Good Practice in Entrepreneurship Development within Higher Education

Introduction
Entrepreneurial outcomes
Framework to map and assess the development of entrepreneurial outcomes

Introduction

The NCGE believes that Higher Education (HE) institutions play a significant role in the development of entrepreneurial attitudes, aspirations and capabilities in their students. Such capabilities are essential for university graduates in preparing for their future careers in employment and self-employment. It is clear that today’s graduates are likely to have many different jobs and forms of employment throughout their lives as globalisation and technology change forever the nature of work and its role in society.

The principle which underlies this is that ‘entrepreneurship’ is a complex construct which incorporates factual learning, expertise, behaviours, values and beliefs. Thus the encouragement of entrepreneurship by a University can be mapped and assessed by the degree to which it supports and participates in the development of a series of desirable outcomes which together are deemed to constitute ‘entrepreneurship’. NCGE has identified a set of entrepreneurial outcomes, as defined below.

Entrepreneurial outcomes

A. Entrepreneurial behaviours, attitudes and skills developed

• opportunity seeking
• initiative taking
• ownership of a development
• commitment to see things through
• personal locus of control (autonomy)
• intuitive decision making with limited information
• networking capacity
• strategic thinking
• negotiation capacity
• selling/persuasive capacity
• achievement orientation
• calculated risk taking

B. Empathy with the life world of the entrepreneur

• living with uncertainty and complexity
• having to do everything under pressure
• coping with loneliness
• holistic management
• no sell, no income
• no cash in hand – no income
• building know who and trust relationships
• learning by doing, copying, making things up, problem solving
• managing interdependencies
• working flexibly and long hours

C. Key entrepreneurial values inculcated

• strong sense of independence
• distrust of bureaucracy and its values
• self made/self belief
• strong sense of ownership
• belief that rewards come with own effort
• hard work brings its rewards
• believe can make things happen
• strong action orientation
• belief in informal arrangements
• strong belief in the value of know-who and trust
• strong belief in freedom to take action
• belief in the individual and community not the state

D. Motivated toward an entrepreneurial career

• understand the benefits
• can compare with employee career
• have some ‘heroes’ as friends acquaintances
• have images of entrepreneurial people ‘just like them’

E. Understanding of the processes of venture creation, entry and associated tasks

• can go through the total process and know what challenges will arise at each stage
• know roughly how to handle them

F. Generic entrepreneurship competencies developed

• how to find an idea
• how to appraise an idea
• how to see problems as opportunities
• to identify the key people to be influenced in any development
• know how to build the know who
• know how to learn from relationships
• know how to assess business development needs
• know where to look for answers
• emotional self awareness, manage and read emotions and handle relationships
• to constantly see yourself and the business through the eyes of stakeholders and particularly customers

G. Key minimum business how to’s acquired

• see products and services as combinations of benefits
• develop a total service package
• price a product service
• identify and approach good customers
• appraise and learn from competition
• monitor the environment with limited resource
• choose appropriate sales strategy and manage it
• identify the appropriate scale of a business to make a living
• set standards for operations performance and manage them
• finance the business appropriately from different sources
• develop a business plan as a relationship communication instrument
• acquire an appropriate systems to manage cash, payments, collections, profits and costs
• select a good accountant
• manage, with minimum fuss, statutory requirements

H. Effective management of stakeholder relationships

• understand the needs of all key stakeholders at the start-up and survival stage
• know how to educate stakeholders
• know how to learn from them
• know how best to build and manage the relationship.

The framework below provides one means by which to map and assess the extent to which your University supports and participates in the development of these desirable outcomes.

Framework to map and assess the development of entrepreneurial outcomes