Allan Gibb

Enterprise Culture and Education

PROFESSOR ALLAN A. GIBB IS chairman of the Small Business Centre, Durham University Business School, England. The overall objective of this paper is to produce a clearer understanding of the meaning and process of enterprise education, in particular as it has been developed as a distinctive model within the education system in the United Kingdom. It seeks to remove the confusions relating to the links of enterprise education with small business and entrepreneurship education and training, with personal transferable skills and with the political ideology surrounding certain notions of the enterprise culture. It defines enterprise education as concerned with encouraging certain enterprising behaviours; skills and attributes associated with self-reliance and through this process also providing students with greater insight into subjects studied. The links with small business are explored through the development of a model which demnonstrates how the basic organisational essences of the small firm task structures and learning modles within the business stimulate enterprising behaviour. It then demonstrates how these components are embodied in a model of enterprise education which can be applied to any subject context in education. The relationship of enterprise education to broader educational goals is explored. The links with the so-called enterprise culture are examined and thereafter a nuumber of challenges — to industry and education management, and to small business and entrepreneurship education and training — are discussed. The paper concludes by reference to a number of steps that need to be taken to place, more accurately, the enterprise concept within the education system.

In Pursuit of Frameworks for the Development of Growth Models of the Small Business

t research described in this issue of the Journal is to develop a better understanding of the factors influencing the growth of the small business. None of the papers in this issue produce a comprehensive theoretical model: indeed, the authors of this introductory paper have some scepticism as to whether this is possible. However, there is some pressure in this respect for a key characteristic of much of the current

Assessment Practice in Enterprise Education

This paper introduces current debates on assessment practice in Higher Education and explores educational research on assessment. It progresses by exploring a number of outcomes and highlights their role in helping understand the potential reasons for engaging in enterprise education. The paper then applies this outcomes framework to assessment practice. It does so by reporting a series of focus groups undertaken at the International Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) conference in 2005. The focus groups engaged over 40 entrepreneurship and small business academics in a brainstorming exercise which explored forms of assessment that could be used to meet particular outcomes in enterprise education. These results are presented according to different potential entrepreneurial outcomes. The concluding part of the paper categorises these practices to develop and present the views of the participants and it provides a detailed analysis of assessment practice in enterprise education.

Concepts into practice: meeting the challenge of development of entrepreneurship educators around an innovative paradigm

Purpose – This paper aims to explore a range of conceptual and practical challenges faced in delivering an innovative programme targeted at staff of UK higher Education (HE) and further education (FE) institutions. The two major foci of the programme are: on the pedagogies and organization of knowledge required to provide a true “feel” for the life world, values and ways of behaving of entrepreneurs in very different academic disciplinary contexts; and on strategically and operationally making things happen in the participant institution.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is action research‐focused. Its aim is to explore the validity of a concept of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education which is truly interdisciplinary. It tests out in practice a “Mastery” model of an entrepreneurship educator in HE and FE.Findings – The basic structure of the model is found to be appropriate as is its social constructionist view of education upon which it is founded. Importantly it values learning through ...

LEADING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY Meeting the entrepreneurial development needs of higher education institutions

The paper has an innovation focus in that it constitutes part of the preparation for the development of the Entrepreneurial University Leaders Programme (www.eulp.co.uk) which was launched in 2010 by the UK’s National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE), now renamed the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education (NCEE), and the Said Business School, University of Oxford. The paper demonstrates the thinking and concept behind the program.

Organizing for enterprise in China: what can we learn from the Chinese micro, small, and medium enterprise development experience

China is a social market economy that has grown quickly, if unevenly, over the past decade. This growth has largely come about from small enterprise, in particular Township and Village Enterprises, which are micro, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSME), owned by local communities and partly controlled by local government. The conditions for this economic growth are quite different from the normative western model of economic development, notably the absence of private ownership or property rights. Decentralized marketization, i.e., the local freedom to establish prices and use resources, and a strong culture of Guanxi, intricate networks of mutual obligations, and cultural norms closely associated with entrepreneurship are key features that allow ambiguous local power holders to harness enterprise to fit with local conditions. A number of propositions are constructed from the evidence, from which those concerned with economic development in both developed and developing economies might learn. These propositions are concerned with local empowerment, entrepreneurial behavior of all public and private stakeholders, freedom from formal regulatory frameworks, conditions of ambiguity, bottom-up and grounded development, low significance of privatization and intellectual property and therefore the challenge to western benchmark criteria in development programmes. In a future where ideas and concepts can be spread rapidly, a deeper understanding and application of the diverse bases of small-business development can improve global economic development.

