Entrepreneurial Learning - David Rae

Entrepreneurial Learning

Inspiring entrepreneurial learning in the new era

Glyndŵr University2 June 2011

Professor David RaeISBE Vice-president, education

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Professor David Rae

• Career in small business, government & higher education• Entrepreneurship researcher, educator & writer• Entrepreneurial learning: PhD & publications 1999-2011• Director of Enterprise & Innovation, Lincoln Business School, University of Lincoln• Vice-president, Institute of Small Business & Entrepreneurship • Optimist, based on human creativity & potential for learning

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‘Warycat’ on Twitter

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Session topics….

• What is entrepreneurial learning?• Opportunity-centred entrepreneurship• Creative learning• New era entrepreneurship • What does this mean for educators? • Momentary perspectives on entrepreneurial learning • Towards sustainable entrepreneurship education

If only there was a better way…

Why does it matter?

Acknowledgements to the work of E.H Shepard

The icons of ‘Pooh’, ‘Piglet’, ‘Eeyore’, ‘Wol’ and ‘Christopher Robin’ may (or may not)represent entrepreneurialidentities at a subliminal level…

‘Big picture’ questions …..?

1. From your experience, do you think the recession is over?

2. Have the recession and related events in 2008-10 permanently changed the economy and society, or will things ‘get back to normal’?

3. Are we in a ‘new era’ for entrepreneurs, with different norms?

4. If so, what does this ‘new era’ look & feel like?

5. What is the purpose of entrepreneurship education in the new era?

6. How do we, as educators, need to adapt and work differently?

What is entrepreneurial learning?


What is Enterprising or Entrepreneurial Learning?

• Learning and acting in innovative, opportunistic ways• Moving between ideas and activities: applied creativity• Recognising, creating and acting on opportunities• Social interactions for self & social learning• Imaginative use of technologies• Creating multiple forms of value• Initiating and managing organisations• Transformative, social, imaginal, emotional & experiential• Applies in a range of contexts….

Why does entrepreneurial learning matter?

• Regenerate societies & economies: innovation & wealth creation

• Creative thinking to stimulate vision, ambition and action• Enable participation in society from exclusion &

disadvantage (e.g. entrepreneurship for ex-offenders)• Develop students confidence to act in uncertainty• Lifelong learning for people to learn how to survive &

grow• Find and enact opportunities which create value from

latent resources

Personal & social

emergence

Contextual

learningNegotiated

enterprise

Entrepreneurial

learning

A model of entrepreneurial learning

A conceptual model of entrepreneurial learning based on narratives & social constructionism: – Personal and social emergence -

entrepreneurial identity– Contextual learning

- opportunity & practice through social participation

– Negotiated enterprise

- creating the venture in

concert with others

Triadic model of entrepreneurial learning: with sub-themes

Contextual

learning

Participation and joint enterprise

Negotiated meaning, structure

and practices

Narrative construction of

identity

Role of the family

Changing roles over

time

Negotiated

enterprise

Identity as practice

Personal & social

emergence

Entrepreneurial

learning

Engagement in networks of external

relationships

Tension between current and future

identity

Learning through immersion within the

industry

Practical theories of entrepreneurial action

Opportunity recognition through cultural

participation

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Enterprise Education

Entrepreneurship

Leading to Innovation and The Creation of New Value

In a Subject Context

Development of Personal / Social Skills

Self Awareness

Action Orientation

Strategic Thinking

Opportunity Awareness

Practical Creativity

Collaborative Working

Employment Volunteering

The Teacher as a facilitator

Students given the autonomy to tackle self directed projects and take responsibility for their

learning

Enterprise embedded across the curricula

Pathways of Enterprise Skills

A Pedagogical Model Of Enterprise Education

With work from Professor David Rae – Lincoln University

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Learning Outcomes:

Entrepreneurial teaching and learning should encourage the development of following skills:

1. Self Awareness: practitioners are able to understand their own values, experiences, motivations and emotional behaviours and use this knowledge to make changes in themselves.

2. Collaborative Working: Working as part of team sharing knowledge and ideas and networking with others.

3. Practical Creativity: The application of creative techniques to solving problems and generate new value (in a situational context).

4. Opportunity Awareness: The ability to explore opportunities in a range of contexts and react to them.

5. Strategic Thinking: The planning of projects / resources and evaluation of these against outcomes.

6. Action Orientation: The disposition to do; engaging with people and environments to create new value.


How do students learn most effectively?

