TEACHING ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE CASE FOR AN ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP COURSE



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USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0078 TEACHING ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE CASE FOR AN ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP COURSE Martha Mattare Department of Management Frostburg State University University System of Maryland - Hagerstown 32 W. Washington Street Hagerstown, MD 21740 240-527-2747 or 301-668-9525 mmattare@frostburg.edu

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0079 ACADEMIC ABSTRACT Entrepreneurship education is rapidly growing, both in the number of schools offering programs and in the range of courses becoming available. As students become entrepreneurs, they will need to wear a variety of hats and serve as the primary finance, marketing, human resource, and operations person in their new ventures. High self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and welldeveloped interpersonal skills have been shown to equate to a firm s success; more concentration on the development of these skills is needed in the entrepreneurship curriculum. This paper presents the case for instituting a course that will facilitate entrepreneurship students development of self.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0080 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This paper argues that there is a need to integrate interpersonal skills, self-reflection, giving and receiving feedback and areas of personal skills development into the entrepreneurship education curriculum. There is evidence that those entrepreneurs who possess superior self-efficacy and social and interpersonal skills tend to be more successful. Today, very few schools offer courses that focus on development of self. Of the top 25 schools ranked by Entrepreneur magazine in 2006, only 4% had courses devoted specifically to entrepreneurial leadership and personal development. The entrepreneur must initiate and sustain critical firm relationships, hire and manage the right people who will contribute to the business s growth, and be able to reflect upon and learn from mistakes -- and keep on trying. The successful entrepreneur must have a good knowledge of self: personality characteristics, preferences, needs, strengths, weaknesses, and the ability to give and receive feedback; he or she needs to develop in these areas as much as, or more than, learning to read a balance sheet or value a company. As a former small business executive and entrepreneur with years of experience and observation, I witnessed firsthand the large difference in results between those entrepreneurs who possessed superior interpersonal skills and those who struggled or failed from a lack of these skills. Now, as an instructor in a university entrepreneurship program, I work with students who possess considerable knowledge of finance, marketing, management, and human resources, but have little understanding of self -- their own strengths and weaknesses, personal preferences, and behavior patterns -- and how these characteristics can impact the venture. A course in entrepreneurial leadership will help students develop the critical skills beyond the technical to ensure success in their future ventures.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0081 INTRODUCTION An entrepreneur needs many skills to succeed creating and maintaining a new business venture. Research shows that entrepreneurial success is linked to the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs more than any other factor (Allinson, Chell, & Hayes, 2000; Baron & Markman, 2000; Baum & Locke, 2004; Begley & Boyd, 1987; Bird, 1989; Blanchflower & Oswald, 1998; Chattopadhyay, 2002; Crane, 2007; Gatewood, Shaver, Powers, & Gartner, 2003; McClelland, 1961). In their review of entrepreneurship and leadership literature, Fernald et al (2005) found that many of the characteristics attributed to leaders are also associated with successful entrepreneurs, and the characteristics most common are: being visionary, risk-taking, achievement-oriented, able to motivate, creative, flexible, persistent, and patient. And, Kuratko & Hodgetts (2007) developed a definition of entrepreneurship which includes these necessary attributes: the willingness to take calculated risks, the ability to formulate an effective venture team, the creative skills to marshal necessary resources, the skill to build a solid business plan, and the vision to recognize opportunity when others just see chaos, contradiction, and confusion (Kuratko, 2007; Kuratko & Hodgetts, 2007). Much of entrepreneurial behavior is essentially leadership behavior (Fernald, Solomon, & Tarabishy, 2005). The concept of entrepreneurial leadership may be considered a new paradigm (Fernald et al., 2005). Entrepreneurship education is a relatively new business school discipline, most often falling into management education. As of 2005, 1600 schools offered courses related to entrepreneurship (Kuratko, 2005). Leadership has been part of the core business curriculum in most schools for some time. However, with entrepreneurship on the rise and entrepreneurial behavior encouraged to initiate new business startups and in the established organization, there are expanded requirements for entrepreneurship education. We are in the process of sending ever greater numbers of newly graduated entrepreneurship majors or minors into the world to start or run new businesses. Although technically competent, are these students as fully self-developed as they could be? Are they informed enough to capitalize on their strengths and supplement their weaknesses? Have we prepared them for the challenging, turbulent, rollercoaster ride of being an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship courses are not like other courses typically taught in business schools. They ought to be more focused on application rather than theory. A review of entrepreneurship curricula indicates they fall into categories similar to the generic categories of subject areas in business courses such as: finance, marketing, strategy, technology, and business plan creation. David Kirby discusses the need for a paradigm shift in business schools from educating about entrepreneurship to educating for it (Kirby, 2004). Kirby goes on to advocate a focus on creativity and change rather than just new venture creation and small business management (Kirby, 2004). My own experience as an entrepreneur supports this viewpoint; management of change and creative thinking were often the differentiators between entrepreneurial success or failure. A review of the top 25 entrepreneurship undergraduate programs was conducted to determine the range of courses offered. Only 4% of the top schools offer courses that specifically address entrepreneurial leadership skills development.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0082 LITERATURE REVIEW There are few areas of agreement as yet in entrepreneurship literature. According to Cornelius, Landstrom, & Persson (2006), entrepreneurship research, as an emerging field and as a relatively new area of research, is somewhere in its evolution between the technical approach to research and the theoretical (Cornelius, Landstrom, & Persson, 2006). The earlier days of entrepreneurship research looked singularly at the object or at the entrepreneur. Newer research puts the entrepreneur into the context of the entrepreneurship practice (Cornelius et al., 2006). The field of entrepreneur research is populated by several disciplines that range from economics, psychology, and the social sciences to management science. The research themes found in today s literature are defined by Cornelius et al. (2006): innovation and regional development; sociology and capitalistic endeavor; strategic entrepreneurship and management of resources; ethnic entrepreneurship; legal and policy implications of entrepreneurship; self-employment and regional development; finances; and an eclectic cluster of researchers who are considered insiders in the field (Cornelius et al., 2006). Cunningham and Lischeron offered an organized summary of the schools of entrepreneurship research, differentiating the schools of thought as: the great person school, which believes that entrepreneurs are born not made; psychological characteristics, which believes entrepreneurs have unique attributes and values; classical, which holds innovation as the key to the entrepreneur; management, which believes that entrepreneurship is organization, management, and masters of risk; leadership, which believes that entrepreneurs are leaders of people; and, intrapreneurship, or the entrepreneurial activity within the organization (Cunningham & Lischeron, 1991). In another analysis of the field of entrepreneurship as an academic study, Cooper, Markman, & Niss (2000) stated that most of the conferences and journals on entrepreneurship have been started in the last 20 years. The authors believed that the widespread interest in new venture formation was due to the economy, which is more attuned technologically and structurally to support this (Cooper, Markman, & Niss, 2000). Small firms tend to be more R & D efficient, which provides a critical competitive edge in the global economy (Cooper, 1964 in (Cooper et al., 2000). There is much criticism of the research that is done in the field, such as the lack of agreement on definitions and too much attention paid to validity and reliability of instruments used (Cooper et al., 2000; Morris, 2002). Based on my experience both as an entrepreneur and a consultant to small business startups, I maintain that entrepreneurship is a very broad area in which many dramatically different types operate and which challenges any attempt to arrive at universal definitions or methods of quantifying the field. Cooper et al. (2000) defined three potential paths of future research on entrepreneurship: a traditional path, or normal science operating with empirically tested hypotheses; a multiple-paradigm path that combines methods and theories from many disciplines, such as economics, sociology, and psychology; and a pragmatic, less theory-driven path that looks to address immediate and relevant questions flowing from the classroom full of potential entrepreneurs (Cooper et al., 2000).

