IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jagaec/v38y2006i02p429-439_02.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?

Author

Listed:
  • Klein, Peter G.
  • Bullock, J. Bruce

Abstract

Is entrepreneurship an innate ability or an acquired skill? Can entrepreneurial acumen be achieved and enhanced through education and training, or are certain people “born” to be entrepreneurs or to act entrepreneurially? Economists and management theorists give widely divergent answers to these questions. This paper reviews the major approaches to teaching entrepreneurship, primarily at the undergraduate level, and relates them to economic theories of entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, we find little connection between the leading approaches to entrepreneurship education and economists' understanding of the entrepreneurial function. We assess likely explanations for the lack of contact between these two groups of scholars and suggest possible improvements.

Suggested Citation

  • Klein, Peter G. & Bullock, J. Bruce, 2006. "Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 429-439, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jagaec:v:38:y:2006:i:02:p:429-439_02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S107407080002246X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holcombe, Randall G, 2002. "Political Entrepreneurship and the Democratic Allocation of Economic Resources," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 15(2-3), pages 143-159, June.
    2. Schultz, Theodore W, 1975. "The Value of the Ability to Deal with Disequilibria," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 827-846, September.
    3. Gaglio, Connie Marie & Katz, Jerome A, 2001. "The Psychological Basis of Opportunity Identification: Entrepreneurial Alertness," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 95-111, March.
    4. Demmert, Henry & Klein, Daniel B., 2003. "Experiment on entrepreneurial discovery: an attempt to demonstrate the conjecture of Hayek and Kirzner," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 295-310, March.
    5. StewartJr., Wayne H. & Watson, Warren E. & Carland, Joann C. & Carland, James W., 1999. "A proclivity for entrepreneurship: A comparison of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and corporate managers," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 189-214, March.
    6. William B. Gartner, 2001. "Is There an Elephant in Entrepreneurship? Blind Assumptions in Theory Development," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 25(4), pages 27-39, July.
    7. Finkle, Todd A. & Deeds, David, 2001. "Trends in the market for entrepreneurship faculty, 1989-1998," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 613-630, November.
    8. Begley, Thomas M. & Boyd, David P., 1987. "Psychological characteristics associated with performence in entrepreneurial firms and smaller businesses," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 79-93.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joey E. Mehlhorn & Laurie Bonney & Niyan Fraser & Morgan P. Miles, 2015. "Benchmarking Entrepreneurship Education In U.S., Australian, And New Zealand University Agriculture Programs," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(03), pages 1-13, September.
    2. Tudor NISTORESCU & Radu Florin OGARCA, 2011. "Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intent of Students in Oltenia Region," REVISTA DE MANAGEMENT COMPARAT INTERNATIONAL/REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE MANAGEMENT, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 12(2), pages 250-263, May.
    3. Amanor-Boadu, Vincent, 2006. "Putting Entrepreneurship into Agricultural Economics: Research and Teaching Perspectives-Discussion," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 1-4, August.
    4. Tilley, Marcia L. & Tilley, Daniel S. & Yiannaka, Amalia & Holcomb, Rodney B. & Howard, Wayne H. & Weckler, Paul & Cavaletto, Richard & Zohns, Mark & Sitton, Shelly & Blackwell, Cindy & Delahoussaye, , 2008. "Teaching Innovation as Part of an Agribusiness Curriculum," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6153, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    5. Khan MORSHED & Victoria SEITZ, 2011. "The Influence of Experiential Exercises on Attitudes Toward Entrepreneurship: The Case of Bangladesh," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 8, pages 225-233, December.
    6. Mohammad Zarei, 2017. "Entrepreneurial Tournaments: Towards Disclosing the Rivalry Process Among Corporate Entrepreneurs," Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, Fundacja Upowszechniająca Wiedzę i Naukę "Cognitione", vol. 13(2), pages 33-57.
    7. Neharika Vohra & Supriya Sharma & Nobin Thomas, 2022. "Experiencing Live Action of Business: Reflections on an Immersive Course in Entrepreneurship," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 31(1), pages 184-219, March.
