A new column by Professor Boris Urban
Recognising the pivotal role that higher education institutions play in a country’s entrepreneurial enabling environment, many universities worldwide are now offering entrepreneurship studies and activities. Through a complete educational infrastructure, consisting of more than 100 centres, and more than 80 referred academic journals and several professional associations, the growth of entrepreneurship courses and scholarly research has increased spectacularly.
This field has grown to more than 400 Entrepreneurship Chairs being established in the United States alone. Entrepreneurial education is growing fast not only in the US, UK and Europe but also in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, China, India and Brazil, with the number of schools in the hundreds, and dozens of programs offered by top business schools at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Leading scholars put it succinctly when they say ‘there are too many academics, too much established infrastructure and too much demand from students, firms and governments to let entrepreneurship fall into disuse or disarray’.
A Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Wits Business School will provide intellectual leadership through contributions in research, curriculum development, teaching, scholarships and service to both the community and the profession.
A Chair in Entrepreneurship will:
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Be a leader in promoting research, thinking and practice in entrepreneurship
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Create a community of entrepreneurs with a lifelong commitment to sustainable businesses and social progress
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Develop an entrepreneurial mindset that is broadly integrated across all disciplines and touching all students
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Catalyse the next generation of entrepreneurial innovators
Through capacity building and by developing entrepreneurial knowledge the Chair working in conjunction with the Centre for Entrepreneurship will assist students translate entrepreneurial initiatives into responsible action. In collaboration with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, short courses are being developed, formal and non-formal, on various entrepreneurship topics.
The Chair’s main obligation is to carry forward the entrepreneurship discipline. The Chair directs and generates research published in articles, books, and doctoral theses. Entrepreneurial research will allow for a wider concept of higher-level entrepreneurial knowledge and facilitation to evolve and provide a forum for scholarly interaction through conferences and colloquiums. Focused research will allow better understanding on the diversity and variation in entrepreneurship, public policy initiatives and educational issues associated with entrepreneurship.
The Chair will aim to stimulate the enterprising spirit and deepen knowledge about the entrepreneurial process, both in newly created companies and new activities launched by companies already in existence. Entrepreneurship teaching will be concerned with the development of cadre of entrepreneurs who will promote economic growth and create employment.
To develop understanding and rigour in the field of entrepreneurship, a Masters in Management degree specializing in entrepreneurship is now being offered for the first time at the WBS. The degree modules, content and methodologies are based on the body of knowledge currently defining the domain of entrepreneurship. The focus of the content is on knowledge and skills that research have identified as critically important to entrepreneurship; these include new modules in entrepreneurship theory and practice, corporate entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, technopreneurship, entrepreneurship consultancy and public policy, and global entrepreneurship. The modules are based on a benchmark report prepared by the Chair of Entrepreneurship and reflect a consolidation of various national content standards for entrepreneurship education.
The overarching goal with curriculum development in for both academic and short programmes (Cfe) in entrepreneurship is that the content and methodologies are based on sound scientific research and not popular management theory literature. The systematic focus must be on skills and knowledge that research has identified as critically important and which translates into sound learning objectives. Such an approach will be concerned with learning and facilitating for entrepreneurship (what to do and how to make it happen) as well as with studying about it (in a detached manner as a social phenomena). Both approaches are necessary but not alone sufficient for a wider concept of higher-level entrepreneurial education.
In conclusion, the privilege and responsibility of the Chair is to create a platform for interactive and meaningful cooperation for entrepreneurship, serving the local community and South African economy as a whole. This has been called the golden age of entrepreneurship. An endowed Chair is a powerful future investment, since it connects the donors’ past with the future coherently in terms of society, legacy, community, education, present, past and future.
WBS Chair: Signature Research Theme and Research Outputs
Introduction
The WBS Signature Research Theme in the area of Entrepreneurship is supported through a complete educational infrastructure consisting of the Chair in Entrepreneurship at the WBS, the activities of Centre for Entrepreneurship at the WBS, a Masters in Management specialising in Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation, various elective modules for the MBA track in Entrepreneurship, various short courses offered through executive education, and other academic institutions in South Africa and abroad.
This signature research theme will be led by the Chair in Entrepreneurship, Professor Boris Urban in collaboration with other WBS academic staff, colleagues from the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, and the broader entrepreneurship scholarly community. Through critical collaboration and alignment with diverse groups representing a wide range of activities in entrepreneurship, including education, and practice, research outcomes will generate knowledge and capacity in this field.
Background
Worldwide as one of the responses to modern realities both demand for and supply of entrepreneurial education and research has increased spectacularly during the last few decades. The growth of entrepreneurship courses and scholarly research has increased spectacularly globally. Recognising the pivotal role that higher education institutions play in a country’s entrepreneurial enabling environment, many universities worldwide are now offering entrepreneurship studies and activities. The field has absorbed huge amounts of intellectual capital through the proliferation of referred academic journals and several professional associations.
