Cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship education

Abstract

Since the dawn of the millennium, cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship education has taken hold in primarily US universities, colleges and even in two-year community colleges. It has evolved from being solely in business schools (Dana, 1992, 1993; Gorman et al., 1997). There are also a few examples of universities globally that have adopted this model. Crossdisciplinary entrepreneurship education, for the purposes of our study, refers to courses outside the discipline of entrepreneurship, almost solely located in business schools that have two or more learning objectives (goals) in entrepreneurship together with disciplinespecific learning objectives which are carried through in the assignments and exercises in the class and then measured (Welsh, 2014). Entrepreneurship is woven or blended in the subject and applied for better understanding and application to the discipline (Welsh, 2014). The role of faculty buy-in and participation cannot be over-emphasized when it comes to the success of cross-disciplinary programs (Schneider, 2015). Hynes (1996) developed an early model to integrate entrepreneurship education across campus, focusing on process based on the needs of different groups of students. Engineering has been the predominant discipline in which entrepreneurship has been integrated and achieved early on, but now entrepreneurship education has been integrated in all disciplines, from the arts to the sciences. Experiential education is a popular component of entrepreneurship curricula and is included as a vital component of cross-campus entrepreneurship programs. Internships often are included as either required or elective courses in entrepreneurship programs and may be in multiple departments across campus. Internships give students one-onone experience in entrepreneurial businesses, start-ups, and often include a modeling or shadowing component with an entrepreneur. Internships add experience to the résumé of students before graduating. Internships provide a reality check for students. Giacomin et al. (2016: 938), in a study comparing optimism and overconfidence in students from the US, Spain and India, concluded that ‘students may be unaware of the reality of being an entrepreneur, such as long hours, heavy work load, stress, financial risks, less job security, few benefits, greater vulnerability to market shifts and microeconomic downturns, challenges in balancing work and family, and . . . failure’.