EDUCATION FOR ENTERPRISE: TRAINING FOR SMALL-BUSINESS INITIATION—SOME CONTRASTS

ABSTRACT (Abstract prepared by R. Kao) This paper demonstrates that the entrepreneur, the enterprising person and the small-business person, although related, are not identical. The relationship is clarified by defining the entrepreneur and the enterprising person in terms of attributes and by defining the small-business person in terms of the tasks he/she encounters. These definitions form a conceptual framework from which both traditional and innovative educational programs can be categorized and evaluated. Within this framework, an important role in enterprise generation is reaffirmed/established for existing small businesses through the recognition and structured dissemination of their “enterprise culture” in the educational process.

Small and medium enterprise development: Borrowing from elsewhere? A research and development agenda

The paper focuses upon the issue of the transfer of ideas between countries and cultures in the field of small and medium enterprise (SME) development. It argues that there has been a neglect of such work in academe. Yet there has been a growing import into the UK of ideas from abroad (mainly from the US). There has also been an extensive export particularly to Transition economies. The results in both respects have been less than satisfactory. There is also greater opportunity for ideas transfer via the new communication technologies. The European Commission is particularly active in the field of transfer. There is therefore a strong case for greater academic interest. The paper explores the concept of transfer by posing four questions: (1) What does the notion of transfer mean? (2) Where are the academic challenges in such processes? (3) Where might there be opportunities for transfer in the future of relevance to UK SME development? (4)How and where might we begin to address the issue? In addressing question one, six key areas are identified: ideology transfer; concept/paradigm transfer; benchmarking; institutional development; programme transfer; and transfer of process insights. The second question looks at the academic challenge through the lens of a number of problems, including those of ideology, culture, language, concept, context, agency, reasoning and rationality, agenda, field of production, and customer. Each of these areas is defined, and examples are given of the kinds of problems that arise and their impact. The third question is addressed by a short and speculative review of possibilities for transfer of ideas to the UK relating to the broad areas of policy, institution development and assistance to SME development. The final question is approached by a brief review of the potential for action by journal editors, academic groups and policy makers.

Training the Trainers for Small Business.

This article is written for practitioners. It argues that training policies should clearly be related to objectives of stimulating the role of start‐ups, improving survival rates and increasing the growth potential of small firms. It argues also that the supply offer of training in Europe is somewhat below that of need. It looks at the possible reasons for this both from the demand and the supply side. It suggests that the small firm needs distinct approaches by trainers and organisers and a level of professional competence which might yet be largely missing. It identifies the necessary competences for trainer and organiser to deliver effective training. It concludes by arguing the case for the development of a professional cadre of small business trainers across Europe.

Meeting the development needs of owner managed small enterprise: a discussion of the centrality of action learning

This paper explores the role that action learning might play in micro and small enterprise development. It is divided into two parts. The first part focuses upon the distinctive characteristics of smallness and ownership and their implication for management development processes in the owner managed firm. In particular the impact of personal values, ways of doing things and distinctive forms of learning are explored. The argument points to the emotional underpinning of the ways in which the organisation is developed and run. The challenges to action learning are then reviewed. The second part focuses upon the ‘institutional’ factors that stand in the way of effective approaches to owner manager learning and in particular how they impact on the way that knowledge is delivered and pedagogies applied by business education organisations to the small firm. It is argued that the pervasive corporatism of the approach does much to explain why owner managers are reluctant to pay for existing training and education offers. The barriers that confront action learning approaches are examined. Overall it is concluded that action learning is central to effective owner manager learning, that there are distinctive skill challenges for action learning facilitators but that there need to be major changes in institutional norms.