The Impact Of E-Learning In The Rural Business Environment

This paper presents the eLearning as a modern and efficient tool for teaching entrepreneurship. The outcomes of an entrepreneurship education project, developed and carried out in Romania, are shown. The eLearning projects, called “Rural Manager” and “Rural Entrepreneur”, address to the rural communities with an entrepreneurship education curriculum. The education needs were identified through a survey conducted on 954 persons random selected from 23 counties in case of the “Rural Entrepreneur” project. The eLearning platforms developed by the two projects comprise various modules for example: the firm and the economic environment, entrepreneurship and innovation, business management, business marketing, finance and business accounting, communication and negotiation, and IT for businesses. In addition, the platform facilitates the consulting and networking services, as well as an e-business platform promoting the beneficiaries’ products/services. In order to measure scientifically the needs of training and of managerial consultancy at distance, complex researches were used that implied the achievement of focus groups, brainstorming and depth interviews as well as statistical analyses. The number of the beneficiaries of the two projects was over 1000 persons and their occupational statute was variously: owners, employees from the public or private sector, freelancers, farmers, students and unemployed workers.