INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Curriculum Development in Higher Education * SUMMARY OF THE BEST PRACTICE ANALYSIS Study conducted in the Erasmus project Innovation and Growth MBA Programme for Doctoral Students (2010-2013)
Introduction This report is part of a European Commission funded Erasmus project InGDocs - Innovation and Growth MBA programme for Doctoral Students (2010-2013), where a novel innovation and entrepreneurship focused MBA programme MBA4PhD was created among three European universities, University of Turku, Finland, University of Wales, UK, and University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The target group of the MBA4PhD programme are doctoral students in knowledge-intensive sectors, namely STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. MBA4PhD is designed for STEM doctoral students, who are interested in making a shift from academia to working life that is highly globalised and international by nature, driven by market forces. They have a need to understand the innovation value and potential of their research, when taking it into practice via entrepreneurship. For this purpose they need to recognise and develop skills commonly associated with entrepreneurs, e.g. recognising opportunity where others see difficulties, creativity in motivating and leading people, skills in creating and managing scarce resources, a desire and will to create and manage change, as well as a sense for returning value to society and other stakeholders. MBA4PhD is designed to: allow doctoral researchers and PhD graduates in science and technology to obtain a complementary MBA programme in Management (business and management acumen, knowledge and skills), foster the creation of innovative and international ventures by science-based doctoral researchers and PhD graduates, enable doctoral researchers and PhD graduates in science and technology to evaluate and execute business and management opportunities, enhance the potential, attractiveness and social well-being of its graduates, and contribute to the economic development of society. For more information on the programme, please visit www.mba4phd.com. Objective of the study Aim of the best practice study and the discussion report prepared on based on the results was s to discuss particular point of views in entrepreneurship and innovation curriculum development and implementation,
particularly among the science students. Main purpose of the report was to serve as a pragmatic aid in the MBA4PhD programme development. For the study we chose three different approaches in order to identify best practices that could be included in the MBA4PhD programme and so that the programme would best suit for the needs of the PhD students and post docs searching for new kinds of employment possibilities outside the academia in the industry and private sector. Study consisted examination of three different educational programme types in order to identify best practices: 1) 100 best global MBA programmes; 28 innovation and entrepreneurship programmes from Europe and Northern America, and 3) 11 life-science oriented MBA programmes. Below are brief summaries of each of the examinations. Entrepreneurship in general MBA programmes During the bench mark research altogether 100 Global MBA programmes, ranked by Financial Times (FT) in 2011, were examined to 1) investigate the current entrepreneurship education embedded in MBA programmes to ascertain whether these programmes met the needs and wants of entrepreneurship education for STEM students, and 2) to implement good practices in a new MBA4PhD programme learned from the most competitive general MBA programmes. Research findings implied that the importance of entrepreneurship education was well reflected in those MBA programmes - the majority of MBAs (96 out of 100) introduced entrepreneurship programmes either as core or electives or core/electives. However, despite its recognition and importance, entrepreneurship modules provided in general MBA programmes were prone to the growth and expansion aspects of existing businesses. This phenomenon is in line with the characteristics of general MBA programmes, which aim to serve those who work in business and management to prepare for responsible positions in large public or private organisations. This tendency is also apparent in entrepreneurship focus, track, concentration, or emphasis within the MBA programmes. The research findings prove that the contemporary general MBA programmes fail to meet the specific needs of and demand from those who lack entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in pursuing entrepreneurial career. The baseline research of general MBA programmes concludes that contemporary general MBA programmes are inadequate for STEM doctoral students in understanding entrepreneurial phenomena and thus development of a new MBA programme (with entrepreneurship focus) such as MBA4PhD is required.
Entrepreneurship and innovation programmes The study covers totally 28 entrepreneurship and innovation programmes, where 19 programmes are European and nine North American. Starting point for the programme screening was universities and entrepreneurship programmes that we identified as best or good examples in their field, the front-runner institutions. Aim of the study was not to evaluate or compare the different programmes with each other, but instead to compose a picture of the main content provided in the programmes. Main purpose was to serve as a pragmatic aid in design and course integration by providing examples of entrepreneurship and innovation related course and study module content in European and Northern America higher education institutions. Our research proved that innovation and entrepreneurship content in the existing programmes is quite evenly distributed when it comes to the three entrepreneurial functions, 1) individual development; 2) new venture development, and 3) contextual development. However the majority of the courses in already existing programmes is focused on the core of new business and new venture development and the focus on individual development is much less emphasised. Our findings also show that the already existing entrepreneurship and innovation programmes in U.S. focus more on early stages of the new venture development, but in European training programmes the focus tend to be more growth oriented, the opportunity recognition and launch stages being less emphasised. In addition, both European and U.S. programmes tend to neglect the harvesting stage in their current educational content. Our study has especially three main conclusions that affect our current programme and curriculum development work. First conclusion is that in the forthcoming new MBA programme, both individual, new venture and contextual courses will have to be equally represented when it comes to I&E content provided by the programme. The second conclusion would be that the forthcoming European programme will have to be paying closer look to the whole entrepreneurial process from the opportunity recognition to harvesting and providing courses more clearly targeted to a specific stage(s) of the whole business development process. Thirdly our forthcoming MBA programme for PhD students in STEM will have to be providing well designed and implemented entrepreneurship courses especially on the early stages of the new venture development. Providing the PhD students with high quality courses for example related on opportunity recognition and feasibility studies and exposing them to a highly interesting entrepreneurial curriculum are of utmost importance in enhancing and fostering the academic entrepreneurship in STEM disciplines in Europe in the near future.
