NEW STUDY | Entrepreneurship education provides broad skills

It is not only self-employed people who benefit from their entrepreneurship education. Employees also benefit greatly from the knowledge gained from training.

How many more businesses and jobs does entrepreneurship education actually generate? These are questions raised in the debate about the value of entrepreneurship education. Diamanto Politis, Director of the Sten K Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship at Lund University, has long felt that these questions reflect a narrow view of the importance of entrepreneurship skills. Together with researchers at Chalmers and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), she has looked at how former students apply their knowledge from entrepreneurship education.

– Those who run their own business are as numerous, around 30%, as those who work as intrapreneurs – employees working on entrepreneurship-related issues. And 12% combine employment with their own business, says Diamanto Politis, explaining that the three groups value the experience gained from the training equally.

– They have learned the same amount from the training but use the knowledge in different ways. The knowledge is as applicable in the role of self-employed as it is in the role of intrapreneur. This result surprised us. We thought there would be a bigger difference between the groups.

Good preparation for an entrepreneurial career

According to Diamanto Politis, entrepreneurship education provides broad knowledge and equips students well for an entrepreneurial career. Tools for coming up with ideas, evaluating financial opportunities for ideas and projects, and approaching customers are examples of skills learned in the course. But students are also trained in more generic skills such as making decisions under uncertainty, evaluating business opportunities and making decisions on scarce information.

– In addition, they practice their social skills and interpersonal relationships. They bring with them a battery of skills that are useful in a broader context than starting a business. It’s time to broaden the debate, says Diamanto Politis.

Contact diamanto.politis@fek.lu.se

Briefly about the results and the study
The study is called Graduates of venture creation programs – where do they apply their entrepreneurial competencies? and has been published in the scientific journal Small Business Economics. The researchers have sent questionnaires to all former entrepreneurship students who have graduated from Lund University, Chalmers and Nord University between 1997 and 2018. They received responses from 556 people.
Breakdown by profession:
Self-employed: 33%
Intrapreneur: 30.5%
Employed without working with entrepreneurship: 24%
Hybrid entrepreneur (combination of self-employment and employment): 12%

To the study.