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0083 In spite of the lack of agreement across the board of entrepreneurship research, a few areas are agreed upon: o The entrepreneur recognizes opportunity in different ways than others (Kickul & Gundry, 2002). o The entrepreneur tends to be an MBTI intuitor (Caird, 1993; Carland, 1982; Mattare, 2006a). o The entrepreneur typically has higher-than-average self-efficacy (Chen, Greene, & Crick, 1998; DeNoble, Jung, & Ehrlich, 1999; Mattare, 2006a). o Training programs positively impact self-efficacy (De Noble, Jung, & Ehrlich, 1999; Ehrlich, DeNoble, Jung, & Pearson, 2005). o The entrepreneur has a high need for achievement (McClelland, 1961). o Social skills can enhance entrepreneurs success (Baron & Markman, 2000). TRENDS IN ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP COURSE OFFERINGS The offering of an entrepreneurial leadership course in the undergraduate curriculum is, as discussed, infrequent. Those courses that are offered primarily focus on entrepreneurial leaders in a case-based format. None of the courses are theory-based, such as more typical business leadership courses that review key leadership theories and applications. And, lastly, few of the courses seem to be focused on developing students individual skills. There are several programs that offer a major, minor, or certificate in entrepreneurial leadership. However, most entrepreneurship programs provide no more than the general course in Leadership that most business programs offer. The review of Entrepreneur magazine s 2006 top 25 undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship found that the most frequent subject areas offered were introductory entrepreneurship, finance, followed by marketing, then business plan development and selling.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0084 TABLE 1 Percentage of Course Types at the Top 25 Undergraduate Schools of Entrepreneurship SUBJECT AREAS OFFERED PERCENT OF SCHOOLS THAT OFFER SUBJECT AREA Introduction to Entrepreneurship 44% Finance 44% Marketing 28% Business Plan Development 16% Selling 16% Strategy 12% Family Business 8% Digital or e-commerce 8% Consulting for Small Businesses 8% Legal Issues 8% Risk Management 4% Minority & Women-owned Businesses 4% New Product Development 4% Opportunity Development 4% Leadership/Personal Development 4% Source: (Entrepreneur.com, 2007) A PROPOSED COURSE ON ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP The course, Entrepreneurial Leadership (EL), would build upon a business school s other course offerings in leadership, which are often a core of the business curriculum. The current courses provide a broad view of leadership theory, along with a study of specific characteristics and behaviors found in leaders. Although there is often an experiential element in leadership courses, they are likely not dedicated 100%, or even primarily, to the development of individual student

