The promise of entrepreneurship education: Reconceptualizing the individual–opportunity nexus as a conceptual framework for entrepreneurship education

Abstract

This article develops a conceptual framework for entrepreneurship education based on a reconceptualization of the individual-opportunity nexus as presented by Shane and Venkataraman (2000). In order to achieve this objective, we reinterpret both the basic assumptions pertaining to the individual as well as the ontological and epistemological nature of entrepreneurial opportunities. On this basis we build a six-step teaching model, which operationalizes a series of entrepreneurial learning elements. These include (I) Identity work; (II) Disclosing disharmonies; (III) Qualifying disharmonies into general anomalies; (IV) Constructing innovative concepts; (V) Prototyping; and (VI) Business modelling. Finally, we discuss the implications of the reconceptualized framework in terms of the research questions governing the field of entrepreneurship education, for the practice of entrepreneurship education, as well as for policy to promote entrepreneurship education.

Entrepreneurship Education and Sustainable Development Goals: A literature Review and a Closer Look at Fragile States and Technology-Enabled Approaches

“…A smaller proportion of the reviewed papers are of conceptual or review nature. A few of those studies introduce conceptual models and theoretical frameworks for the assessment and evaluation of EET programs (e.g., [73,74]), while others involve systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses of the methods and impacts of published EET literature (e.g., [75,76]). However, none of those literature review or conceptual papers appear to analyze EET explicitly in the sustainable development context.…”

Reconceptualizing the role of the future entrepreneurship educator: an exploration of the content challenge

“…However, mindful that 'embedding' is often interpreted in practice as simply 'inserting' (Hannon 2006), entrepreneurship educators have started to place more emphasis on 'integrating', i.e. unpicking existing curricula and programmes in order to discretely weave through the very essence of entrepreneurship (Fayolle 2013;Henry 2015;Thrane et al 2016). Such an approach presents further challenges for entrepreneurship educators as it deviates from the traditional notion of a single educator being responsible for delivering an entire programme and moves towards the concept of team teaching.…”

“This class is not for you”

“…For-type courses are more applied, and prepare students for, "what to do and how to make it happen" (Laukkanen, 2000: 26), and typically focus on the skills required to start new and manage small businesses (O'Connor, 2013). Through-type courses focus on personal involvement and experiential learning through participation in entrepreneurial activities (Heinonen and Hytti, 2010;Thrane et al, 2016) and encourage students to feel the life-world of an entrepreneur (Gibb, 2011;Neck and Greene, 2011). Different types of courses tend to be taught and assessed differently and have different types of teachers (Levie, 1999;Pittaway and Edwards, 2012 likely that these different types of courses may attract different students disproportionally and incentivize students to become entrepreneurs to varying degrees.…”