How and to what extent does entrepreneurship education make students more entrepreneurial? A California case of the Technology Management Program.

摘要

Each year about 2% of all American firms cease operation. It is the new firms founded by entrepreneurs that take up the slack and contribute to the sustenance of our economic viability. Entrepreneurs are essential to the vitality of our society and community. Harvard Business School offered the first course in entrepreneurship in 1947. Today most of the AACSB-accredited business schools offer programs in entrepreneurship. With innovations emanating from the science and technology area, entrepreneurship education has also migrated to engineering schools. An example is the Engineering Technology Management Program (TMP) at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB). There has been a lot of research on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship education in the science and technology discipline. In this study, we look at one aspect of entrepreneurship education: how and to what extent does it make students more entrepreneurial? It fills a gap in the literature with a methodological approach to measure this outcome. This study also provides empirical evidence that indeed education can affect entrepreneurial attitude of the students, on top of imparting skills and knowledge embodied in a curriculum. A mixed methods approach is used in this inquiry. To inform practice, we further explore the role of pedagogy, program design and educational leadership that caused the observed outcome. For this California case, the students became more entrepreneurial through the confidence gained from the real-world relevant content material and application focus of the curriculum. The mix of having practice-oriented instructors capable of blending practice with theory, frequent exposure to reputable, practitioner guest-speakers with expertise in topical areas, learn by doing through hands-on projects in collaborative teams are contributory factors. We attribute this outcome to the learner-centered instructional leadership in program design, staffing approach and resource allocation.