There is an old debate on whether entrepreneurship can be taught. Scholars have dealt with this extensively, and some are convinced that it can indeed be taught. But still the discussion keeps popping up from time to time. The evidence seems to be less than rocket solid convincing so far. Many still regard the self-made “natural” entrepreneurs as the only entrepreneurs we will ever get, especially emphasizing the college drop-out entrepreneurs as a proof of this. But let us consider the opposite to self-made entrepreneurs, what would we call them? Manufactured entrepreneurs? Commodity entrepreneurs? Grown entrepreneurs? Cultivated entrepreneurs? Or how about constructed entrepreneurs? There are some other fields where humans have for long tried to create more of what is a natural but rare occurence in nature (or human nature for that sake). Take diamonds, gold or pearls. Nowadays you can buy industrial diamonds, you can actually make gold out of mercury (alchemy) although it is more expensive tha buying gold from the start, and you can cultivate pearls inside a shell. Now, if we would like to understand more about how to construct entrepreneurs, would we study the self-made entrepreneur or the constructed one? I certainly would bet for studying the constructed entrepreneur and examining the environment in which it was created, the “shell” in which he/she was emancipated, the stimulus that transformed him/her into an entrepreneurial mindset. That is how I regard the venture creation programs, a kind of powerful “shell” where we cultivate entrepreneurs that are different from the rare naturally occuring entrepreneurs. Now, if you know of a truly constructed/cultivated entrepreneur, let me know! I will want to have a look at both the precious pearl and the “shell”. And it doesn’t have to be a venture creation program for that sake.

I often experience that the word ‘entrepreneurship’ makes people lose interest of what I am talking about, at least when talking to people outside the ‘entrepreneurship religious community’. There are words that work much better, at least in former socialist Sweden, one of them being the word ‘innovation’. I have even been advised to avoid the use of the word ‘entrepreneurship’, and instead use the word ‘innovation’. To many people, entrepreneurship only concerns the few people starting completely new and often venture capital based technology ventures. This becomes a semantic issue of importance to me, because to me entrepreneurship is a generic skill and ability that is more about taking initiative, being creative, creating new kinds of value, basing this creation on resources currently out of one’s reach. My view of entrepreneurship would make it a topic of relevance to the entire society in an increasingly competitive and globalised world. But that is not the perception I see around me. Instead we focus much more on managing value created by someone else, long time ago, than trying to build new value to society. The subject of new value creation ironically seems to be relevant only to a few fanatics that talk too much and should lower their voice.

A related semantic issue is the one around ‘entrepreneurship education’. Let’s skip the usual debate around ‘can entrepreneurship be taught?’, because that was answered positively decades ago in my view. But the analog to the first semantic issue around ‘entrepreneurship’ is that ‘entrepreneurship education’ is only for a very few people interested in starting a venture capital based venture. One way to get around this semantic obstacle is to talk about ‘action based education’, not even mentioning the word entrepreneurship. Because when we ask learners to take real-life action as part of their education, the indirect effect is that they behave more entrepreneurially and also become far more engaged. Suddenly we end up in discussions about how all students / pupils can get the opportunity to learn more by doing (and also reflecting and connecting to theory ofcourse), in the spirit of the great educational philisopher John Dewey. Instead our adversary now becomes the academic rigor, theory based learning, and ‘knowledge based society’, since most people keep forgetting that the human mind consists of three (not one) aspects – knowledge, skills and attitudes (the tripartite division of mind according to psychologists). But at least now people listen to us, and we have a discussion that we can win, instead of a walk-over win with no real implications.

This is what I have come to label the ‘attitude based economy’, where it is all about making the highest amount of people in our economy much more interested and skilled in creating new value than managing old value. Because what you are interested in you get good at. We thus need more entrepreneurial people (but let’s not call it that yet) and less MBAs who have often been trained in managing old value.

Consequently I have de-emphasized talking about entrepreneurship, instead I talk more about the importance of creating new value for society, as opposed to managing old value (the MBA ability). I also have de-emphasized entrepreneurship education, instead I talk about the importance of making ALL students engaged with the surrounding society and learn by doing. These semantic adjustments have so far been very rewarding to me, to my own surprise. The conclusion becomes that the public interpretation of the word ‘entrepreneurship’ hampers important issues around how our society can be better at creating new value and achieving an increased economical resilience.

This is all somewhat sad to me. But never mind, let’s be pragmatic. Now we at least have a new arsenal of words that seem more functional given the established skewed perception of the word ‘entrepreneurship’. Let’s use the words ‘innovation’, ‘action’, ‘new value creation’, ‘skills’ and ‘attitudes’ much more, and see if we can get things going. But we have a long way to go, at least in Sweden.

It is not only Stuart Brown that emphasizes playfulness as an important aspect of humanity (read my related post here). There is an ongoing discussion in Sweden around using the notion of play as a lens for increasing the understanding of entrepreneurs and enterprising behavior. It was initated by Daniel Hjort some 10 years ago through his doctoral thesis, where he picked up the expression “Homo Ludens” from the 1955 book by Johan Huizinga where he studied the play element in culture. Hjort wanted to counterbalance the focus on “Homo Economicus”, the economically driven entrepreneur. Read one of his articles here. The discussion has continued through a couple of journal articles. Some Swedish researchers within entrepreneurship that have contributed to the discussion are Bengt Johannisson, Malin Tillmar and Karin Berglund. The most recent article by Tillmar and Berglund can be read here. As an entrepreneurship education researcher I wonder how this might be used to improve the level of learning occuring in educational settings if we focus more explicitly on playfulness, in a reasonably serious way of course. Entrepreneurial pedagogy could be a good starting point for exploring this more.

