Leseprobe
Table of Contents
Abstract
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
1. Introduction
2. Theory
2.1 Entrepreneurship Education
2.2 Technology Entrepreneurship Education
3. Research Method
3.1 Research Methodology
3.2 Journal search
3.2.1 Research Questions
3.2.2 Database selection and keywords
3.2.3 Time Frame
3.2.4 Journal selection
3.3 Sources
4. State of Research
4.1 Teaching Frameworks
4.2 Pedagogical Method and Approach
5. Development of the Technology Entrepreneurship Case Training Programme
6. Discussion
6.1 Teaching Models in Technology Entrepreneurship
6.2 Pedagogical Concepts in Technology Entrepreneurship
7. Conclusion
List of References
List of Tables
Table 1: Databases used in the research
Table 2: Found literature in the journals
Table 3: Comparison of different components
List of Figures
Figure 1: Learning Approach Tree
Figure 2: Technology Entrepreneurship Case Training Programme (TECTP)
1. Introduction
In today’s economy, entrepreneurs are seen as drivers of national development (Cristian-Aurelian & Cristina, 2012; Matlay, 2005; Qian & Haynes, 2014). Entrepreneurs are also critical in overcoming economic downturns, creating new jobs and improving the quality of life (Kazakeviciute, Urbone, & Petraite, 2016). In particular, this is achieved by innovative businesses that play a significant role in shaping future competitiveness and ensuring economic growth, and driving social and technological change (Brem & Borchardt, 2014; Kuratko, 2005). Shih and Huang (2017) confirm the significance of entrepreneurs as innovation drivers. Technology-oriented entrepreneurs, in particular, ensure with their innovations that the economy grows and society develops accordingly (Duval-Couetil, Reed-Rhoads, & Haghighi, 2012; Maritz, Anton De Waal, & Chich-Jen, 2014; Militaru, Pollifroni, & Niculescu, 2015). This potential must be exploited in order to remain competitive in the future.
In university education, there must be a shift from a market-oriented to a technology-oriented approach to establish the environment needed for creating more technology entrepreneurs (Kazakeviciute et al., 2016). Universities play an important role in this, as they are responsible for educating their students and equipping them with the skills necessary to become successful entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship education has thus far neglected to provide technology-oriented students with programmes teaching them how to use entrepreneurial skills to build sustainable businesses and commercialise their products or services (Barr, Baker, Markham, & Kingon, 2009).
This leaves part of the students' potential untapped. However, in recent years the focus has shifted: More and more universities and researchers are seeking to close the gap between entrepreneurship education and technology entrepreneurship education and to educate students with a technical background to become entrepreneurs (Barr et al., 2009). Maritz et al. (2014) also states that in the past, entrepreneurial education had eluded technology entrepreneurship. This is surprising since students with a technical background are usually more likely to form companies that are innovative and technological (Militaru et al., 2015). Militaru et al. (2015) confirm that university teaching programmes in technology entrepreneurship have a considerable influence on the rate of start-ups among engineering students. In this context, university education is becoming increasingly important in technology entrepreneurship.
Technology entrepreneurship is considered with commercialising products and services based on technological developments (Beckman, Eisenhardt, Kotha, Meyer, & Rajagopalan, 2012). This is a challenging yet important task that universities have to deal with. Recent studies also confirm that the transfer of entrepreneurial knowledge has a positive impact on students' intentions to start a business (Packham, Jones, Miller, Pickernell, & Thomas, 2010). The role of universities is therefore becoming ever more important in imparting entrepreneurial knowledge and intentions in the technology-oriented fields (Audretsch, 2014; Militaru et al., 2015). For this reason, it is useful to develop a teaching framework in which technology entrepreneurship can be taught.
This literature review should identify possible teaching frameworks and pedagogical approaches, present the current state of research and identify possible research gaps. Furthermore, on the basis of the findings, a programme is proposed that can be taught within the field of technology entrepreneurship.
By reviewing the existing literature within the above research area, the following questions will be answered in this paper.
1. Which teaching models are used in technology entrepreneurship education to develop entrepreneurial programmes?
2. Which pedagogical concepts are applied in a technology-oriented context to convey entrepreneurial knowledge effectively and efficiently?
