In this study we asked how research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education world-wide is taking account of the new requirements for flexible entrepreneurial identities in a cross-cultural environment of entrepreneurship, what are the essential elements of recent high-quality research and what can be learnt from it for the future. Entrepreneurship research is wide-ranging but an empirical search indicated that research that also explores identity, cross-cultural issues and education is rare. We now sum up the findings and discuss their limitations as well as future research possibilities.
Discussion on the main findings
Earlier research on identities and cross-cultural entrepreneurship has dealt extensively with pedagogical issues. Reading and analyzing the material from relevant journals we end up with a few special findings in order to strengthen the entrepreneurial identity for cross-cultural needs:
- Enterprising skills and knowledge benefit from reflection, and highly active experimental modes of teaching are needed. The technical aids, simulation, games and programs could be developed in order to support reflection.
- Identity work is of relevance and students should be guided along methods of learning where they learn from each other and by reflecting upon their own identity positioning. Peer support and mentoring can be useful tools for this kind of learning.
- Cultural levels from national to local should be recognized in entrepreneurship education. Internationalization will provide new opportunities for the students and teaching should support learning. Students’ experiences and attitudes could be used in the education more systematically.
- New learning tools should be developed in entrepreneurship education. Self-reflection, experimenting and practice-based learning as well as problem-based learning and taking advantage of experience are new ways of teaching. Students learn roles and identities and they process into specific skills. Narratives and self-narration are new pedagogically promising techniques that suit learning identity.
- Europeanizing of entrepreneurship education has its benefits and challenges. International comparability is required and cross-institutional co-operation is of relevance worldwide. Western and Eastern cultural aspects can enrich reflection and mutual understanding and co-operation.
The findings of this research also indicated the broad existence of social entrepreneurship studies in relation to questions of identity and cross-cultural issues in entrepreneurship education. Overall, social entrepreneurship is the process of pursuing innovative solutions to social problems. More specifically, social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and sustain social value instead of pure business orientation. While business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in terms of profit and return, social entrepreneurs also take into account a positive return for society. Social entrepreneurship can also be practiced in an international context. Social entrepreneurs are also required to learn to construct their identity:
- Raising social awareness is needed and one should commit to social issues, and build upon the emotional aspect of enterprise.
- Social ventures have a different logic compared to classical entrepreneurship, this might include local, community or religious aspects. Specific environmental issues should be included in business plans and addressing real-world problems is of special importance. Students might find it difficult to adapt to the ordinary business school programs based on pure business planning.
- Social entrepreneurship especially benefits from pedagogies and ways of teaching that take account of and are based on different ideas about entrepreneurial identity.
Overall, education is a way of shaping and reshaping individual identities, both personal and professional. The educational process itself by which identities are created is relevant, but equally relevant is its content. Bridging from earlier values, knowledge and experiences is important especially in the case of a transition society characterized by rapid change. Entrepreneurship education can be seen in this context either as a change agent toward a better future, or as a tool that supports the subjects themselves in transforming and adjusting to new cultural contexts, and building identities that meet the new economic circumstances. The practice of entrepreneurship is constructionist by nature, creating and recreating its own rules in each instance of use. In management education, the use of narratives and the stimulation of the tacit knowledge of the participants work better than recipe books in the creation of the identity of intending or existing entrepreneurs.
Identity building can take place through the collective sharing of experiences by students. When students in teams discuss their own experiences of business life and how it is changing, they bridge their previous experiences into the current context. Reflecting on these experiences in their own words will help them find their own way to face the realities of business life and adopt their own identity as a business professional. This creates a sense of freedom and personal control over one’s own activities.
Identity is an outcome of shared, interactional processes where individuals locate themselves within various societal structures and cultures. Entrepreneurship education can promote such competencies in students and enable them to transform their identities and find trusting relations and opportunities for business actions and new ventures. Opportunities may be found in new enterprises and partnerships. Entrepreneurship is about doing as well as copying and learning from experience.
Identity building as an educational aim includes the values, attitudes and capabilities of students that support their adaptation to changing requirements. Cooperation, inter-and intra-organizational communication, and customer-orientated product development are important considerations. It is also notable that identity building helps society to develop social capital, which means social networks and trust-based relationships as a means of gaining prosperity.
Future research and limitations of the study
Even if based on extensive literature analysis, we end up finding some limitations of the study approach. A longer time-range for the longitudinal data could picture the course of the identity research of entrepreneurship education probably somewhat differently. Also we are aware that using the defined criteria definitely has restricted the selected studies and left out some interesting work. Because our study approach is conceptual, also future research could take its main findings as a frame for an empirical study. Social entrepreneurship education still could benefit conceptual work concerning its basic nature, and studies could be more sensitive to its different contexts. Cross-cultural analysis could include many environments and study how regional and more international contexts effect the nature of social entrepreneurship education. A more systematic and holistic view of theoretical framework could be developed concerning practice-oriented model with ideas of entrepreneurial learning. Finally, the studies used in the analysis also did not include a lot of practical assessment and comprehensive evaluation system, which might be a good subject of study in future research.
Nomenclature
ATLAS.ti: is defined as a computer software program, which has been largely applied in qualitative research (incl. content analysis in this paper) for exploring different types of materials especially without particular structures (e.g. “text, pictures, sound and video”). Researchers are able to categorizing each document based on codes which can be created partly in accordance with their interpretation and logic. By analyzing the relationship between the codes, theoretical ideas can be generalized in a transparent and visualized way.
Code: is meant as a text segment located, selected and marked by researchers based on the research objectives/questions of a paper; it can be identified directly as a quotation or defined by the researchers themselves with a new name in a streamlined version.
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