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0085 leadership skills. In EL, the proposed focus is on exploring the leadership qualities necessary for successful entrepreneurship and developing the individual student s specific skills as a potential entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship, in the context of the EL course, is a behavior which may be exhibited in many venues ranging from the home-based business venture to intrapreneurship. As discussed by Kuratko (2007), in entrepreneurial ventures the ethical influence of the owner is more powerful than in larger organizations because his or her leadership is not diffused through organizational layers (Humphreys, 1993; Kuratko, Goldsby, & Hornsby, 2004 in (Kuratko, 2007). In this course, students will focus on the individual characteristics of the successful entrepreneur, the fundamentals of ethical leadership, social responsibility, and the process of leading business creation. Students will develop the knowledge, confidence, skills, and selfimage necessary to pursue entrepreneurial ventures, either their own or within the established organizational environment. There is also a need to address risk management issues, stress, and ego or what Kets de Vries (1985) called the dark side of entrepreneurship. Kuratko (2007), building on Kets de Vries (1985) exploration of the darker side of entrepreneurship, lays out three critical areas of self entrepreneurs must understand: o Confrontation with risk: financial, career, family and social, and psychic; o Entrepreneurial stress: issues surrounding awesome responsibility, multiple role demands, working alone, and resulting health issues; o Entrepreneurial ego: the negative effects of an inflated ego (Kets de Vries, 1985; Kuratko, 2007). Baron & Markman (2000) make a strong case for the relationship between social and interpersonal skills and entrepreneurs success. They suggest that those entrepreneurs who receive training in impression management, persuasion and influence, managing performance, social perception, and other areas may reap superior results. And, they advocate courses dedicated to training students, who are future entrepreneurs, in these areas. Self awareness and assessment, characterized as Use of Self (Seashore, 2004), involves a process of self-assessment, a lot of feedback, and experiential practice in real life scenarios. What is critical about the process of self-understanding is that it can be facilitated by others, in this case a teacher or mentor, and that feedback is given and received in a safe place (Seashore, Seashore, & Weinberg, 1997). Seashore s (2004) model portrays the flow from the unconscious self via the process of selfunderstanding, achieved through reflection, feedback, and assessment, to the fuller more competent self.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0086 Figure 1 Seashore Use-of-Self Model (Seashore, 2004) The specific areas proposed for students study and self-development are: o Self esteem o Self-efficacy o Personality assessment o Need to achieve o Screening for opportunity o Locus of control o Goal orientation o Optimism o Courage o Tolerance of ambiguity o Strong internal motivation o Dealing constructively with failure o Need for inclusion and affection o Giving and receiving feedback o Cognitive orientation