To answer these questions, the existing literature on technology entrepreneurship will be systematically searched and critically examined. The following section deals with entrepreneurship education and technology entrepreneurship education, highlighting their differences. The third section describes step by step the procedure used in this literature search. In this section, the search process is explained so the reader can understand how the results were produced. The fourth section reflects the current state of research regarding the above-stated questions. The fifth section develops a technology-oriented programme based on the findings. Next, the results of the literature review are discussed in the sixth section. The final section identifies research possibilities in the field of technology entrepreneurship education and presents the conclusion.
2. Theory
2.1 Entrepreneurship Education
According to Bager (2011), entrepreneurship education concerns the knowledge- building process, and the ability to recognise entrepreneurial opportunities and become entrepreneurially active. Therefore, entrepreneurship education should be designed to encourage students to think in an entrepreneurial way and to impart and develop knowledge, skills and abilities (Allan Gibb & Hannon, 2006; Kazakeviciute et al., 2016). According to Cheng, Chan and Mahmood (2009), entrepreneurial learning includes in particular the aspects of experience that are consequently brought to bear in starting a business.
This may not seem like an easy task, but it would greatly prepare students for future entrepreneurial challenges (Kazakeviciute et al., 2016). Entrepreneurship education should be designed to provide students with a realistic insight into the process of starting a business, while at the same time encouraging and motivating them to engage in entrepreneurial activities (Shih & Huang, 2017). Therefore, theoretical activities should be based on action- and practice-oriented learning (Bell, 2015). The activities should be designed to give the student self-confidence, a realistic view of the entrepreneurial process and the ability to start a business with more chance of success than failure (Shih & Huang, 2017).
Entrepreneurship education can prompt students to pursue a goal that would not be possible without entrepreneurial skills (Kazakeviciute et al., 2016).
However, according to Wilson, Kickul and Marlino (2007), it is important to avoid making entrepreneurial activities overly complex, which could easily discourage students. Therefore, a process must be identified that leads to specific actions.
Gibb (1996) presented four steps that lead to tangible results in entrepreneurship education. The first step is the development of entrepreneurial behaviour, attitudes and skills. The expected results of this step are opportunity search, initiative, personal responsibility for development, commitment to see things through the personal control, intuitive decision making, network capacity, strategic thinking, negotiation skills, persuasion skills, performance orientation and an appetite for calculated risks.
The second step should create the motivation for an entrepreneurial career. This step should impart an understanding of the advantages of such a career, a comparison with a career as an employee, and getting to know some entrepreneurial heroes in the form of friends, acquaintances and images of other entrepreneurs who share similarities with the students (A. A. Gibb, 1996; Zahro, 2016).
The third step is understanding the processes of starting a business, with the expectation that students and graduates can go through the entire process, know what challenges will arise in each phase, and how to deal with them (A. A. Gibb, 1996; Zahro, 2016).
The last step is the development of general entrepreneurial skills. Hereby, it is expected that students and graduates will know how to find an idea, evaluate it, view problems as opportunities, identify the key people to be influenced in each development, build knowledge, learn from relationships, assess business development needs, build emotional self-confidence, manage and read emotions, deal with relationships and constantly see themselves and the company through the eyes of stakeholders and especially customers, and know where to look for answers (A. A. Gibb, 1996; Zahro, 2016).
In this context, the Lean Start-up Model, introduced by Blank (2013), gains importance. It was developed to evaluate ideas quickly, without risk and with low financial means. This principle is particularly suitable for technological products, as they are usually complex and expensive to develop.
Neck and Greene (2011) argue that learning a method in entrepreneurship education is more important than learning specific knowledge. The reason is that a learned method can be used repeatedly in relation to the context, while specific knowledge can only be reproduced in a certain situation. They cite three reasons why they prefer such an approach. The first reason is the importance of entrepreneurship education. The second is the practical experience that is indispensable for starting a business and that should be given a high priority. Finally, they see the need for an approach based on actions and practices.
Thus, there is a consensus across all the relevant theories that entrepreneurship training requires specific knowledge and skills.
2.2 Technology Entrepreneurship Education
According to Beckman et al. (2012, S. 90), technology entrepreneurship is ”critically concerned with technical innovations and the nascent markets and novel products they often enable.”
