Abstract
Entrepreneurship education and its evaluation appear complex due to the large spectrum of parameters and methods that affect its implementation and objectives. Hence, disperse outcomes from diverse entrepreneurial courses are expected. Inter-comparisons between courses’ outcomes are yet unclear lacking a commonly accepted framework for the representation of the results. The present article aims to provide empirical data from the application of a new dialectical framework for entrepreneurial factors affected from entrepreneurial instruction. This framework provides a two-dimensional pattern for Ability, Support, Knowledge and Opportunity (the ASKO framework) as a base for comparing entrepreneurial conceptualizations for different courses or pre–post-course outcomes. Results from different entrepreneurial courses, either in situ or online, are illustrated and discussed for distinct instructional methods. Additionally and for the primary ‘average’ conceptualization of potential trainees, a broader sample of alumni of a Greek university was contacted and compared with a random group of graduated or non-graduated adult learners and a group of undergraduates. ASKO results indicate that the majority conceives business knowledge, innovation adoption and the initial capital of the new firm as the most crucial factors for its success. Personal abilities appear underestimated toward success. Possible transformation of dominant conceptualizations revealed through the ASKO framework depends on efficient instruction for higher-level learning.
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Notes
As more thoroughly discussed in the theoretical part, Ability here refers to what an individual can do or thinks s/he is able to do, Support to whatever means (financial or human) are given to a new venture, Knowledge to anything ‘valid’ (or ‘known’) that contributes a firm’s creation, sustainability and growth and Opportunity to opportunity perception, i.e., a situation emerging from the market conceived as promising. Especially for opportunity (called also as entrepreneurial idea in a literature stream), the Austrian perspective is followed for the initial perception and not for a full identification and exploitation of the opportunity. The full identification and exploitation of the opportunity requires continuous human action that involves all the poles of the ASKO representation. A further discussion on the notion of opportunity is given by Sarasvathy et al. (2003).
In various entrepreneurial studies, the level of the analysis is the firm or the organization. For this entity, learning concepts emerge in the organizational context. Senge (1990) addresses how an organization learns, March (1991) models learning in organizations, and Argyris and Schön (1978) have addressed, more generally, the notion of organizational learning. In the present work, I restrict the level of analysis to individuals, i.e., learners who may participate in small groups of learners.
Nonparametric Spearman correlations were preferred, instead of Pearson ones, because Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests for variables O–A and K–S indicate that they are not normally distributed due to ranking.
This is consistent with the way students performed that year, probably advised by the ‘older’ ones, to just form efficient teams and present a business plan at the end of the (selective) course.
Both patterns are needed, as explained in section four (paragraph two), to ensure whether the given instruction affected or not the trainees.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been partly supported by the Greek Ministry of Education through the ‘Education and Lifelong Learning’ program at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Some early ASKO results of were mentioned in ECEI 2008 conference. The author is grateful to Emeritus Professor P. Georgiadis for comments and encouragement and Mrs. Chelsea Lazaridou for proofreading and commenting the manuscript.
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Kakouris, A. The ASKO dialectical framework for inter-comparisons between entrepreneurial courses: empirical results from applications. Entrep Educ 1, 41–60 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-018-0004-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41959-018-0004-9