• Creative groupwork & social learning• Emotional engagement: feel the enterprise experience• From real entrepreneurs & business owners• Practical situations & problems outside the classroom:

organisations & communities• By discovery, failure, iteration, competition• Projects with real responsibilities• Realistic assignments with ambiguity & uncertainty• Critical reflection & constructive feedback• ‘Pull’ self-learning to address their questions• Least effective: didactic lecture-theatre teaching

Entrepreneurial learning:questions for discussion

• How are entrepreneurial learning and enterprise education connected?

• How is the purpose & nature of entrepreneurship education changing?

• How useful is the value-laden ideology of ‘entrepreneur’

• e.g. in ‘not-for-profit’, public & health sectors?

• How is the role of educators changing?• How do we achieve sustainability?

Opportunity-centred entrepreneurshipProvides a methodology for entrepreneurial learning through exploring and working on

opportunities.It includes four clusters of activities:• Personal enterprise - connecting opportunities with

goals and identity • Creating & exploring opportunities• Planning to realise opportunities• Acting on opportunities

www.palgrave.com/business/rae/

http://www.palgrave.com/business/rae/


Opportunity-centred entrepreneurship

Acting on

opportunity

Planning to realise

opportunity

OPPORTUNITY

CENTRED

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Creating &

exploring

opportunity

Personal enterprise

What do I want?Personal goalsSkills & strengthsConfidence & self efficacyValues & motivations

Creative thinkingExploring ideasSeeing needs as opportunitiesTaking initiative

Planning:Goals & activitiesAiming for success How-to?Who with?Resources

NetworkingCreating & using contactsCommunicating effectivelySelf marketingLearning from experience

Reflection

Generativecuriosity

Prospectiveimagination

Active & socialengagement


Every one of us is a creative person!

We can have ideas and do things with

them!


The creative learning process

1. Creative teamwork

2. Problem definition

3. Making creative connections

4. Turning ideas into opportunities

5. Designing & communicating your innovation

6. Reflecting on ‘special moments’


Winning ideas > opportunities

1. Problems & needs

3. Innovations & solutions

2. Who is it for?

4. How to make it happen


Inputs to creating opportunities

OPPORTUNITIES

Problems & needs

Resources

Capabilities

Contextual factors

Technologies

Constraints

Creativeideas

New era: new directions for entrepreneurial learning?

The new enterprise economy

• Credit crunch & recession changed all the rules• Massive risks & costs in public policy & finance• Economic & social uncertainty & change• ‘Small government’, localism & ‘Big Society’• UK economic growth lags behind competitors• City-region focus in economic development• Winners & losers? E.g. rural areas• Changes in funding for HE, students, business support• Local Enterprise Partnerships (England)• Constrained & risk-averse bank lending for businesses


A new paradigm for entrepreneurship and learning?

Old e-ship• Individualist• Neoliberal capitalism• Opportunity pursuit regardless of

consequences• Business driven: short term

profitability & growth• Value creation solely financial• Exploits & wastes resources• Exclusive role models• Masculine attributes: aggression,

power, conflict• Fuelled by debt

New e-ship• Individual-team leadership• Networked & collectivist• Socially connected & inclusive• Ethically responsible• Sensitive to resource conservation

& re-use• Multiple forms of value creation• Economically & environmentally

sustainable• Feminine values: relational,

collaborative, intuitive• Grassroots enterprise &

resourcing

See article in JSBED, 17.4


Entrepreneurial education in the new era

Dynamic learning relationships(active, social, connected)

Global economic changeLearner expectations:Personal, social, active

Volatile markets

Gov’t policy

Changing technology

Cultural changeEthics

Constrainedresources

FORMATIVE INFLUENCES CHANGING THEORIES

Outcomes: Applying learning

Purpose:educationeconomicideology

Content: What is learned

Experience: howlearning occurs

Educatorsrole

Green thinking & environmental change


The student & graduate career perspective

New era requires an enterprising mindset & skills:• Increasing competition for graduate jobs: ‘how am I different?’• Declining ’traditional’ career opportunities in professions, large &

public organisations• Career as personal enterprise:• ‘Individual capitalists’ in a connected economy:

