Claire Leitch

Entrepreneurship education and training: can entrepreneurship be taught? Part II

Purpose – Despite a growing body of literature in the field, there is still considerable uncertainty as to whether entrepreneurs are born are made, which has led to an ongoing debate in the entrepreneurship academy about whether we can actually teach individuals to be entrepreneurs. With this in mind, this two‐part paper aims to address the question of whether or not entrepreneurship can be taught.Design/methodology/approach – Part I of the paper dealt with the importance of entrepreneurship in a modern and constantly changing environment; the various ways in which entrepreneurship programmes and courses can be categorised, and the objectives, content and delivery of programmes. The second part of the paper, which is presented in this issue, deals with the topic of determining and measuring programme effectiveness.Findings – Despite the growth in entrepreneurship education and training programmes, the paper reports that little uniformity can be found. Attention is drawn to the art and the science of entre...

Entrepreneurial Learning: Researching the Interface between Learning and the Entrepreneurial Context

The context for the research presented in this article arises from increasing interest, by academics and practitioners, in the importance of learning and knowledge in the knowledge–based economy. In particular, we consider the scope for applying concepts of learning within the field of entrepreneurship. While it has gained currency within the field of management, the application of these concepts to entrepreneurship has been limited. In this Introduction to the Special Issue, we review the development of the field of entrepreneurship as a context for the emergence of learning as an area of scholarly attention, summarize a number of key themes emerging from the organizational learning literature, and outline the article selection process and summarize the key elements of each of the included articles. The article concludes with some reflections on future research at the interface between learning and the entrepreneurial context.

The Philosophy and Practice of Interpretivist Research in Entrepreneurship Quality, Validation, and Trust

Knowledge production in entrepreneurship requires inclusivity as well as diversity and pluralism in research perspectives and approaches. In this article, the authors address concerns about interpretivist research regarding validity, reliability, objectivity, generalizability, and communicability of results that militate against its more widespread acceptance. Following the nonfoundationalist argument that all observation is theory-laden, context specific, and that there are no external criteria against which to assess research design and execution and the data produced, the authors propose that quality must be internalized within the underlying research philosophy rather than something to be tested upon completion. This requires a shift from the notion of validity as an outcome to validation as a process. To elucidate this, they provide a guiding framework and present a case illustration that will assist an interpretivist entrepreneurship researcher to establish and demonstrate the quality of their work.

A process model for entrepreneurship education and development

There has been a significant reawakening of interest in the applicability of action learning as a paradigm for management development, particularly as a pedagogical device in both classroom and executive development contexts. This development has occurred against a background of a wider re‐examination of the theory and practice of management education and development. Fundamentally, this re‐examination has been stimulated by criticism of the static, content‐oriented approach as inappropriate to the changing environment of the 1990s. In particular, there is a shift required for effective management: business schools will have to focus on the day‐to‐day realities of the business world, develop communication and leadership skills and emphasise continuous attention to the links between theory and practice. The implications are twofold: first, the range of teaching techniques must be extended to include process‐oriented approaches; second, and more fundamentally, there is a need for an expanded definition of the learning arena itself, and of the role of management schools within that. Renewed interest in and attention to the concept of the learning company, and to processes of both individual and organisational learning, redefines the context within which these changes are taking place. Reviews a number of key developments in this understanding of contemporary management education and development, and presents a summary of a new programme built as an action‐ and implementation‐oriented approach to entrepreneurial senior executive development. This programme aims to support the development of leadership in both large and smaller, growth‐oriented, companies, in a partnership which breaches the conventional separation both between the encapsulated learning arenas of the university and the organisation and between management and entrepreneurship education and development. This partnership emphasises the impact of intra‐group and interorganisational learning on both the participants and on the context of their organisations.

Entrepreneurial and Business Growth and the Quest for a “Comprehensive Theory”: Tilting at Windmills?

Even though there has been sustained interest in growth for almost 50 years, relatively little is known about this phenomenon and much confusion and misunderstanding surrounds it. Based on a literature review and the articles in this special issue we make three recommendations that we believe will allow theory to advance and be applicable in practice. First, that discourse between key stakeholders is encouraged in order to achieve greater understanding. Second, that focus is placed on “growth as a process,” rather than as a “change in amount.” Third, that knowledge production requires inclusivity and pluralism in research perspectives and approaches.

