Action-based entrepreneurship education

Innovativeness through the creation of new companies and new business areas are seen as key factors to achieve economic goals at the firm, the regional, and the national level. A restricting factor is the availability of competent individuals to manage projects and become entrepreneurs. Universities can address this need by increasing the motivation and competence of their graduates to become key persons in innovative and entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurship education has traditionally focused on teaching individuals, but many initiatives are increasingly becoming more action-oriented, emphasizing learning by doing. This paper presents a number of action-based activities at five Swedish universities. The cases show that entrepreneurship education focuses less on teaching individuals in a classroom setting and more on learning-by-doing activities in a group setting and a network context. Several initiatives have multiple goals, such as educating entrepreneurs, establishing new ventures, and commercializing university research. Implications for setting up an action-based entrepreneurship education program are provided. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.