Return on intellectual investment?• Rise of social & new era entrepreneurship• Positive thinking to see opportunities• Confidence & self-efficacy to act on them• Economic & financial literacy (debt & credit)• Need to develop self/employable attitudes, behaviours & skills

within the degree and extracurricular activities


Student journey to entrepreneurship

Key phases in venture creation – may not be completed sequentially

Learning ‘why’ triggers• Interest, curiosity• Planned learning• Response to problem or opportunity• Recognition of emergent or current need• Perception of information, knowledge or resource gap

Learning whatPersonal• Managing multiple priorities• Interpersonal relationships• Self-efficacyFunctional• Innovation• Marketing & selling• Planning & managing finance• Computing & digital media• Intellectual property & law

Learning sourcesWho• Mentors & advisors• Customers & suppliers• Peers & entrepreneursHow • Course based• Events & workshops • Experiential & discovery learning• E-learning, Internet• TV, books

‘Pull’ learning

Idea generation

Opportunityinvestigation

Planning Resourcegathering

Product/Service development

Customeracquisition

Earlytrading

New contributions to entrepreneurial learning

• New economics• Social, ethical & green enterprise• Public & corporate entrepreneurship• Female entrepreneurship• Multiculturalism & internationalism• New technologies & ways of learning • New methodological perspectives…..


Momentary perspectives:Living & learning in the moment

‘Everything that you do creatively has a moment – moments of coherence and comprehension and great communion – and then things don’t. It just changes.’

Robert Plant, singer, interview in Mojo magazine July 2010.

Recall a ‘special moment’ for you

• Think back to a significant moment in your experience

• May be from work, family, personal, education….?• What happened?• What makes it special/memorable?• How did it affect you?• What could you do as a result?• Share your story...


Living in the moment

• ‘Now’ is an important time• Moment: ‘a point in time, an instant’; ‘a turning point in a series of

events’. • We live in the moment: authentic experience & self-actualisation

situated in consciousness between past experience and future anticipation

• Creative entrepreneurs make sense and act in the moment, connecting subjective experience with wider context

• Momentary perspectives offer new understandings of entrepreneurial learning & behaviour: creativity, transformation, action.


PerceivingGenerating

meaning

Acting

‘Being’ in the moment


Generating meaning in ‘the moment’

Experience in the moment

Past recollections Future anticipations

Narrative or Kairotic timeHow do pastexperiences help makesense of the moment?

What is likely to happen?What future possibilities & opportunities are there?What action can I take?

Awareness throughSensory perceptions*

Presence in physicalenvironment

Social interactions

BehavioursTalk

Insights

CreativityIntuition

Learning

Meaning

* Sensory perceptions:Visual, hearing, touchtaste, smell

Experiential memory Prospective imagination

Emotions


Creative

Idea

Inspiration

Opportunity

Problem

Future possibility

Innovation

Encounter

Social interaction

Meeting

Discovery

New knowledge

Learning

Types of entrepreneurial moments

Incident!


Creative

Idea

Inspiration

Opportunity

Problem

Future possibility

Innovation

Encounter

Social interaction

Meeting

Discovery

New knowledge

Learning

Responding in the moment

Emotion

Feelings

Positive: liking, pleasure, trust

Negative: fear, dislike

Cognition

Add to/draw on memory

New knowledge

Learning

Identity

Being: who you are & aspire to be

Narrative: story you tell

Action

Knowing what & how to act

Behaviour

Impact & self-awareness

Judgement!


Learning in the moment

• How do we create ‘special moments’?• How to capture, share, learn within & from special moments as

educators?• How to enable learners to perceive, judge & act effectively in the

moment?• Use technology to share moments – twitter• Build understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour through

momentary perspectives

You can help:• Recall a ‘special moment’ from your experience• Share your ‘special moment’ through online anonymous

questionnaire:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VDV6KGT

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VDV6KGT

Questions – Impact, influence, investment

1. What are the likely effects of WAG & UK govt. & budget policies?2. How can we influence local & institutional policies:

• New enterprises & small firms?• Universities & enterprise education?

3. What is the purpose of entrepreneurship education in the new era? 4. How can we demonstrate its impact at educational, economic, and

business levels?5. How can we create sustainable business models for entrepreneurship

education? 6. What is the case for investing resources in it? 7. How can we enable new jobs to be created? e.g.

• Graduates?• Small firms?• Public sector downsizing?• Social enterprises & new form organisations?• Extend working lives?


if you get stuck…[email protected]

Thank you!