Entrepreneurship as 21st Century Skill: Taking a Developmental Perspective

Abstract

This chapter discusses recent research on entrepreneurial development (those successive and systematic changes, occurring across a person’s life course, that make an [successful] entrepreneurial career more likely, Obschonka and Silbereisen, Int J Dev Sci, 6(3–4): 107–115, 2012) . The chapter is based in part on my dissertation thesis (Obschonka, Entrepreneurship as developmental outcome: The entrepreneurial process and the life span perspective of human development. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Jena, Germany, 2011) as well as on the (other) theoretical and empirical literature in this field. It provides an overview over biological, psychosocial, behavioral, and contextual factors of entrepreneurship by taking a developmental perspective. The chapter starts with a definition of entrepreneurship and then contextualizes the topic by explaining the interplay between today’s accelerated macro-level change and entrepreneurial human agency. This is followed by an introduction into the developmental perspective of entrepreneurship, and by the presentation of the research findings in this field. These sections tackle questions such as “Are entrepreneurs born or made?” or “How to promote entrepreneurial mindsets?”. The chapters finishes with a presentation of a new integrative theory of entrepreneurial development across the life-span, and with implications for career counseling and guidance.

And I’m calling on our nation’s governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.Barack H. Obama 2009