Page 58 - guidance-supporting-europe-s-aspiring-entrepreneurs-policy-and-practice-to-harness-future-potential

Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

Population figures for people who have received entrepreneurial (business-
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creation) training vary throughout Europe ( ). Greece, France, Italy and the
United Kingdom show similar levels for working-age adults who have received
education in starting a business (around 17-19%) (Martínez et al., 2010). Spain,
Denmark and Germany show slightly higher levels (21-22%) and Croatia,
Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, and Latvia even higher (25-29%). Belgium, Slovenia
and Finland had the highest percentage of working-adults with training in
business-formation (33% of the Belgian, 36% of the Slovenian and 49% of the
Finnish population). By contrast, only 8% of Romania’s adult population have
received training in starting a business.

2.5. Entrepreneurship learning in Europe

2.5.1. Introduction
The impact of entrepreneurship learning on individual attitudes, actions and
aspirations linked to entrepreneurship is of particular interest to policy-makers
and practitioners of education and economic development. It is generally
believed that individuals who perceive they have the skills and knowledge to start
a business are more likely to do so.
Entrepreneurship education started over a century ago, with organisations
such as Junior Achievement as pioneers (Volkmann et al., 2009, p. 19). The first
programme was introduced by Harvard University in 1945 to stimulate the USA
post-war economy (Mitra and Manimala, 2008, p. 46), followed by an MBA
established in 1947 and entitled Management of new enterprises (Katz, 2003).
Three distinct ideas (see Figure 10) have notably shaped the development of
entrepreneurship education since. An early influence was the need for efficient
and effective managers who had the skills to motivate and manage staff in large
companies. The prevalent economic thinking was to capitalise on economies of
scale, seeing people as a resource to be managed.
From the 1970s onwards there were successive privatisations and
entrepreneurship was seen as a way to address high levels of unemployment.
Entrepreneurship education was extended from purely management training to
include training for self-employment. More recently, entrepreneurship education
has been related to personal development and a way to empower those with
lower education to participate in the labour market.

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( ) Information based on 15 European countries only: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Iceland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain
and the UK.

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