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Background Entrepreneurial learning, or the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills, in

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discover and develop the conceptual understanding of teaching and learning in entrepreneurship lecturers and how this is influencing the change in teaching experience. Design/methodology/approach The study was carried out among Estonian entrepreneurship lecturers who participated in a lecturer-training programme. A qualitative research method was adopted, focussing on thematic analysis. The framework for research and the analysis of results relied on the teaching and learning model, enabling the model to be tested in the context of entrepreneurship education. Findings The results show that the lecturers with learning-centred mind-sets tended to make changes in their teaching approaches and introduced changes in other teaching and learning components, such as the content (learning process) and outcomes of the learning subject. These inconsistent applications of changes justify the need for a systematic approach to entrepreneurship teaching and learning. Practical implications The results of the study contribute to a more systematic understanding of conceptions of teaching entrepreneurship among entrepreneurship lecturers, thereby allowing school management to understand the need for developing staff in addition to curricula. The study results are useful for informing training for entrepreneurship lecturers, designing entrepreneurship courses and choosing the appropriate methodology in such design. Originality/value This paper provides input for creating a conceptual teaching and learning model of entrepreneurship education that contributes to a more systematic understanding of the relationships between the components of teaching and learning when designing entrepreneurship education programmes. In the context of entrepreneurship education, the use of the teaching and learning model is required when considering the timeline between different components of the model. This means that it is important to first make decisions about the presage factors (including conceptual understanding of teachers), which provide the frame (context) for the teaching and learning process, as well as learning outcomes.

This paper explores the role of different trust environments in West and East Europe on the behavior of entrepreneurs. In a stable institutional environment (e.g., Germany, core regions in Russia) personal trust mainly plays a complementary role for entrepreneurial behavior, while in more fragile environments (e.g., peripheral regions in Russia) it can substitute for institutional deficiencies. The exploratory empirical data analyzed in this study comprise three countries (Estonia, Germany and Russia), and they stem from an international research project, which was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation. The empirical discussion focuses in particular on interfirm relations of small businesses as well as on the sources of assistance used by entrepreneurs in solving business problems. The preliminary results indicate that the forms of trust depend on the respective regional and sectoral environments, which draws attention to the difficulties of classifying whole countries as "high-trust" versus "low-trust". Limitations of the analysis refer to the cross-sectional nature of the survey data.

The development of entrepreneurship competence considering a broad view of entrepreneurship requires a systematic approach to determine the validated content of learning and methodological basis for supporting learners’ entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviour. There is still relatively little research in this area at all levels of education. Addressing entrepreneurship competence as key competence of lifelong learning allows to broaden the understanding and describe the development of different aspects of entrepreneurship competence through meaningful and supportive interactions in the learning environment. This will allow a better understanding of how to support entrepreneurship competence in various courses and age groups. In this article, a framework of entrepreneurship competence called the Comprehensive Entrepreneurship Competence Model (CECM) is proposed. The development of an entrepreneurship competence model relies on the theory of systems thinking. The CECM model focuses on the developmental perspective (fundamental processes of human development) that is not emphasised in other models. The article also suggests how to support the development of entrepreneurship competence systematically at all levels of education through embedding entrepreneurship competence into the curricula, study programmes of different subjects and overall learning processes.