An Enterprise Opportunity for Entrepreneurial Students: Student Enterprise Development and Experience Assessed through the Student Voice

Purpose: This research investigates the effectiveness of an experiential learning approach, available to students in all disciplines that combined a hands-on entrepreneurial and enterprise experience with professional consultant mentoring by using a competition to win business start-up funding. Design/methodology/approach: Students at a UK university had the chance to enter a competition in which they developed an entrepreneurial idea and then designed and presented a business plan to win business start-up capital. Students who were entrepreneurially motivated, but who lacked capital to start up their business, were targeted, as these students have been argued to benefit the most from a combination of business plan training and entrepreneurial development. Feedback and data was obtained from the students at each stage of the process and was thematically analysed to assess the development of students’ entrepreneurial skills and knowledge through the experience. Findings: The research found that the benefits gained from this approach included both enterprising and entrepreneurial skills, with the greatest impact being on student confidence and belief in their ability to start a business. The practical skills had a ‘demystifying’ effect on students that made them feel like entrepreneurship and enterprise start-up were attainable. Research limitations/implications: The research focused on students at one UK University and centered on entrepreneurship in a retail business. The competition thus appealed mainly to students who were interested in retail start-up, thus leaving out some enterprising students whose feedback may have been different. In addition, while entrepreneurial skills are assessed in the data, the students who would be interested in the competition would be assumed to be proactive, and this skill was not able to be analyzed. This research is a single case, and thus could be enhanced by more cases and looking at other enterprise start-up means beyond retail. Originality/value: This research makes a case that, in light of literature critical of the use of business plan training in entrepreneurship education, certain students are appropriate candidates for this approach. Specific skills and knowledge can be developed in university students using a live enterprise experience, supported by entrepreneurial mentoring. By making the event extracurricular, the study sought to capture the feedback of students who self-selected into the program, who can benefit most from combined entrepreneurial and business-plan development experience.

Exploring the Success of Student Experiential Learning through Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Academic literature has increasingly recognized the value of non-traditional higher education learning environments that emphasize action-orientated experiential learning for the study of entrepreneurship (Gibb, 2002; Jones & English, 2004). Many entrepreneurship educators have accordingly adopted approaches based on Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle to develop a dynamic, holistic model of an experience-based learning process. Jones and Iredale (2010) suggested that entrepreneurship education requires experiential learning styles and creative problem solving to effectively engage students. Support has also been expressed for learning-by-doing activities in group or network contexts (Rasmussen and Sorheim, 2006), and for student-led approaches (Fiet, 2001). This study will build on previous works by exploring the use of experiential learning in an applied setting to develop entrepreneurial attitudes and traits in students. Based on the above literature, a British higher education institution (HEI) implemented a new, entrepreneurially-focused curriculum during the 2013/14 academic year designed to support and develop students’ entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. The approach actively involved students in small scale entrepreneurship activities by providing scaffolded opportunities for students to design and enact their own entrepreneurial concepts. Students were provided with the necessary resources and training to run small entrepreneurial ventures in three different working environments. During the course of the year, three applied entrepreneurial opportunities were provided for students, increasing in complexity, length, and profitability as the year progressed. For the first undertaking, the class was divided into small groups, and each group was given a time slot and venue to run a pop-up shop in a busy commercial shopping centre. Each group of students was supported by lectures and dedicated class time for group work, while receiving a set of objectives and recommended resources. For the second venture, groups of students were given the opportunity to utilize an on-campus bar/club for an evening and were asked to organize and run a profitable event, acting as an outside promoter. Students were supported with lectures and seminars, and groups were given a £250 budget to develop, plan, and market their unique event. The final event was optional and required initiative on the part of the students. Students were given the opportunity to develop and put forward business plans to be judged by the HEI and the supporting organizations, which selected the winning plan. The authors of the winning business plan received a £2000 budget and a six-week lease to a commercial retail unit within a shopping centre to run their business. Students received additional academic support upon request from the instructor, and one of the supporting organizations provided a training course offering advice on creating a budget and a business plan. Data from students taking part in each of the events was collected, in order to ascertain the learning benefits of the experiential learning, along with the successes and difficulties they faced. These responses have been collected and analyzed and will be presented at the conference along with the instructor’s conclusions and recommendations for the use of such programs in higher educations.