Dr Stuart Brown is an expert on the meaning of play for humans, stating that nothing lights up the brain like play. He says that play is a powerful catalyst for learning at any age, not only for kids. Play is the medium between brain and hand, thus a powerful link between thought and action. Play is born by curiosity and exploration, and social play is a by-product of the play scene. There has been a lot of research on play among animals. Brown exemplifies with lions when they play with eachother but with no fangs and claws. He calls it “rough and tumble play”, and states that is a great learning medium also for humans. Dr Brown’s research might become important when trying to understand the inner nature of venture creation programs, but also more generally when trying to understand action-based education. Is it the playful nature of an action-based educational setting that enhances the learning? Could we label a venture creation program as a “rough and tumble play” learning environment? Should we introduce more playfulness into education in general? What can we learn from research on play when trying to understand action-based education? Read more about Dr Brown’s National Institute for Play here. Also watch his interesting TED talk here.

In a recent comprehensive and well-written report on entrepreneurial universities published by Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum, Chalmers is featured as one of five European entrepreneurial universities. The other four are Warwick in England, Strathclyde in Scotland, Twente in Holland and Joensuu in Finland. Common characteristics are: Diversified financial base, strengthened management structures, multiple support organizations for knowledge transfer, support for research excellence and an integrated entrepreneurial culture in the entire university. Some policy implications are stated, such as increasing autonomy for universities in order to facilitate their entrepreneurial aspirations, establishing a fund for financing activities around developing entrepreneurial capabilities (such as HEIF in UK), tax reduction for financial compensation of students engaging in industry related activities as part of their studies, and interestingly integration between TTOs and incubators on one hand and educational programs on the other hand. Chalmers is mentioned as an example here. Unfortunately for non-Swedish readers, the report is in Swedish, but can be found here.

This week I am visiting a venture creation program at Université Catholique de Louvain, called CPME – link here. I have had a chance to speak to some of the students, and meet with some of the faculty/staff – Frank Janssen, Valérie Eeckhout and Amélie Jacquemine. This program is one of the most experienced VCPs, it has been going since 1997 and has generated over 350 entrepreneurial alumni so far. Their speciality is interdisciplinarity, and they have engaged a whopping seven different faculties – Sciences, Médecine, Psychologie, Biologique, Management, Droit and Polytechnique. Students from all these schools form interdisciplinary teams developing ideas from university research and also ideas from the students themselves. They have also published three articles about their program, a very interesting read. One of these articles can be found in this book. Their attitude and philosophy, and also the opportunities and challenges they see are very similar to ours in Gothenburg. To sum up – a very engaging and encouraging visit!

Attitudes to value-creating creative activity are increasingly becoming crucial in a globalized economy where protective barriers are being torn down. Innovative corporations of today recruit primarily based on attitudes and creativity, not on knowledge and IQ. Success in society is also much more determined by EQ than IQ, at least according to a 20-year longitudinal study on 15.000 conscripts in Swedish military (Lindqvist & Vestman, 2009). But if attitudes are more important than knowledge, when will the educational system of the world adapt to this? Non-cognitive skills are certainly not in fashion at most universities around the world, although the educational measurement organization ETS is starting to pay more attention to the topic. Putting more emphasis on non-cognitive skills could indeed be an opportunity for many universities, regions and nations that struggle to cope with global competition. It could give their region a more creative and value-creating population. One way to put more focus on non-cognitive skills is to focus more on action-based education, but this is often hampered by the higher cost and complexity associated with it. Thus we need more low-cost models for action-based education.

After two years of studying venture creation programs around the world, I have now made a first attempt to depict a generic model for action-based entrepreneurship education. It includes duality related aspects such as reflection & action (learning cycle), value creation & ownership (rationale), own uniqueness & interdisciplinary contributions (collaboration), longevity & real-life (immersion). All is centered around a team role-play, or a multiplayer game, or a reality team game. It is fuelled by emotional arousement, both negative and positive. If you have ideas on this, contact me!

Recently I have been investigating political aspects of venture creation programs. A VCP can be characterized as a major innovation within a university setting, if it is considered a disruption  compared to the traditional pedagogical methods used for decades in universities. This way, many theories on innovation management can be used to understand the establishment and development of VCPs. For example Frost and Egri’s (1990) article “Influence of political action on innovation” can be used to understand better why people resist the creation of VCPs, and why top management support is important. I have recently completed an action research based article on this theme. Contact me to have a look!

In my quest to understanding venture creation programs I am currently deep-diving into emotional aspects of entrepreneurship education. When do students get emotionally invested in their learning journey? My hypothesis so far is that it happens when real value is created, since that spurs a deeper sense of meaning beyond exams. Could be a venture, could be for charity, could be other types of economic or social value. So when we let students do real stuff that creates real value as part of a course or program, that is when the emotions start kicking in. What do you think? Do you agree?