Understanding young entrepreneurial effectiveness

In this phase, the student is likely to be moving toward completion of their undergraduate studies and preparing for the transition into work, self-employment, further study, or other options. Their learning is increasingly self-directed, pursuing not only academic but also career and broader life goals. Curricular work may include a dissertation or independent study. Learning needs are individual and may be best met by personalised means, such as e-learning activities, optional training sessions, and specialist seminars. Students may be crystallising entrepreneurial motivations and ideas into plans to start their own business or extend informal activity, such as freelancing or trading, into more formal options. 'Live' projects for external clients and enterprises offer extended opportunities to network and meaningfully engage with external stakeholders. This may be the start of a commercialisation opportunity.

One-to-one support such as coaching or mentoring can be highly effective in providing support and responding to emerging needs. Building confidence and reinforcement during this phase, and after graduation, is crucial. Coaching provides students with individualised support to help them identify their options and address practical obstacles. Mentoring can involve established entrepreneurs or other practitioners with specific and relevant expertise and experience. Support is centred on the needs of each individual or business venture.

Business start-up support and guidance can often be accessed through enterprise centres and business incubators, where available. Online enterprise networks and off-campus support organisations can also be valuable. It is important for educators to signpost relevant opportunities to engage wherever possible.

The ultimate goal of enterprise and entrepreneurship education has been identified as developing entrepreneurial effectiveness. Students will attain entrepreneurial effectiveness to different degrees, and in differing ways, based on a wide range of variables such as personality, prior learning, motivation, and context.

Multidisciplinary approaches and mixed pedagogies are likely to be appropriate. This allows students to achieve a balance of skills and knowledge related to the three contributory aspects: enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial mindset, and entrepreneurial capability.

Students acquire enterprise awareness when, through learning and intellectual development, they develop knowledge, understanding and awareness of enterprising and entrepreneurial activities and their significance in relation to the wider world. Understanding the scale and role of small firms in an industry or locality is an example of this.

Students should be encouraged to develop awareness of their own enterprising and entrepreneurial qualities, as well as the motivation and self-discipline to apply these flexibly in different contexts to achieve desired results. This might include recognising themselves as a creative or resourceful person, or as someone who can translate ideas into actions, or as a person who is prepared to challenge assumptions through investigation and research.

Prior experience and learning can help students to develop a range of enterprising and related practical, social and conceptual skills. These in turn can be used to develop opportunities and achieve results.

Entrepreneurial capability can be specific to a particular discipline or context and will vary in scope and degree between different disciplines and vocational requirements. This is demonstrated, for example, when a student designs a service or product to meet an identified need, or identifies an opportunity and visualises potential actions together with their propensity for success.

The educator's aim will be to help students discover what it is or what it 'feels like' to be enterprising or entrepreneurial. For example, programmes of study are often rigidly scheduled, with assessments announced at the outset. However this bears little resemblance to an enterprising environment, so learning 'for' courses will often shift and change deadlines, take account of current issues, and update or modify projects and assignments to more accurately reflect the life experience of an enterprising individual.