Bailetti (2012, S. 9) defines technology entrepreneurship as follows: “Technology entrepreneurship is an investment in a project that assembles and deploys specialized individuals and heterogeneous assets that are intricately related to advances in scientific and technological knowledge for the purpose of creating and capturing value for a firm.“
Technology entrepreneurship combines the concepts of technology commercialisation and entrepreneurship (Kleine, Giones, & Tegtmeier, 2019). This means identifying products or services on the basis of technological developments, developing a business model and commercialising the products or services (Militaru et al., 2015).
For Kazakeviciute et al. (2016), technology-based entrepreneurship education is the task of fostering entrepreneurial thinking, developing relevant knowledge, teaching skills and abilities, and motivating students to transform their knowledge into real projects. In particular, university curricula should reflect the specificities of technology-oriented entrepreneurship. Thus, the development of a technology entrepreneurship programme is complex.
Barr et al. (2009) identify four elements that characterise an effective and efficient training model in technology entrepreneurship; namely, the model needs to be real, intensive, interdisciplinary and iterative.
Real means that students work on projects that allow them to have real and authentic experiences over a set timeframe, which has a significant impact on the students’ self-efficacy and allows them to have experiences that realistically represent the business creation process (Barr et al., 2009).
Intensive means that within a short time frame, many intense experiences are encountered, including setbacks, obstacles and failures. This is a type of toughening-up process for students, which leaves them more robust and confident about later experiences (Barr et al., 2009).
Interdisciplinary describes the intensive cooperation of teams, in which each member brings special skills and knowledge to fulfil a project task (Barr et al., 2009).
Iterative means that learning through repetition of process increases the students' confidence in their skills and further develops the learning outcomes (Barr et al., 2009).
These key elements identified by Barr et al. (2009) are based on the Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Algorithm developed for master’s students at North Carolina State University.
Technology-oriented education supports technology transfer at universities and focuses on economic value creation through technological change (Boocock, Frank, & Warren, 2009). Boocock et al. (2009) also argue that there must be a shift from market-based to technology-oriented entrepreneurship.
In addition, technology entrepreneurship education for undergraduates, PhD students and academic staff can lead to academic spin-offs (Hayter, Lubynsky, & Maroulis, 2017).
According to Van Burg, Romme, Gilsing and Reymen (2008), five factors are significant in encouraging start-ups outside of higher education: university awareness, support for the start-ups during their learning process, networking, separation between academic research and teaching, and creation of an entrepreneurial culture.
Creating university awareness means creating awareness for the entrepreneurial process and supporting ideas through university teaching programmes aimed at both, students and academic staff. Supporting start-up teams during the learning process means that the right skills and knowledge are imparted and that the students benefit, for example, from individual consulting, coaching and training programmes. Networking means that the start-ups can use university resources to meet investors, founders, consultants, etc. for better industrial networking. Separating academic research and teaching means setting clear ground rules for spin-offs and separating the spin-off process from academic research and teaching. Lastly, creating an entrepreneurial culture means to giving start-ups the space within the academic environment to develop (Van Burg et al., 2008).
3. Research Method
3.1 Research Methodology
A literature search is about providing an overview of a defined topic within a specific field of research. This literature overview is intended to identify pedagogical approaches and teaching models in relation to technology entrepreneurship, present the current state of research and identify possible research gaps. In the following sections, the steps applied in the literature search are described to clarify how the results were achieved.
3.2 Journal search
The literature search begins with the definition of the research questions to be answered by the search. Once they have been formulated, the relevant keywords and synonyms as well as subordinate and generic keywords are identified, which serve to answer the research questions.
In the next step, literature databases are identified that thematically match the focus of the literature review. Boolean operators such as AND, OR, NOT and truncations (*) are used in order to carry out effective and efficient searches of the databases.
In the next step, inclusion and exclusion criteria such as the medium and time frame are defined to keep the number of search results within a manageable range.
The search results are systematically searched for keywords in the abstract and title of the respective literature in order to determine which results should be reviewed in more detail later on.
In the following sections, the search process is described in detail.
3.2.1 Research Questions
The goal of this thesis is to give insights into the field of technology entrepreneurship. The search refers solely to articles published in selected scientific journals. The goal is, on the one hand, to provide approaches and teaching models for teaching technology entrepreneurship and, on the other hand, to develop a programme that can be taught within the context of technology entrepreneurship. In addition, the paper aims to contribute to the literature landscape and identify possible research gaps.