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0087 Based on my twenty-five years of small business startups and management, I suggest there are 10 key interpersonal skills that are possessed by effective entrepreneurs. Each of these critical skills can be taught, enhanced, and improved in the classroom: 1) Understanding others (being able to accurately read and understand others: reading nonverbal messages; understanding others intentions, needs, wants). 2) Sending messages (giving others the impression you want them to have: look and act professional; responding appropriately; making others feel good about themselves). 3) Listening (using active listening techniques that allow you to get the information you need). 4) Providing feedback (being able to give and receive solid, constructive feedback for greater learning). An example of a classroom exercise is provided in Exhibit A. 5) Empowering people (allowing others to develop under your guidance). 6) Promoting change (convincing others to follow your guidance and vision). 7) Persuading (being able to change others attitudes, beliefs, and behavior). 8) Resolving conflicts (having the ability to constructively address and resolve conflict, deflect anger, and provide satisfaction with resolution). 9) Negotiating (being able to negotiate the outcome you desire and making it a win-win ). 10) Generating excitement (being able to create a sense of excitement and enthusiasm in others). (Mattare, 2006b) Significance of the Course My conviction about the need for courses on entrepreneurial leadership is a result of my own experiences in small business startups and management, a review of the small body of literature that agrees on the relationship of the presence of certain attributes and successful or effective entrepreneurship, and the surge in entrepreneurship, which demands entrepreneurial leaders. These demands are more pressing and perhaps more challenging than ever before, and require a new breed of entrepreneur who understands and is able to address these trends: o there is a global perspective now in all business activities; o trends are moving to knowledge-based enterprises versus industrial-based enterprises;

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0088 o there is a new company-employee relationship evolving; o there is a shift from management to leadership; o the focus is on the entrepreneurial organization. Entrepreneurship slices across all areas of the business curriculum. Without question, successful entrepreneurs must be experts in finance, marketing, strategy, human resource management. The groundwork for understanding each of these areas is laid in the general courses offered in the business curriculum that teach entrepreneurial finance, marketing, human resource management, and leadership, and enhanced in those courses that dwell specifically on entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs must also be leaders, and so a different approach must be taken in the entrepreneurship classroom than is taken in other business school classrooms. There has been a struggle to determine what is needed in the entrepreneurship classroom that goes beyond traditional business courses (Solomon, Duffy, & Tarabishy, 2002). The entrepreneurship student must learn to do, to act, to self-reflect and learn from mistakes by quickly regrouping, attempting and re-attempting an action. The entrepreneurship student needs to have a good understanding of self, tools for self-improvement, strong self-efficacy, and the ability to deal constructively with failure, get up, and try again. These needs demand a not only different approaches in course design but a much greater focus on the individual potential for full Use of Self. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS Entrepreneurship in the US is on the rise. More than half of all businesses are small business enterprises and the annual rate of startups is growing. The combined number of entrepreneurship students for the 2006 top 25 undergraduate programs alone was close to 10,000. Not all of these students will become entrepreneurs for sure, but the ones who do will need to be prepared in ways that go beyond expertise in finance, marketing, and preparing business plans. What will count is the who behind the business plan and how well that person will navigate the social world. Some entrepreneurship courses texts do discuss the who of entrepreneurship, such as Timmons & Spinelli s New Venture Creation and Buskirk et al s Fast Trac field guide (Buskirk, Davis, & Price, 2004; Timmons & Spinelli, 2007). Many texts discuss the traits and characteristics of entrepreneurs (Allen, 2007; Barringer & Ireland, 2006; Hitt, Ireland, Camp, & Sexton, 2002; Katz & Green, 2007; Mariotti, 2007; Zimmerer & Scarborough, 2005). However, none that I ve reviewed spend time developing the self-knowledge, self-reflection, and interpersonal skills that will be critical in practice. So What The EL classroom presents an opportunity to address both the lighter side and the darker side of entrepreneurship by teaching core skills and anticipating extraordinary stresses. A good portion of this course will be devoted to experiential learning rather than just discussion of what constitutes entrepreneurial traits, characteristics, and behaviors. In fact, the student will learn the

