Learning by Doing to Become an Effectual Entrepreneur: Bachelor Young Entrepreneur Program, EM Strasbourg Business School

This research focuses on pedagogical approaches of teaching entrepreneurship in higher education to train entrepreneurs. More precisely, we explore the relationship between the “learning by doing” pedagogical approach and the effectual entrepreneurial process (Sarasvathy, 2001, 2008) adopted by entrepreneurs. The objective of the study is to help fertilize theorizing in entrepreneurship higher education management and offer new insights back to effectuation. Therefore, an exploratory and comprehensive qualitative study has been conducted based on ten interviews with students and alumni from the BYE of EM Strasbourg Business School. Our main results show that “learning by doing” pedagogical approach provides students with effectual entrepreneurial abilities. Particular settings, context and modes of delivery of the “learning by doing” contribute to enhance students’ ability to conduct entrepreneurial project successfully. Finally, the paper discusses entrepreneurship education perspectives in regards to effectual entrepreneur reasoning and outlines the promising perspective of a generation of effectual entrepreneurs educated in business schools.