Business Creativity: a New Educational Challenge

Business Creativity: A New Educational Challenge

for European Students

Andrew Turnbull

Department of Communication, Media and Marketing

Aberdeen Business School

The Robert Gordon University

Garthdee Road, Aberdeen AB10 7QE, Scotland, UK

T: ++44.1224.263816; F: ++44.1224.263838

Mail:

Prof. Dr. Matthias Eickhoff

Institute for Entrepreneurial Behaviour Mainz University of Applied Sciences

Managing Director ITB Institute for Innovation, Transfer and Consulting gGmbH, Bingen

Lucy-Hillebrand-Straße 2, 55128 Mainz, Germany

T: ++49.6131.628-3273; F: ++49.6131.628-93273

E-mail: ,

Abstract

In 2004, the dream of two European academics was realised, with the launch of a Business Creativity (BC) student workshop. Three years later, an innovative EU-funded BC module followed, with delivery now encompassing eight higher education institutions across Europe.

The module was developed with EU funding with the principal goal of promoting a new European entrepreneurship culture to students pursuing management-based degrees at schools providing programmes in business education. The clear focus is on the first phase in the Business Evolution Process: Business Creativity.

A first ‘Idea Generation Workshops’ was heldin Mainz, Germany, in 2004. Further workshops have been held annually in other European countries, with students forming multicultural teams in order to generate innovative entrepreneurial ideas. The success of the initiative led to the development of the BC module, which involves students working in groups drawn from different institutions, but receiving lectures on-site at their own institutions. An e-learning platform, using the most modern technology available, allows interactive group working and a shared experience, alongside tailored assessment and feedback from each university’s module coordinator.

New networks are expected to adopt this innovative instrument intended for undergraduate students from any discipline.

Keywords: entrepreneurship education, business creativity, Europe, intercultural competences, university networks.

Business Creativity: A New Educational Challenge for European Students

1. The Topic Background

1.1Development of Entrepreneurship Research and Education

European history has been influenced in a variety of ways by entrepreneurial success and failure. Notwithstanding Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development (Schumpeter, 1911) which was based on the action of a pioneering entrepreneur, the basics of entrepreneurship theory were largely developed in the United States of America from the early 1970s.

Nowadays entrepreneurship theory and education in the USA frequently serve as global benchmarks, as both entrepreneurship-research and education have become well establishedthere. There is good reason indeed, to learn from these experiences. Nevertheless it is now important to look more closely at determining factors on a lower aggregate level, rather than simply considering entrepreneurship as a global, uniform phenomenon.

A new perspective has arisen from two influences. First, the discussion concerning the future orientation of the discipline shows that, in addition to a focus on the entrepreneur, the availability of profitable business opportunities and the presence of entrepreneurial people are two vital factors for entrepreneurial societies. Secondly, the idea of the trans-national enterprise nourishes the concept of ‘Glocalpreneurship’, putting emphasis on local adaptation of the entrepreneurial mindset.

1.2The European Perspective

Despite legal fragmentation, cultural differences and historic roles, a new type of entrepreneur seems to be emerging in Europe as a study at the Centre for European Reform discovered:

“Encouragingly, a new business generation is emerging in Europe, with shared aspirations, values and outlooks. The common features among Europe's 20- and 30-something entrepreneurs are far more striking than the differences.” (Leadbeatter/Ussher, 1999).

Increasingly, a processorientation changes the way people do business and favours flexibility to size, variety to standardization. Europe is apparently well equipped with the pre-requisites to adapt successfully to these changes.

Indeed, Europe needs many of these new entrepreneurs and in recent years, it has begun to develop a new European entrepreneurship culture. Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission ,stated in a speech with the title ‘ For a new European entrepreneurship’ at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid on 7 February 2002:

“During the post-WWII period, the role of entrepreneurship seemed to be fading away. Today, what is going on in business points to a major reversal: the rebirth of the entrepreneur. And I share the view expressed by many observers that there is every reason to believe that this new age of enterprise will not fade away again in the near future.”

A survey conducted in the summer of 2010 by Karen Wilson for the EFER (European Foundation for Entrepreneurship Research) among 240 Entrepreneurship-Teachers in Europe showed that although there has been significant growth in the teaching of the subjectin the first decade of the 21st century, much more needs to be done. This is particularly true of the areas of action-oriented innovative approaches and in the creation of a cross-border faculty that helps to spur innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe. The survey highlighted a strong need for more faculty collaboration, exchanges and research across borders as most of the respondents, 90%, indicated that they work principally at academic institutions in their home country and less than 20% spend time teaching elsewhere. The survey further concludes that a greater critical mass of entrepreneurship faculty, research and course material is needed in Europe to help spur innovation and entrepreneurship and assist in the achievement of the goals set out in the Lisbon Agenda. Among the recommendations it is suggested that students of all disciplines should be encouraged to take entrepreneurship courses and to strengthen links with their peers across borders. The sharing of good practice within institutions, as well as between institutions should also be facilitated.

