: a challenge for the future

24th- 28th November Fano

Sabrina Dubbini

ISTAO – Ancona, Italy

Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy

Challenging questionsfor the real world?

Fastness

Multi-cultural

Time- management

Virtuality

Connecting

Sustainability

FlexibiityMulti-task

Ethics

Team managementCulture

Technical tools

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship literature

� An increasing body of papers and articles or books

� Very fragmented literature

� Cross-border theme (business, psychology,

sociology, management, industrial economy and

organization , human resources , education…)

� Capability of recognizing economic/business

opportunities (opportunity recognition)

� Capability of developing opportunities into

activities (new venture creation)

Entrepreneurship

Forms of Entrepreneurship

� New entrepreneurs

� New enterprises run by habitual entrepreneurs

� New activities/business developed inside

enterprises (intrapreneurship or corporate

entrepreneurship)

� Spin-offs

Entre/Intrapreneurship

� Intrapreneurship: “The development within a largeorganization of internal markets and relatively small and independent units designed to create, innovate services, technologies, methods…” (Nielsen, Peters, Hisrich 1985)

� Intrapreneurship dimensions (Antoncic and Hisrich 2001) :

1-new business venturing

2 innovativeness

3 self-renewal

4-proactiveness (initiative, risk taking boldness/intrepidity)

� Search for creative and new solutions for challenging

Why intrapreneurship is interesting?

� Innovations come from small firms (famous start-ups: Yahoo, Netscape)

� Industrial era: firms aimed at exploiting existingtechnologies to gain efficiency, economies of scale,

profitability

� Today : they also need to be apt at exploring new technologies

� The two processes (exploitation and exploration) are diametrically opposite

(March,Sproull, Tamuz 1991)

Why intrapreneurship is interesting?

Key competencies

� Project management (planning, budgeting, …)

� Team building / Collaborative Leadership

� Initiative /Boldness

� Communication /Relationing/Networking

� Innovation attitude

� Strategic Orientation /Commitment Opportunity

� Commitment of resources / Control of resources

� Management Structure /Reward Philosophy

� Personal Autonomy /Individual Creativity

Entrepreneurship Education

.

”The development of entrepreneurial competences: entrepreneurship education in Italian universities and firms’ organizational models” Dubbini S.-Iacobucci D.

paper presented at 14th global IntEnt – Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education and Training- Conference Naples 5-7 July 2004

� Aims of the paper:

– To provide a preliminary analysis of

entrepreneurship courses and curricula in Italian

universities

– To compare them with the needs for

entrepreneurial competences in Italian firms

Evolution of entrepreneurship education

� During the last 25 years there has been an

explosion of interest in the USA for the

entrepreneurship field, that has resulted in the

institution of courses, research centres and degrees

at several levels (undergraduate and graduate)

� European countries followed the same trend,

although with a delay

� Entrepreneurship education is rapidly spreading

also in developing countries

The Italian situation

� Although in Italy there is a large number of researchers interested in small firms, there are just a few research centres devoted to entrepreneurship

� Until a few years ago there were no entrepreneurship courses in Italian universities

� The situation has begun to change in 2000-2001 when an important reform of university curricula was implemented

The reform of university curricula

� Universities are relatively autonomous in designing curricula within general national rules

First degree(3 years)“Laurea”

Post graduatedegree (2 years)

“Laurea specialistica”

Doctoral program(3 years)

First level Master(1 year)

Second level Master(1 year)

Entrepreneurship courses in Italian universities

15213Total

22University of Urbino

11University of Perugia

11University of Naples (Federico II)

11University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

11University of Florence

11University of Bologna (Forlì)

5(1)4University of Bologna

11Polytechnic University of Marche

11LIUC - Castellanza Free University

11Bocconi University

TotalEngineeringEconomicsUniversity

Entrepreneurship curricula

First degree (three years)

Management:Curriculum on “entrepreneurship and

small firms”Economics University of Urbino

Doctoral programme Entrepreneurship and innovationEconomics University of Naples II

Post graduate (two years)

Management: curriculum on “firm and innovation”Economics University of Bologna

First levelMaster (one year)

Entrepreneurship and management of innovationEconomicsPolytechnic University of

Marche

LevelCurriculum titleFacultyUniversity

Features of entrepreneurship courses

� Overall three aspects characterize entrepreneurship

courses in Italian universities:

– they are present almost only in economic and

management faculties;

– their main focus is the start-up of new business;

– their main aim is to transfer knowledge and

competences on the development of the

business plan.

Attitudes towards entrepreneurship in Italian SMEs

� Entrepreneurs and managers of SMEs stress the importance of specific (functional) and relational competencies rather

than transversal and rational ones

� With two important consequences:

– Entrepreneurship is seen as the result of personal

characteristics not easily transferred or enhanced by formal educational process

– Experience and professional training is considered more appropriate for the acquisition of specific competencies

Entrepreneurship and managerial competences (Bower, 1983)

� Transversal competences

� Specific competences

Relational and communication area

Business processes and technical aspects of organization

Managerial skills: selection and assessment in SME’s (focus panel)

� Technical knowledge

� Specific functional skills

� Business specific competences

Entrepreneurial skills perception

Not teachablePersonal, subjective,

“natural gift”

leadership

Academic courses

Professional, extra-curricula courses

Relational, transversalOrganisational

skills

Professional experience

Professional, extra-curricula courses

Technical specific

(sector; function)

Business specific

competences

Education characteristicsEntrepreneurial

skills

Problems of entrepreneurship development in Italy (1)

� Entrepreneurial rate in Italy are among the highest in Europe

� Nevertheless, new businesses are concentrated in traditional sectors while there are too few start-ups in high-tech sectors

Enhancing entrepreneurial rates among highly educated people (especially those with a scientific background)

Problems of entrepreneurship development in Italy (2)

� After start-up firms tend to remain small rather

than pursuing rapid grow;

– this depends also on the entrepreneurship model

prevailing in Italian SMEs (ownership, control

and direction concentrated in the same family)

- Proposing different entrepreneurial model

- Management of innovation and growth

- Favouring intrapreneurship

Conclusions (1) – Education v/s training

� Most courses address short term training needs (developing the business plan)

� On the contrary, they should give more importance to:

– Proposing and discussing different models of entrepreneurship

– Develop those transversal competencies that would contribute to entrepreneurial attitudes at different level

Conclusions (2)

� Entrepreneurship courses and curricula undervalue the development of transversal competences (relational competences) while focusing mainly on technical skills.

� There is a need to develop entrepreneurship courses in engineering and scientific faculties (not just on how to develop a business plan)

� There is a need to differentiate the contents and aims of courses at the different levels of university curricula and to better distinguish university education from the growing supply of training courses outside universities

references

� B. Antoncic - R. Hisrich (2001) ”Intrapreneurship:

construct refinement and cross-cultural validation”

Journal of Business Venturing 16 , 5, September

� Nielsen R.-Peters M.Hisrich (1985)

”Intrapreneurship strategy for internal markets:

Corporate, non profit and governement institution

cases”, Strategic Management Journal, 6