„In short, people will need to be
creative rather than passive, capable of self initiated action, rather than
dependent; they will need to know how to learn rather than expect to be taught;
they will need to be enterprising in their outlook, and not think or act like
an ‘employee’ or ‘client’. The organisations in which they work, communities in
which they live, and societies in which they belong will, in turn, also need to
possess all these qualities“, ‑ said British OECD delegate Colin Ball at an
OECD conference in Paris in 1989.
The concept of entrepreneurship has been known
to the modern world for at least three centuries. For an overview and a deeper
understanding of the evolutionary processes the entrepreneurship concept has
undergone in the last decades, historical, sociological and organisational approach
can be applied.
Entrepreneurship as a
linguistic term has
its origin from the French word entreprendre
which means go ahead, initiate, start up, boot, make up something, do something
and perform.
Entrepreneurship as a contextual
concept within economy has been intertwined with the ability of capital and the risk
associated with commercial ventures. In modern and post-modern times,
entrepreneurship in the economy has, broadly stated, been heavily influenced by
two scientists. The first to recognise entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur in
economic theory was the Irish-born financial actor, Richard Cantillon
(1680?-1734?). Cantillon’s economic theory, written down in the “Essai sur la
Nature du Commerce en General”, Cantillion placed entrepreneurs as the most
central economic actor of society. The second economic scientist to mention is
probably the most known and influential of them all. Almost all modern theories
concerning entrepreneurship take their origin from the Slovak/Austrian
economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883-1950). He laid the foundation of the
modern understanding of the concept, defining entrepreneurship as the creative
response of economic development and promoted it as a basic knowledge to
explain economic alteration/change. Entrepreneurship for Schumpeter was to do
something new, or some things which have been done before – in a new way. According
to Schumpeter’s theory, successful innovation requires an act of will, not of
intellect. It depends, therefore, on leadership, not intelligence, and it
should not be confused with invention.
Entrepreneurship as a
mind-set is
described in “Green paper – Entrepreneurship in Europe” (EU Commission, 2003,
p. 5). This indicates that entrepreneurship is a way of thinking, a formation
process in which you have developed your entrepreneurial abilities and aptitude
through experience since you were a child. The entrepreneurial mind-set emerges
like an inner impetus that strengthens human abilities and qualities such as
integrity, humility, intuition, dedication, creative forces, passion,
innovativeness, flexibility, courage, will to risk, self-confidence and
stamina. Gradually, experiences filled with these mixed strengths provide a
person with a strong attitude and make the approach and response time to
problems or challenges shorter, both in time and action. Entrepreneurship
arises from within the person and not from the business idea. An
entrepreneurial mindset is not about what you do, but who you are. An
entrepreneurial mindset emerges through being able to wonder, to reflect on
experiences, to think independently, showing receptivity and sensitivity and
thus by handling the universal drama of life. The entrepreneurial mindset
covers an individual’s motivation and capacity, independently or within an
organization, by identifying opportunities and pursuing them in order to
produce activities giving new experiences, excitements, ideas, added value or
economic success.
The rise of entrepreneurship in the educational context
From the first
substantial speech about the subject by Colin Ball in Paris in 1989, it took
about 14 years before the EU commission gave the entrepreneurship concept its
formal political birth, shown in a written strategic document. In January 2003
the EU Commission published the “Green paper Entrepreneurship in Europe”
describing the new strategies for job creation, increased competitiveness, to
unlock personal potential, and to increase societal interest in
entrepreneurship as a first step towards creating an entrepreneurial culture in
Europe.
Further on the author
analyses two scenarios of entrepreneurship education in Norway: (I)
entrepreneurship as a method which came from outside actors and (II)
entrepreneurship as a mind-set with a bottom-up strategy. According to scenario
I, a play-enterprise is a training method giving pupils or students an
opportunity to develop and design an idea: to plan, organise, start up, run,
and finally, to shut down a company. Scenario II aims at making pupils fit to
meet the challenges of the future by keeping focus on applicable skills and
innovative problem-solving attitudes built into education.
If you were an entrepreneurship teacher,
which scenario would you apply? What would you like your students to learn?
The post is based on the article of Dag Ofstad, University of Nordland,
Norway
Read the full article in NAFOL Yearbook 2012 „Teacher Education Research
between national Identity and Global Trends“ © Akademika Publishing, Trondheim
2013, ISBN 978-82-321-0194-8
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