2. Meeting a Need: Learning EuroPreneurship

In 2002, an initiative called ‘COEUR’ (‘Competence in EuroPreneurship’)in other words, European Entrepreneurship, was brought into existence. Sharing the awareness of the background above, the founders, Matthias Eickhoff (University of Applied Sciences Mainz, Germany) and Andrew Turnbull (Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland) formulated their vision:

“We want to organise a conference, where students from different universities meet in an open atmosphere of initiative, creativity and responsibility to learn from experienced entrepreneurs and to establish a common basis for the entrepreneurial future in a Europe of regions, forming a nucleus for development and change, a junction in a quickly developing European business culture.”

Since then,two networksnow made up of eight European Universities in Germany (Mainz and Erfurt), Scotland (Aberdeen), Portugal (Lisbon), France (Dijon), Poland (Wroclaw) the Czech Republic (Prague) and Estonia (Tallinn)have developed. The COEUR networks have successfully established learning opportunities in European higher education, having as their primary goal the teaching of Competence in European Entrepreneurship. Starting in 2004 with an annual 5-day workshop, the conception, development and implementation of a university module was the next step for the initiative, posing significant challenges to the network in the process.

2.1 Step 0: The basic idea

It was crucial for the concept that the COEUR learning opportunities did notsimply add one more businessplan module or competition to the existing portfolio of entrepreneurship education. As so many of these already exist from local to global scale, the concept was designed to focus on an earlier stage of development: Business Creativity.

The COEUR initiative builds on the comprehensive concept of the business evolution process, which is understood to be a regulative circle integrating business creativity, business planning and business development (Eickhoff/Jakob, 2005).

By concentrating on the process of problem definition and idea development, the COEUR learning opportunities allow individuals to harvest the most important resources on which Europe will have to build in the future, which are, not money, but new and creative ideas!

The study of business planning has been very much the main focus in recent years. Analytical tools and instruments have been developed and the significance of business planning is accepted both in theory and practical application. On the other hand the perception of the challenges of business creativity and sourcing new ideas are not yet fully in vogue. As the following table shows different tasks occur in each phase requiring different ways of thinking and different tools.

Figure 2: Application of the Business Evolution Process

In future, business creativity and innovation may become essential in order to help to foster the responsiveness of companies to unpredictable changes in their environments, the so called open change. While companies today understand and are well prepared to react to deterministic change or to adapt proactively to predictable change on the basis of personal experience or market research, many of them seem not yet to have understood the necessity of creative problem-solving in a chaotic surrounding (Eickhoff/Jakob 2005).

Offering intercultural experiences leading to intercultural understanding, the COEUR learning opportunities should also be fostering a growing together within the European Union. Furthermore, the COEUR initiative promotes the European dimension in higher education as well as the attractiveness of the European higher education area by networking on a European level and bringing students together from different European countries in an inspiring educational environment employing experiential learning.

2.2 Step 1: The Workshop

In 2004, the idea of an international workshop for students from all disciplines enhancing competence in European Entrepreneurship finally came to fruition: the basic workshop task was to develop innovative entrepreneurial ideas with a European dimension. Regarding the ideas themselves, there were and are no restrictions to the field in which the idea should be positioned, so a new enterprise, a new social institution, a ‘bridge from A to B’ are all possible as long as the European dimension regarding its realisation is considered.

Furthermore, COEUR began and continues as a 5-day workshop with about 5-10 students from 5-8 partner universities, each a part of a COEUR network. A maximum of 50 students ensures that the individual cannot become lost and the workshop remains manageable! A minimum of 30 delegates ensures the economic viability of the exercise and guarantees an intercultural experience. Workshops have taken place, at least once a year, since 2004, always organised by one of the participating universities. In September, 2012, a tenth programme took place in Wroclaw, Poland. The students from the different institutions are mixed in inter-culturally different groups (by country, studysubject and personality traits)with the task of developing a value proposition for a new, challenging and innovative idea including the European dimension and addressed to the development of an entrepreneurial new business.

During the development process, students’ ideas are stimulated through a variety of inputs, such as key note speeches by practicing entrepreneurs, creativity training exercises and visits designed to enhance creative thinking, factual knowledge and intercultural sensibilities. These inputs combine with regular ‘idea check ups’ (presentations by the teams and constructive criticism fed back from staff on site) and several problem-based ‘action learning’ activities intended to spur the flow of thoughts and ideas and encourage the participants to act as a team within a short period of time.

Through intensive experiences the COEUR Workshop offers to participating students the acquisition of competencies in the following subject areas:

• Competence in European Entrepreneurship: the participants are constantly supported by the project leaders and other experts, to foster the education of the students’ competence in ‘EuroPreneurship’;
• Entrepreneurial Perspective: through contact with experienced entrepreneurs in the context of key note speeches, discussions and excursions;
• Social Skills: through intensive intercultural teamwork, problem solving competences as well as conflict management will be permanent challenges in the process;
• Presentation Skills: a regular monitoring of the students’ idea generation during the workshop gives them practice and routine in presenting their ideas towards others, especiallyat the conclusion of the workshop,in front ofa panel of experienced experts;
• Intercultural Competences: through the intense work with students from different European nations and professional backgrounds in the workshop;
• Language Exercise: the COEUR workshop is conducted entirely in English and demands in return English communication without compromise from the students.

