comenius contact seminar the entrepreneurship: a challenge ...sabrina dubbini istao –ancona, italy...
TRANSCRIPT
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