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0089 desired behaviors in settings using, for example, fish bowl exercises, role plays, simulations, and games, The actual practice of skills in the safe setting of the classroom will arm the student with an arsenal to take into the business world. The course, placed at the beginning of the entrepreneurship curriculum, will prepare students for the unique challenges they will face not only as students but ultimately as entrepreneurs. This premise builds on prior research, such as that conducted by Kirby (2004), Baron & Markman (2000) and Fernald et al (2005) or the perspectives put forth by Kuratko (2007), or the entrepreneurial leadership course outcomes discussed by Okudan & Rzasa (2004), as well as my own personal experience (Baron & Markman, 2000; Fernald et al., 2005; Kirby, 2004; Kuratko, 2007; Okudan & Rzasa, 2004). The outcomes from instituting EL in the entrepreneurship curriculum will allow students to have knowledge of self, coupled with real tools to develop self, so that they are able to consciously employ use of self to build their new ventures. In a practical sense, if students understand who they are and how they absorb, process, and act upon information, they will be able to do a better job to build the infrastructure of support that fills in the gaps. It will be important to determine the effect of adding such a course to the entrepreneurship curriculum and there are a number of potential research opportunities that could measure the relationship of small venture performance to EL courses: o changes in self efficacy scores, either during the EL course or over the span of courses in the curriculum; o situational self-efficacy and the entrepreneurial venture (Mattare, 2006a); o the role of self-reflection and entrepreneurial success; o the relationships of various assessments, such as locus of control, emotional intelligence, need for inclusion and affection and others to entrepreneurial success; o social networks and entrepreneurial success. My belief in the need for an entrepreneurial leadership course is based on many years of direct experience as an entrepreneur, as a manager of entrepreneurial ventures, and as a consultant to small business startups and growth opportunities. It is also based on the growing, although small, body of literature that addresses the need for strong leadership capacities in the entrepreneurial environment and the relationship of leadership skills to entrepreneurial success (Baron & Markman, 2000; Fernald et al., 2005). The EL course will provide students the foundation that, coupled with other business school learning areas such as finance, marketing, strategy, human resource management, and growth management, will ensure their entrepreneurial success.

USASBE 2008 Proceedings - Page 0090 EXHIBIT 1 An Experiential Exercise in Giving and Receiving Feedback Step 1: Students form dyads. Step 2: Using the SOFTEN Model (Johnson, 1999) of non-verbal communication style (Smile, Open Posture, Forward Lean, Touch, Eye Contact, and Nod) each student practices the following exercise using real classroom observations of one another to share. Step 3: Rotate and repeat. Step 4: Each dyad processes their feelings and experiences with the whole group. Step 5: The whole class processes the exercise. 1. Say the person s name. 2. Say, I have some feedback for you. Would you like to hear it? Or ask, Would you like some feedback? 3. The recipient says, "Yes. 4. Say the person s name again. 5. Next word is I. 6. Next word is noticed, or observed, or saw, or heard. 7. Describe behaviors in nonjudgmental, nonevaluative language. Avoid words with negative connotations (I observed that you were playing with the pen better, more descriptive and nonconnotative: I observed that you were moving the pen back and forth between your hands. ) 8. Recipient listens openly during the feedback and does not explain, justify, of defend behaviors described. 9. When finished, ask Do you have any questions? 10. Recipient should then ask questions to clarify any ambiguities. Recipient may also question other members of the group ( Did anyone else notice that? ), or may question one member in particular ( John, what did you notice about my eye contact? ) 11. After asking all the questions he/she wants to, recipient says to observer, Thank you for the feedback. 12. Say, You re welcome. Adapted from Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization (Johnson, 1999).

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