Learning organizations: the measurement of company performance

While the concept of the learning company has now become a fairly well‐established idea within academic and practitioner circles, it is still a concept which is in emergence and thus a certain amount of ambiguity and confusion surrounds it. It is, therefore, necessary not only to develop an understanding of the concept to the point at which it is possible to begin to understand the implications for practice, but also to establish the relationship between the presence and the development of learning company characteristics and organizational performance. Reviews the application of learning company ideas in a primarily small to medium‐sized enterprise environment, and using a case study approach considers the training, development and learning potential of one company after the application of The Learning Company Project questionnaire, developed by The Learning Company Project in Sheffield.

Learning and Organization in the Knowledge-Based Information Economy: Initial Findings from a Participatory Action Research Case Study

This paper reports on an ongoing, multiphase, project-based action learning and research project. In particular, it summarizes some aspects of the learning climate and outcomes for a case-study company in the software industry. Using a participatory action research approach, the learning company framework developed by Pedler et al. (1997) is used to initiate critical reflection in the company at three levels: managing director, senior management team and technical and professional staff. As such, this is one of the first systematic attempts to apply this framework to the entire organization and to a company in the knowledge-based learning economy. Two sets of issues are of general concern to the company: internal issues surrounding the companys reward and recognition policies and practices and the provision of accounting and control information in a business-relevant way to all levels of staff; and external issues concerning the extent to which the company and its members actively learn from other companies and effectively capture, disseminate and use information accessed by staff in boundary-spanning roles. The paper concludes with some illustrations of changes being introduced by the company as a result of the feedback on and discussion of these issues.

The effectiveness of training for new business creation: A longitudinal study

In the last couple of decades there has been a growing interest in the role that small and new businesses can play in economic development. Despite this growth there is still a relative paucity of rigorous empirical research that attempts to assess the impact of initiatives, including those education and training programmes designed to support new business creation. In particular, the lack of longitudinal studies and studies employing control groups, has been noted in the literature. The research reported in this article, which was conducted in Ireland, represents an attempt to overcome such methodological deficiencies. The study presents some evidence that a range of qualitative and quantitative outcomes may emanate from training programmes directed at aspiring new business owners, which are worthy of further investigation. The limitations of the study are acknowledged, recommendations for further research are made and implications for policy makers and training providers are highlighted.

The Development of Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Role of Human, Social and Institutional Capital

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial leadership development. Leadership studies are characterized by an increasing emphasis given to an individual leaders social and organizational domain. Within the context of human capital and social capital theory, the paper reflects on the emergence of a social capital theory of leadership development. Using a retrospective, interpretivist research method, the authors present the experience of a cohort of business leaders on an executive development programme to uncover the everydayness of leadership development in practice. Specifically, they explore how entrepreneurial leadership develops as a social process and what the role of social capital is in this. The findings suggest that the enhancement of leaders’ human capital only occurred through their development of social capital. There is not, as extant literature suggests, a clear separation between leader development and leadership development. Further, the analysis implies that the social capital theory of leadership is limited in the context of the entrepreneurial small firm, and the authors propose that it should be expanded to incorporate institutional capital, that is, the formal structures and organizations which enhance the role of social capital and go beyond enriching the human capital stock of individual leaders.

Developing Paradigmatic Awareness in University Business Schools: The Challenge for Executive Education

The question of how university-based forms of executive education can effectively contribute to the enhancement of practitioner capabilities using the insights of the humanities remains underexplored. The sustained pressure in business schools to adopt a teaching curriculum and pedagogical approach that appears immediately relevant to the perceived needs of practitioners is overwhelming. Yet, universities are distinct from consultancies or other professional management institutes in that traditionally they provide well-established forums for intellectual exchange and encourage crossfertilization among academic disciplines. We maintain that university-based business schools are uniquely positioned to use their internal university-wide expertise and core capabilities to inculcate paradigmatic awareness among business executives to enable them to enlarge their horizons of understanding and hence extend their decisional possibilities. For us, this is the true competitive advantage of university-based business schools over corporate universities, management training institutes, and consultancies. We maintain that university-based business schools can paradoxically be invaluable to business and industry, not by becoming overly anxious about immediate relevance, but by recognizing that the education and development of the individual as a whole through exposure to a plurality of paradigms and perspectives, is what sets universities apart and makes them distinct from other executive education providers. Their real value to the practitioner world is in offering truly fresh insights and genuine radical alternatives to executive problem situations through novel interpretations that are counterintuitive to received wisdom and best practice.