Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which traditional views of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have inadvertently limited entrepreneurship education. The authors propose a broader view of what it means to be an entrepreneur and describe a disruptive approach to entrepreneurship education, one that centers around building students’ entrepreneurial mindset. By tapping into students’ “inner entrepreneur” and nurturing their abilities to think and act creatively, embrace failure, effect change and be resilient, the authors are preparing them for the challenges of the twenty-first century labor market. Design/methodology/approach This is a perspective paper about how the traditional views of entrepreneurship education may be limiting its potential to create entrepreneurial college graduates set to take on twenty-first century careers. Findings Teaching the entrepreneurial mindset and process will allow us, as educators, to best prepare our students for the complexities of the current and future workforce. Originality/value By embracing the original meanings of the word “entrepreneur” – an act of reaching out and capturing and undertaking – the authors demystify what it means to be an entrepreneur. When we adopt a broader and more accurate conceptualization of “the entrepreneur,” we can teach our students to be the entrepreneurs of their lives.
Highlights
There is no denying that entrepreneurship education at universities worldwide remains a priority – if not in action, at least in words
For there is scant evidence that entrepreneurship education the way that it is typically taught, it results in a proliferation of new and successful businesses (Schramm, 2014; Yamakawa et al, 2016), which is the typical and narrowly defined outcome of university entrepreneurship programs
The purpose of this paper is to present, and perhaps more accurately, revive what it really means to be an entrepreneur and how the true meaning of what it takes to be an entrepreneur should influence entrepreneurship education and the expectations of its success
Summary
There is no denying that entrepreneurship education at universities worldwide remains a priority – if not in action, at least in words. The two assumptions of the definition of an entrepreneur and how universities should teach entrepreneurship lead directly to the third logical assumption measure the success of entrepreneurship education by new venture creation.
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