Cross Campus Entrepreneurship Programs Benefit Business Schools and Their Students

Elizabeth Gatewood

By any reckoning the field of entrepreneurship has experienced rapid growth. Entrepreneurship courses are now taught in more than 2000 universities in the U.S. (Cone, 2008) and over 225 business schools offer majors or concentrations in the field (Katz, 2005). Until recently, the majority of students who had access to those courses or programs were business school students, or engineering students in a few select schools. And yet, the majority of entrepreneurs do not have a business degree--- seventy seven percent in one survey of small business owners (Schweitzer, 2007), and more than eighty percent of college-educated Inc. 500 company founders in another (Bhide, 2004).

A small number of colleges and universities, recognizing the need and supported by funding from the Kauffman Foundation, have been broadening the reach of their programs beyond the walls of the business school. An even smaller number are actually embedding entrepreneurship education in the arts, humanities, sciences, social sciences, law, and medicine.

Many arguments have been offered as to why business schools should broaden their programs. Most of the reasons center on how business schools have a chance to help their institution, region or colleagues across campus by sharing experiences and resources. For example it is frequently argued that cross campus entrepreneurship programs meet the needs of non-business students for entrepreneurial training (Mendes and Kehoe, 2009); or that preparing more university grads in entrepreneurship will meet the needs of the country or region for graduates that can be successful in the ever competitive and changing environment (Hynes, O’Dwyer, and Birdthistle, 2009); or that cross campus programs can assist in raising the internal and external profile of the university as an “entrepreneurial university” (Weaver, D’Intino, Miller and Schoen, 2009). But what has been lost in this rationale is what a cross campus entrepreneurship program can bring to business schools and their students.

Nancy Adler (2006) puts forth a convincing argument that the old approaches to business no longer work the way they used to because of a host of reasons: global interconnectedness; domination of market forces; increasingly turbulent, complex and chaotic environments; internal environments that require teamwork; failures of traditional planning models; need for constant innovation; and a yearning for significance and meaning. A new model of leadership and decision-making is required for the 21st century. What she documents is that business executives and consultants are turning to artists and artistic processes to guide their thinking about the new model. Closer collaboration with their creative colleagues may improve the ability of business school professors to teach leadership principles and decision-making that will prepare their graduates for the demands of the new model.

A second benefit that may accrue to cross campus entrepreneurship education is an improvement in entrepreneurial opportunities pursued. Shane (2000) pointed out that a variety of knowledge from different disciplines can help develop the opportunity recognition process. As Page West at Wake Forest says, “Good ideas come from the boundaries between fields of endeavor - between different fields, and between the present and the future of any existing field. Answering the question of where good ideas, in fact any ideas, come from goes beyond understanding the normal content of business discipline courses. And context for venture creation is so important to the process, again something that a pure business education doesn't do well, or at all.” Entrepreneurship programs that have students and faculty from a variety of disciplines may produce better venture opportunities for screening than the typical restaurants, bars, book exchanges, apartment locators, and the other venture ideas typically surfaced in undergraduate entrepreneurship courses. In addition, a diverse classroom offers the potential for more lively engagement about capitalism, the market system, profit motives, ethics, and cultural values, for example.

Finally skills that are needed by business school students for successful entrepreneurial careers can be gained in classes not taught within the confines of the business school. At Wake Forest University, we have a number of liberal arts professors that are teaching courses at the intersection of entrepreneurship and their disciplines. Students enrolled in Free Trade, Fair Trade: The Independent Entrepreneur in the Global Marketplace taught by an anthropology professor gain an appreciation of the diversity of cultural, historical, and world economies. They also improve their writing, communication and marketing skills when taking Writing for a Purpose when they are challenged by a Journalism professor to plan, develop, and write for a social venture in the local community. Business school students are also exposed to the richness of product ideas resulting from the world around us when they investigate biological processes, identify opportunities, and write mini-business plans in Biomimetics: Nature’s Way.

Cross campus entrepreneurship programs have the potential to benefit students and faculty from all areas of the campus.

References

Adler, N. J. (2006). The arts & leadership: Now that we can do anything, what will we do. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5 (4), 486-499.

Bhide, A. V. (2004). Creating new knowledge for one of America's most vital resources. In Kauffman Thoughtbook 2004, pp. 64-68. Kansas City: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Cone, J. (2008). Teaching entrepreneurship in colleges and universities: How (and why) a new acadmeic field is being built. Kansas City: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. http://www.kauffman.org/items.cfm?itemID=716.

Hynes, B., O’Dwyer, M. & Birdthistle, N. (2009). Entrepreneurship education – Meeting the skills needs of graduates in Ireland. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Katz, J. A. (2005). eWeb's List of Colleges With Majors In Entrepreneurship or Small Business. St. Louis: St. Louis University. http://67.15.250.4/~eweb1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=403.

Mendes, A. & Kehoe, C. (2009). Academic entrepreneurship: Possibilities and pitfalls. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Schweitzer, T. (2007). Not only the lonely become entrepreneurs. Inc.com. http://www.inc.com/news/articles/200701/loners.html.

Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217-226.

Weaver, K.M., D’Intino, R., Miller, D. & Schoen, E.J. (2009). Building an entrepreneurial university: A case study using a new venture development approach. Ed. P. West, E.J. Gatewood & K. G. Shaver. Handbook of University-Wide Entrepreneurship Education, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.