engleski

How to teach entrepreneurship: Case study Vern'

Theoretical overview There are two sides of teaching entrepreneurship – the theoretical side of teaching entrepreneurship and the pedagogical side of entrepreneurship theory (Fiet, 2001). Theory is an essential part of what we teach, and it seems of essential to offer a coherent framework in terms of perspective, objectives, and contents of entrepreneurship education. Fayolle (2006) distinguishes three areas of learning relating to mindsets (or culture), behaviours and situations. Hindle (as cited in Fayolle, 2006) proposes to articulate the definition of entrepreneurship teaching around the research object. In this light, if we define the field of entrepreneurship as the “examination of how, by whom, and with what effects, opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited” (Shane, & Venkatamaran, 2000), then entrepreneurship teaching should be defined as knowledge transfer” of how, by whom and with what effects. All forms of knowledge must interact for real knowledge to be achieved. Methodology Total of four workshops were held with three different groups/participants. One group was Tempus team as a focus group in which the participants were lecturers and the members of the management board of the Vern’. The second group consisted of the lecturers from different College Departments, and the third group was student group. In total, 38 lecturers and 25 students completed a matrix. The task they needed to fulfil was to place the courses (based on the title, goals and content of the courses) into the matrix and the learning circles that were designed and introduced by the expert, from the Levon Institute, at Vaasa University, Finland. The matrix tried to link personal learning to business development. It was adopted from the model of Gibb (2002), and it shows stages from orientation/identification, start-up, pioneering and SME-management phase in entrepreneurial development on the one side, and entrepreneur, firm, networks and environment from the society’s point of view, on the other side. Findings Lecturers placement of courses were influenced by their backgrounds. There was no consensus as to how an entrepreneurial process should be interpreted or how the subject should be taught according to the steps of entrepreneurial education and the learning circle. More emphasis was given to SME management courses, and when taking into consideration the views given by Gibb (2002), more emphasis has been given to orientation/identification stage. The findings showed that participants didn't know quite well in details the structure and content (and even the teaching methods used) in the courses. The model that was tested had to be constructed ab initio with more information and design criteria of the courses. Also, there were no significant differences in positioning of the courses among three different groups, although the focus group had more information than others. Conclusion This research is the first to examine the perception of the nature and flow of entrepreneurship courses held by lecturers on entrepreneurship programmes in the first private business school, in Croatia. Although, there is increasing recognition that entrepreneurship is vital for growth, however, entrepreneurship education in Croatia is still in its infancy, as compared to its development in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. VERN' has done its part by sowing the seeds of entrepreneurial imagination and it should be stressed that collaboration between universities to bring about an effective exchange of students, lecturers and course content can enhance entrepreneurship education.

entrepreneurship education; knowledge transfer; curriculum building; business

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