The first International Student Workshop on EuroPreneurship, COEUR 2004, was designed within a conceptual framework, which had been subject of decision and accord between the participating universities. The partners agreed on a framework which was tight in the basic principles, intended to give a clear guideline for the future conference organisers, while remaining loose in order to leave enough room for individual adaptation to local conditions. As the first conference was inevitably very much an experiment to test the concept, it hasthereafter been subject to modifications in some respects in the meantime. Remarkably however, the 2012 model is instantly recognisable, compared to its predecessor.

Since its first run in 2004, a regular evaluation of the COEUR Workshop has been made at the end of every workshop when all participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Additionally, the lessons learned have been discussed within the accompanying academic team at the end of every COEUR workshop.

Every year the respective host of the COEUR workshop is responsible and accounts for the entire organisation and the conceptual structure of the workshop. Since the original, European workshops have been held in Aberdeen, Scotland, Lisbon, Portugal and Dijon, France, as well as Poland (twice) and Mainz again. The workshop has twice, in fact, been held outside Europe. Firstly, an event was hosted by the Nanfang University in China and another took place in Brazil, hinting at the potential extension of the original concept to the COEUR ‘mundus’ proposal taking in new partners beyond the Eurozone. The expectation however, is that the initiative will remain true to its roots and the future schedule has already been mapped out, taking in new locations including Prague and Helsinki.

Most significantly, in 2011, students completing the workshop week and undertaking further formal elements of assessment were, for the first time, awarded ECTS credits. The precise number of credits varies by institution, depending on the additional requirements, but this simply underlines the flexibility of the programme. From a common format, each university simply adapted the content and outputs to serve their own purpose and time-frames.

2.3 Step 2: The Module

The partner universities always intended to developthe COEUR workshops into a more mainstream activity and a taught module, linked closely to the structure and content of the programme was a long held objective. This would serve to incorporate the original network’s entrepreneurship education efforts into the standard university curriculum, with the longer term goal as well to extend cooperation in and beyond entrepreneurship education.

As the basic assumptions of the COEUR concept proved to be successful, the participating institutions have also developed new networks. After all, an annual conference including just six partner universities could not achieve any substantial or significant effect for EuroPreneurship on an European level. Indeed, a further growth of the network was unlikely to be effective, as the growth would have to be paid for in terms of the intensity of the experience and coherence between partner universities. Growing the effect of COEUR in Europe was therefore best pursued not by growth of the individual networks, but by multiplication of networks.

Some years later, the idea is to initiate yet more COEUR-networks between other universities in Europe which follow the same idea and concept using and extending their existing European relations. As part of the process, external partners are also envisaged helping with the network building process, for example, Chambers of Commerce, business angel networks and local enterprise organisations. Such institutions have a profound interest in the development of entrepreneurship and can help by communicating the concept within their own membership and relations.

Going back in time however, it was in February 2006 that the Institute for Entrepreneurial Behaviour at FH Mainz, together with the five COEUR university network partners applied for EU funding for a Curriculum Development Project under the SOKRATES PROGRAMME, to develop a ‘COEUR BCM - Business Creativity Module’.

In the application, the universities described their goal as:

“…to develop a module in European Entrepreneurship educating entrepreneurial skills and intercultural competencies by focusing on the 1st phase in the Business Evolution Process, the problem definition and creative idea development .

The module can be delivered at any European university. It will be accessible for students from any discipline at undergraduate level - seeking a first degree. It also delivers the basis for a most intensive 5-day ‘Idea Generation Workshop’ where students and staff from a network of 3-5 European universities meet to develop within intercultural teams, entrepreneurial ideas with an European dimension.

The project objectives are:

• To develop a curriculum for the COEUR – BCM in order to assure its quality
• To implement the expected interdisciplinary module in the regular curriculum of the partner universities and to equip it with an appropriate number of ECTS Credits.
• To disseminate the COEUR – BCM idea at other partner universities in order to initiate new European COEUR - BCM - Networks all over Europe with the overall aim to strengthen an entrepreneurial perspective within the European higher education area.”

Some months later the total budget was approved by the European Commission and in October, 2006 the twoyear project started with a financial support of around 217,000 Euros.

While year one of the project was predominantly dedicated to the module development –establishing and agreeing on basic structures - year two saw the implementation of the module within the original COEUR university network. The dissemination of the module in the European higher education area to initiate new BCM networks was then achieved by splitting up the original partnership, with, for example, the senior partners from Scotland and Germany, each leading their own new consortium.