    8. Gilmore, Audrey & McAuley, Andrew & Miles, Morgan P. & Pattinson, Hugh, 2020. "Four questions of entrepreneurial marketing education: Perspectives of university educators," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 189-197.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dimo Dimov, 2007. "Beyond the Single-Person, Single-Insight Attribution in Understanding Entrepreneurial Opportunities," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(5), pages 713-731, September.
    2. Douhan, Robin & Henrekson, Magnus, 2008. "Productive and Destructive Entrepreneurship in a Political Economy Framework," Working Paper Series 761, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Marek Kośny & Maria Piotrowska, 2019. "Economic Resourcefulness: Definition and Modeling," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 425-449, July.
    4. Kayhan Tajeddini & Stephen Mueller, 2009. "Entrepreneurial characteristics in Switzerland and the UK: A comparative study of techno-entrepreneurs," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, March.
    5. Jeffery S. McMullen & Katrina M. Brownell & Joel Adams, 2021. "What Makes an Entrepreneurship Study Entrepreneurial? Toward A Unified Theory of Entrepreneurial Agency," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(5), pages 1197-1238, September.
    6. Joseph G. Eisenhauer, 1995. "The Entrepreneurial Decision: Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 19(4), pages 67-79, July.
    7. Bengtsson, Ola & Ekeblom, Daniel, 2014. "The Bright but Right View? New Evidence on Entrepreneurial Optimism," Working Papers 2014:1, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    8. Denis A. Grégoire & Martin X. Noël & Richard Déry & Jean–Pierre Béchard, 2006. "Is There Conceptual Convergence in Entrepreneurship Research? A Co–Citation Analysis of Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 1981–2004," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(3), pages 333-373, May.
    9. DeTienne, Dawn R. & Shepherd, Dean A. & De Castro, Julio O., 2008. "The fallacy of "only the strong survive": The effects of extrinsic motivation on the persistence decisions for under-performing firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 528-546, September.
    10. Zhang, Zhen & Arvey, Richard D., 2009. "Rule breaking in adolescence and entrepreneurial status: An empirical investigation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 436-447, September.
    11. Iman Aghaei & Amin Sokhanvar, 2020. "Factors influencing SME owners’ continuance intention in Bangladesh: a logistic regression model," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(3), pages 391-415, September.
    12. Heinrichs, Simon & Walter, Sascha, 2013. "Who Becomes an Entrepreneur? A 30-Years-Review of Individual-Level Research and an Agenda for Future Research," EconStor Preprints 68590, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    13. Ravindra Jain & Saiyed Wajid Ali, 2012. "Personal Characteristics of Indian Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 37(4), pages 295-322, November.
    14. Verheul, Ingrid & Uhlaner, Lorraine & Thurik, Roy, 2005. "Business accomplishments, gender and entrepreneurial self-image," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 483-518, July.
    15. Dev K. Dutta & Mary M. Crossan, 2005. "The Nature of Entrepreneurial Opportunities: Understanding the Process Using the 4I Organizational Learning Framework," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 29(4), pages 425-449, July.
    16. Packard, Mark D., 2017. "Where did interpretivism go in the theory of entrepreneurship?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 536-549.
    17. Barba-Sánchez, Virginia & Atienza-Sahuquillo, Carlos, 2012. "Entrepreneurial Behavior: Impact Of Motivation Factors On Decision To Create A New Venture / Comportamiento Emprendedor: Impacto De Los Factores Motivacionales En La Decisión De Crear Una Nueva Empres," Investigaciones Europeas de Dirección y Economía de la Empresa (IEDEE), Academia Europea de Dirección y Economía de la Empresa (AEDEM), vol. 18(2), pages 132-138.
    18. Urve Venesaar & Hannes Ling & Karen Voolaid, 2011. "Evaluation of the Entrepreneurship Education Programme in University: A New Approach," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 13(30), pages 377-391, June.
    19. Emmanuel Kwasi Mensah & Lawrence Adu Asamoah & Vahid Jafari-Sadeghi, 2021. "Entrepreneurial opportunity decisions under uncertainty: Recognizing the complementing role of personality traits and cognitive skills," Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, Fundacja Upowszechniająca Wiedzę i Naukę "Cognitione", vol. 17(1), pages 25-55.
    20. Ravindra Jain & Saiyed Wajid Ali & Sachin Kamble, 2015. "Entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial Attitudes: Conceptualization, Measure Development, Measure Test and Model Fit," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 40(1-2), pages 1-21, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups
    • A22 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - Undergraduate
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jagaec:v:38:y:2006:i:02:p:429-439_02. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/aae .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.