1、1 外文翻译 原文 Examining Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Education Material Source: Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship19， no.3（ 2006）： pp.233-254 Author: Kyleen K. Myrah, Okanagan College ABSTRACT. The authors of this paper examine the current state of undergraduate entrepreneurship education.
2、After critiquing the spectrum of liberal and vocational elements of education and the importance of each, a new framework, “Shared Values Framework for Entrepreneurship Education,“ is proposed and evaluated.Institutions undergraduate entrepreneurship literature and course material are analysed throu
3、gh content analysis,followed by 12 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with educators working in the field. Findings indicate that as a whole, undergraduate entrepreneurship education is underdeveloped and educators positioned in the field face challenges in three major areas; political tensions, p
4、hilosophical dilemmas and implementation struggles.The authors conclude with recommendations to support entrepreneurship educators in their practice. Findings and Discussion The emphasis by educators teaching entrepreneurship courses on the technical, business start-up process and required practical
5、 skills demonstrates a fairly limited perspective to entrepreneurship education. It also indicates that running a business is considered synonymous with entrepreneurship, and does not include other criteria as discussed in the literature such as innovation (Drucker, 1985), creativity, risk and uncer
6、tainty (Dollinger, 1999), opportunities (Timmons, 1990), initiative, imagination and leadership (Gibb, 1987) and growth (Blawatt, 1998). These findings indicate that the market for entrepreneurship courses is limited and there exists a lack of support or recognition for this type of programming at t
7、he institutional level. The document review found diversity in the program approaches taken to teach this subject area, ranging from short-term technical programs, to broader-based and more integrated long-term programs. Having more opportunity across a whole program to provide exposure to a greater
8、 breadth of topics may impact the broader-based approaches found in the entrepreneurship program curricula. Eight institutions in British Columbia were identified as providing some type of 2 entrepreneurship program. Many of these programs, however, appeared to be business courses packaged together
9、and marketed as an entrepreneurial offering, without a substantive or unique approach to separate it from other business areas. These findings also suggest there could be a lack of support for this subject area as a core part of the business curriculum. This could be because entrepreneurship is not
10、a well-established area of undergraduate educational programming in British Columbia, due, in part, to the limited demand in the post-secondary market for entrepreneurship programs. The state of entrepreneurship education evident from the document review appears more reflective of the vocational app
11、roach to education identified earlier in the study. Short-term, instrumental courses and programs offered at many of the institutions fits well into the emphasis on worker education. Pring (1995) defines the characteristics of vocational preparation as focusing on skills, attitudes, qualities and kn
12、owledge primarily for entry into the world of work. The pursuit of competence is primary, whether at work, in the home, or the community, rather than the pursuit of intellectual excellence for its own sake. It is the belief that this learning is best practiced by engaging the learner in an adult wor
13、ld, through practical and activity-based tasks, with authorities from industry and commerce. The ideology of fiscal restraint, and the need for capital and a cheap and mobile workforce, is characteristic of a more conservative agenda and the demand for just-in-time knowledge workers. Entrepreneurshi
14、p education is perhaps one response to this particular agenda as individuals, rather than government, are focused upon as a site of change through personal development and attitudinal adjustment. As House (1995) argues, educators around the world are being encouraged to adopt entrepreneurship as a v
15、ehicle for creating and disseminating knowledge with the goal of raising national competitiveness. Interests and values that reflect this more conservative approach are well hidden under the auspices of “skill development,“ and could be seen as more defensible to the stakeholder learning community w
16、ho demand relevant and applied programs. For example, the push for curriculum changes has been fuelled by what Pring (1995) refers to as educational aims based on preparation for life, personal effectiveness and relevance: “Both parents and pupils (but not teachers) put utility and relevance to work
17、ing life high on their lists“ (16). The purpose of interviews was to determine the goals and values that are reflected in educators approaches, how they believe the entrepreneurship field should 3 develop and the kinds of challenges they face in their practice. Three major themes arose out of these
18、conversations: political tensions, philosophical dilemmas and implementation struggles. Political tensions. The findings demonstrate that the participants work in political environments; they have to navigate between many competing constraints that can impinge upon student success and the learning e
19、nvironment. What these educators are able to provide, and what activities and discourses they engage in depends, in part, on certain political factors: It tells me a lot about the fact that they dont have a great deal of commitment for the course and also that they dont have anybody with the real ex
20、pertise required to do an excellent job of the course. (Terry) Educators have to fit their perspective within an institutional context that may be resisted by colleagues, by students, by the organization or the marketplace their school serves-tensions which many of the participants revealed. Restric
21、tions on instructors, or unrealistic expectations. Bill asserted, undermines the quality of programming they are able to offer: “We teach entrepreneurship, but we do not allow anyone here to be entrepreneurial.“ This includes limitations on student activities such as operating actual shortterm busin
22、esses or performing market research, and faculty workloads that do not recognize the contribution of self-employment experience. The major political tensions that participants identified included institutional limitations and curriculum politics, student tensions and resource gaps. Both the particip
23、ants and literature (see Finkle and Deeds, 2001; Katz, 2003) discussed resource constraints limiting the growth of entrepreneurship education. Relevant to the participants was the lack of faculty or disinterest to teach in this area, and limited institutional support and resources, whereas the liter
24、ature argued more about the need for academically qualified educators, and tenured, career-track opportunities as critical factors for its development: A lot of them dont ever want to teach entrepreneurship either, because they are too focused on one particular side ofthe business education and they
25、 cant be a generalist and they cant think about all things at once. (Dan) Researchers have argued for a broader interdisciplinary paradigm that would be more conducive to a holistic and integrated approach. The participants did not specifically discuss the need for a new framework, but they did iden
26、tify limitations, particularly time, which impacted their ability to offer a broader approach: 4 Yes, there is a lot of material in the textbook and we need to spend more time on something else. I am not saying it ethics is not important; all I am saying is that we would skim the surface, touch on i
27、t, of course. (Randy) Because many participants spoke about the lack of time allotted in the curriculum for entrepreneurship programming, their inability to engage in an integrated approach is, in part, related to what could be perceived as insufficient institutional support. Pressure by students wa
28、s also identified as contributing to time limitations. Both Grant and Sandra discussed the mature student market which they felt was not interested in small business designations. Rather, these students want short-term programs that provide them with the training to get their business up and running
29、 quickly: “They just wanted in, give me the tools, give me the skills, and let me get out as fast as possible“ (Grant). The participants also indicated that the growth of entrepreneurship education appears to be related, to some degree, by “champions“ in the institution, and administrative backing.