This paper aims to answer the following research questions in particular:
1. Which teaching models are used in technology entrepreneurship education to develop entrepreneurial programmes?
2. Which pedagogical concepts are applied in a technology-oriented context to convey entrepreneurial knowledge effectively and efficiently?
In the next section, the keywords, databases, and inclusion and exclusion criteria such as medium are defined.
3.2.2 Database selection and keywords
In the literature review, only databases accessible to academic institutions were used. The databases Scopus, Emerald, Science Direct, Springer Link, Wiley Online Library and Google Scholar were selected for the thematic field of technology and entrepreneurship. These databases have been intensively searched to identify relevant journal articles and to use them in literature reviews. Scopus was used as the primary database. The following table provides an overview of the databases used.
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Table 1 : Databases used in the research
Once the topic had been defined, research questions formulated and databases identified, the next step was to identify the central keywords, synonyms, and generic and sub-concepts from the research questions.
The objective of the keywords is to identify articles that can be used to answer the research questions. This ensures that all relevant articles will be found.
In order to do this fully, a mind map was created to search for the keywords; this allowed to search to be structured. Boolean operators such as AND, OR and NOT were also used to search for the relevant articles. In addition, keywords with multiple variants were truncated to achieve an optimal result.
In the search, the keyword "technology entrepreneurship" and the associated synonyms, headings and subheadings “technological entrepreneurship”, “engineering entrepreneurship”, “technology-based entrepreneurship”, “techno-innovator”, “high technology entrepreneurship” and “techno-entrepreneur” were used for this literature review.
These keywords were then combined with one of the following keywords: “education”, “framework”, “curricu*”, “program”, "model*”, “course”, “class”, “seminar”, “university”, “learning”, “teaching”, “tutor*”, “lesson*”, “competenc*”, “workshop”, "pedag*", “abilit*”, “skill*”, “knowledge”, “stud*”, “capabilit*”, “proficienc*”. This enabled an extensive search and also focused search results. The next step was then to define the time horizon for the search.
3.2.3 Time Frame
A time frame was set between January 2011 and February 2019, meaning the articles used for the analyses covered an eight-year period. 2011 was chosen as the starting point, because there has been a steady increase of articles in this field since then. The endpoint is February 2019 to cover the latest scientific journals. The next step is describing the process for selecting suitable journals.
3.2.4 Journal selection
The selection of the right journals is a suitable criterion to effectively and efficiently limit the search results, but also to considerably increase the quality of the literature review. The VHB-Jourqual ranking (VHB JOURQUAL, 2019) was used to identify relevant high-quality journals. In the first step, journals not rated A or B in the partial rating technology, innovation and entrepreneurship were excluded, because papers ranked C or D are viewed as less qualitative. This can limit the quality of the literature review.
However, because of the low number of results in the first search, it was decided to include journals with other rankings to increase the number of articles.
Some articles appeared repeatedly in different databases, which confirms their relevance. Duplicates of journals found in the second search were removed.
3.3 Sources
In this section, the results used to answer the research question are presented in a comprehensive manner.
As already described, the first step was to choose the topic and formulate the research questions. In the next step, keywords, synonyms and related headings and subheadings were identified using a mind map. After the terms had been identified, several databases were selected that fit the topic of technological entrepreneurship. Scopus, Emerald, Springer Link, Wiley Online Library and Science Direct proved to be particularly useful databases. The keyword search was limited to the title, abstract and keywords given in the article. 534 articles were found in the first search.
In order to reduce the number of articles to a manageable number, further criteria were defined. One was a time frame of eight years beginning in 2011, the point at which the number of publications started to increase in line with the topic’s rise in popularity. In addition, only articles in English were used and, as described in the previous chapter, journals from the VHB-Jourqual ranking were primarily considered. The second search resulted in 163 articles matching the criteria.
In order to identify the truly relevant articles, all 163 were systematically examined. The abstract and the title were read, and keywords examined to decide whether the found article served to answer the research question and could be used in the further analysis. All articles that did not contribute to answering the research question were removed from the selection. In addition, duplicates created during the search were also removed. This left 54 articles, which were analysed more intensively for relevance in the next step. In the end, 15 articles remained, which were considered in the further review process.
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