Noting that the body of entrepreneurship research is eclectic stratified and divergent, the proposed research theme in entrepreneurship relies on a multi-disciplinary approach, contributing to empirical and theoretical growth of this field. This is particularly important when establishing the academic legitimacy of a new field, such as entrepreneurship. By applying a theoretical lens to central issues ‘about entrepreneurship’ rather than focus on mere practical issues of ‘how to’ the research areas will provide rich conceptualisations where theory building is required in order to inform practice.
Entrepreneurial research will allow for a wider concept of higher-level entrepreneurial knowledge and facilitation to evolve and provide a forum for scholarly interaction.
In South Africa the growth and development of the small and micro-enterprise (SMEs) sector has been identified by many stakeholders as being of utmost importance in an effort to create employment and address poverty. Focused research contextualised in the prevailing South African socio-economic milieu will allow for better understanding on the diversity and variation in entrepreneurial activity, public policy initiatives and educational issues associated with entrepreneurship.
Contribution to scholarly knowledge and policy development
The proposed research focuses on delivering a deep understanding in areas crucial for entrepreneurial capacity building and venture performance. Original research is focused along several tracks which advances the state of the field of entrepreneurship in a scientific manner:
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Methodologies, tools and techniques to create and improve entrepreneurial activity regionally.
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Measuring and surveying African high-growth ventures, with emphasis on job-growth as key criteria.
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Participating in a longitudinal study measuring entrepreneurial activity across several countries.
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Identifying best-practices in education and training among potential and existing entrepreneurs.
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Interrogating the entrepreneurial mind-set and cultural factors influencing entrepreneurship.
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Tracking a SA start-up index by creating a venture capital database.
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Recommending corporate entrepreneurial best practices.
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Linking technology and entrepreneurship to lead in innovation.
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Building capacity to identify opportunities for social entrepreneurship.
These research tracks aim at creating a systematic approach to understanding the various aspects of entrepreneurship. By identifying and evaluating the most seminal and impactful scholarly research on different subject areas where entrepreneurship is at the core, the following topics will be pursued to support the abovementioned research tracks. Suggested topics each reflect a specialised knowledge-base in entrepreneurship, where the blend of theoretical and empirical evidence collectively demonstrates the convergence of thinking on a particular theme, coinciding with calls for further research.
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The entrepreneurial opportunity approach is seen as independent of firms, entrepreneurs, or environments because it transcends them all.
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The entrepreneurial mindset, encompassing cognitions, intentions and motivations.
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Entrepreneurial human and social capital, including networking and education experiences.
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The importance of the environmental/institutional framework.
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Incentive structures facing entrepreneurs rendering productive vs. unproductive entrepreneurs.
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The role of the entrepreneur in the economic development process, and between country analyses.
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The effect of key structural and individual factors influencing entrepreneurship, and the bi-directional causality of this process.
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Divergent approaches to entrepreneurship to illustrate how pervasive entrepreneurship is in different fields and can create value for profit and non-profit organisations.
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Corporate entrepreneurship with the aim of providing lessons in terms of how organisation can adopt an entrepreneurial orientation.
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Technopreneurship and high-tech ventures. Researching key factors required to embed technology in organizations of varying size and context.
Such research-supported development of entrepreneurship based on a collaboration with the entrepreneurial scholarly community and thought leaders from organisations will allow for significant advances to be made at the WBS in academia, including teaching methodologies (e.g. lectures, and case studies), reciprocal programs (e.g. community involvement, incubators),and the practice of entrepreneurship. Research is used to generate knowledge on entrepreneurship and to develop tutorial skills, thereby improving the quality and impact of courses offered.
Ongoing research for policy makers and institutional support agencies will entail identifying institutional support mechanisms for SMMEs and designing measures for such interventions. Focusing on the variation of entrepreneurial potential in terms of high-growth, will shape interventions designed to curb unemployment and economic growth in a developing country context.
Planned Outcomes
A series of interconnected activities are planned within the themed programme intend to produce the following research outputs:
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Research publications – accredited journal articles (ISI, FT, IBSS, DOE), SMME reports, conference proceedings and working papers. Research results are presented and discussed at working sessions, colloquiums and conferences. Written products (e.g., accredited articles, research notes, project reports, working papers, case studies) are delivered to associations and sponsors regularly and accessible to all in an online knowledge repository.
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Masters in Management (Entrepreneurship & NVC) Research Report conversions
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MBA Research Report conversions/MBA group Research Report projects
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Research tracks will be distributed to the MM, MBA classes and informal sessions to introduce topics to students/PhD by Research students
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Attract additional NRF funding (received NRF funding for 3 year project 2010)
Related teaching activities
The research programme is designed to be integrated with a related teaching programme for the MM, MBA and Executive programmes as well as with short courses to be offered through the Cfe. Teaching components are likely to include:
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Modules for fundamental and core MM, MBA programmes
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Modules for executive programmes
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Specialised electives for MBA programmes
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Material for tailored executive programmes