30、The process that Laura used to develop a new entrepreneurship program included a thorough scan of what other schools were doing around the world, as well as a major literature review. She surveyed broader education programs and entrepreneurship concentrations, majors and minors, and was very informe
31、d about the different philosophies guiding this type of programming. Bob revealed a similar process at his institution involving two professors conducting a scan of approximately 34 different entrepreneurship programs around the world, assessing what worked and what did not work, and what could best
32、 be developed for their particular situation. For the majority of participants, however, they appeared to be the only entrepreneurship educator at their institution, which may greatly infiuence the type of institutional support they are able to gain. This could be another reason why the literature s
33、o strongly argues for the need to have more academically trained entrepreneurship educators positioned in the institutional arena. Philosophical dilemmas. The participants indicated they wrestled with philosophical dilemmas as a result of the political tensions in their teaching environments. What i
34、s emphasized and available within their institutional context, and what is not possible, has to be reconciled with their beliefs and values of their own practice. There was the impression by three ofthe interviewees that the environment educators taught in actually worked against the development of
35、an entrepreneurial culture, mindset and set of values: “I think the educational system, including our 5 institution, has a lot to answer for the damage it has done to entrepreneurial people“ (Bill). The need to follow institutional guidelines, such as uniformity requirements across the institution,
36、fitting the course into a specific time frame, other competing interests such as articulation requirements of certain programs, and the need to begin and end at certain places, all have constricted the format and methods which are available to these educators. The discussion of participants philosop
37、hy regarding what approach entrepreneurship educators should take is a manifestation of the earlier debate discussed in the paper between a liberal versus vocational orientation to education, and the competing interests and ideologies this encompasses. Some participants focused on the need for teach
38、ing practical skills, of learning to “do“ the tasks and activities necessary for successful venturing to occur. Tim uses a course text that actually provides check-lists of processes for doing the business plan in a very concrete and mechanical method: He author actually says list your competition,
39、list how big they are, how many employees, what kinds of sales; list this, list that, it is pretty fundamental. That is what I really like about it. Others described teaching the expertise of how to become an entrepreneur, even a serial entrepreneur, also with a strong emphasis on practical applicat
40、ion: Whereas we train people to be serial entrepreneurs. People that can start businesses, take them to a certain point, sell them off, and start another. (Bob) Yet, other participants spoke of the concerns of offering too narrow a view, and the need for a broader approach to entrepreneurship educat
41、ion. The entrepreneurial program at Garys institution was a deliberate attempt, mandated by Education Council and reinforced by his department, to incorporate a liberal education component into each ofthe degrees offered: “I think personally it is important to provide other perspectives on the world
42、 as part of any business education.“ The variation in approaches discussed by the participants may be significantly affected by the level of student, and placement of programming in the curriculum, as the more vocational perspective was almost exclusively described at the diploma or course level, an
43、d the more liberal perspective at the degree or program level. The role of ethics in the curriculum is a useful way to illustrate this difference. At the diploma and course level, ethics was not given significant emphasis or priority in the curriculum, due to many factors such as time, resources and
44、 expertise constraints, 6 whereas at the program level, ethics was incorporated as a more fundamental component of the educational framework. The literature, though, does not discuss how, or even whether, the type of program or level of student infiuences the approach encouraged by scholars in the f
45、ield. There is variability in the educational approach to entrepreneurship, as depicted in the literature (see Chia, 1996; Fiet 2000a, 2000b) and by this studys findings. Many ofthe participants described a practical-focused philosophy that has commonalities to the action-learning approach discussed
46、 by entrepreneurship scholars (see Johannisson, Landstrom and Rosenberg, 1998). The broader approach discussed by a few ofthe participants who mainly taught in entrepreneurship programs is more aligned with the academics in the literature who argue about the need to find new institutional frameworks
47、 and a broader entrepreneurship paradigm. Four of the participants differed in what learning they expected their educational approach to accomplish. They expressed that their students were capable, especially at the higher levels, to accomplish more than “doing“ tasks such as the business plan: “A b
48、ig part of what we are teaching our students is critical thinking skills (Brian). These participants stated that they wanted their students to develop analytical skills and understand how to integrate all the learning components together. For Sandra this entailed combining the theoretical knowledge
49、plus the practical knowledge and experience to help them leam how to think, and to mentor their needs. The whole idea was to enable them to be confident and know what they needed. The findings demonstrate that the philosophy of educators is intrinsically tied to their developmental approach. Faculty expertise and foresight, time and resources and stakeholder support demonstrate the inextricable linkages between the political and philosophical environment. Two participants indicated that the course was developed in accordance with an already established calendar description a