Life-science oriented MBA programmes Altogether 11 life-science oriented MBA programmes and/or MBA-PhD programmes across the world were examined in order to examine the curriculum and courses offered in similar-type of programmes that MBA4PhD programme was planned to be. The research sample was chosen among Universities ranked in the Thomson Reuters, THE Times Worlds University Rankings. Most of the Universities examined were ranked also in both on the top 50 life science ranking list as well as at the Global MBA Rankings 2011, Financial Times. Majority of examined programmes were built by incorporating courses from the existing business/mba curriculum to the PhD-MBA/MD-MBA programme. This means that not any or very few courses were tailored for the non-business graduates or undergraduates. Also, majority of the courses and modules were theoretical courses in which the most type of delivery method was through contact lectures. As best practices were identified programmes that included courses with Biotechnology/life science industry focus, and highlighted the importance of immaterial rights, patents, and science innovation. Also, courses that offered skills development were identified useful in entrepreneurship focused programme; participants should not know only on how development a unique business idea (not merely to technically prepare a business plan) and enhance their creativity and innovation skills. Some programmes were also successful in terms of taking into consideration the PhD study process by offering evening and weekend classes as well as summer courses. The opportunity for company internships, company presentations and visits were also offered in the best programme to provide the participants to get the feel of the industry. This research on shows that there is need for life-science MBA programmes. Incorporation of merely theoretical business courses will not, however, give the understanding STEM students need to succeed in the life-science oriented business world. Based on the study it can be stated that basic business courses can be incorporated to the PhD students curriculum as long as there are tailor-made courses built separately that focus on the life-science industry issues (such as venture creation, immaterial rights, patent courses, and bio business management). There should also be more practical-oriented and tacit/narrative courses.
General recommendations A. Determining Learning Objectives A special emphasis has been put onto new venture development in the knowledge-intensive sectors, where doctoral candidates are expected to be trained only to work (entrepreneurially) in existing companies, but also to create new companies and new jobs (see e.g. Waters 2010). Training programmes need to respond to this need by building the programme learning objective accordingly. A useful tool to determine the focus on each training programme is a basic categorization in entrepreneurship education by Hytti and O'Gorman (2004): Learning to understand entrepreneurship objective of such programmes is to increase understanding of what entrepreneurship is, Learning to become entrepreneurial objective of such programmes is to equip participants with an entrepreneurial approach to the "world of work" (non-business focus), and Learning to become an entrepreneur objective of such programmes is to prepare individuals to act as entrepreneurs and as managers of a new business (business focus). Based on the best practice review conducted in the InGDocs project it is visible that there are several reports on successful entrepreneurship education programmes, where different types of combinations of the three categories have been applies. For example not only focusing on one, but on two approaches simultaneously in order to build either entrepreneurial skills to serve the establishment of new organization or intrapreneurial skills to serve existing companies. These kinds of programmes allow flexible routes to individuals, who want to both secure their labour market position in existing companies and also build competencies in order to detach oneself from it later to pursue entrepreneurial career. B. Determine Curriculum Content Discussion and research show that MBA programmes usually give a skills-set in finance, strategy and law with varying degrees of actual venture creation courses. Additionally, there are limited to non-existent tacit / vocational training included in MBA programmes. In essence the MBA programmes are mainly theoretical and geared towards graduating administrators in larger companies. Results also indicate that current transnational and interdisciplinary training programmes for science PhDs in business competence are scarce.
Also, many existing entrepreneurship programmes in general are focused mainly on "about" entrepreneurship and not "for" entrepreneurship, and focus is in many cases business creation without emphasis on later stages, e.g. growth and exit. Thursby et al. (2009) emphasise that it is important not to divert the doctoral students from their research by providing them with generic business classes. Instead, this particular target group should be provided with "entrepreneurship experiential elements", which have potential to complement the research. It is advisable to develop a programme that covers the whole lifecycle of business and is sensitive towards to PhD process of doctoral students to whom the programme is aimed at. C. Determine Delivery Method for Enhancing Entrepreneurial Skills Entrepreneurship education should be praxis oriented, with a mission to train students in entrepreneurial skills. Based on previous research, however, there seems to be insufficient awareness on the importance of tacit/narrative skill training in academic curricula (Hedner et al 2010). This is of course difficult to do with a theoretical learning perspective. Instead, there is a need to emphasise situational experience, ability to cope with change as well as skills training from real case-based training. Therefore, there are reasons to argue that the pedagogic foundations of academic entrepreneurship curricula should be based on a philosophy of educational pragmatism (Taatila 2010). Some characteristics of informal tacit learning and vocational training for PhD in Master programs are shown below (Hedner et al. 2010): Learning often takes place in professional practice outside the formal educational establishment or in normal life. Learning is not necessarily following a specified curriculum and is not always professionally organised. Learning often originates accidentally or sporadically, sometimes in association with change of requirements and cases. Learning is typically not pedagogically planned by participants, or systematically aware by subjects. Learning is commonly not test and qualification-related, but rather unconsciously incidental holistically problem-related, and related to common life situation management. Learning is usually experienced as a "natural" function of everyday life.