Abstract
Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences provides future graduates with several benefits, wherein they are equipped for the globalized, intercultural world imbued with all of its uncertainties, diversities, and opportunities, both at the workplace and in everyday life. Entrepreneurial higher education institutions are characterized by an international and intercultural perspective – however, an institution cannot be entrepreneurial without being international, yet it can be international without being entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial university provides a good environment, culture, and practices that enhance student entrepreneurship. Internationalisation, entrepreneurship, and in this context international entrepreneurship education are important topics to which academics and higher education institutions have increasingly devoted attention in recent years. This article discusses various aspects of developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences, which are affected by different approaches to intercultural learning and teaching in the context of entrepreneurship education. In the last part of the paper, results are presented of quantitative research among Slovenian academics who teach business, IT, and services disciplines. Findings have shown that independent variables like teaching international students, providing distance learning with foreign institutions, inclusion of academics in training courses, and academics’ international mobility all influence the frequency of using intercultural and entrepreneurial aspects in higher education learning and teaching practices.
Highlights
Higher education institutions are faced with diversified challenges in their future graduates’ preparation to successfully work and live in a modern knowledge society, intertwined with an intercultural, entrepreneurial, and rapidly changing reality
Based on the previously represented theoretical background the following independent variables were identified as approaches to international entrepreneurship education that can stimulate the inclusion of intercultural and entrepreneurial elements in pedagogical activities: i) teaching international students, ii) providing distance learning with foreign institutions, iii) academics’ inclusion in training courses, and iv) academics’ international mobility
The respondents ranked statements and expressed their perceptions regarding following dependent variables in the context of developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences: a)Encouraging students to learn together in internationally mixed teams, including virtual forms of group work b)Encouraging students from different cultural backgrounds to share examples from their own country c)Including guest lecturers from international environment in the study process d) Encouraging students to gain experience abroad according to their academic discipline e)Encouraging students' ability to critically evaluate cultural and national influences on the academic discipline f) Supporting students in developing soft skills like tolerance, adaptability, critical thinking, creativity etc
Summary
Higher education institutions are faced with diversified challenges in their future graduates’ preparation to successfully work and live in a modern knowledge society, intertwined with an intercultural, entrepreneurial, and rapidly changing reality. International entrepreneurship education meets expectations of global citizenship in the 21st century, where personal responsibility for society’s future welfare plays an important role. Special attention should be paid to structural issues regarding the educational and curriculum design in order to promote entrepreneurship education in the internationalisation context [2]
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