Beyond the Explicit: excavating a pedagogical approach to knowledge for entrepreneurial action

Paper in proceeding, 2012

While the variation in objectives and methods for entrepreneurship education is significant, most entrepreneurship educations deliver one of two main interpretations: learning about the phenomenon of entrepreneurship (learning about) or learning a skill-set to become an entrepreneur (learning for, in or through) (Mwasalwiba, 2010; Rasmussen & Sorheim, 2006). Educations aimed at training individuals to act entrepreneurially often employ an action-based approach (Bennett, 2006; Jones & Iredale, 2006; Leitch & Harrison, 1999; Rasmussen & Sorheim, 2006). We believe that even action-based entrepreneurial educations stop short of achieving the personal learning required by the individual for engagement in the entrepreneurial process. This paper is the result of a joint effort to go beyond the explicit program design and curriculum in our two institutions to excavate the implicit commonalities in our pedagogical approaches for developing personalized entrepreneurial learning. We call this learning the entrepreneurial Know Why and we believe it is fundamental to the development of entrepreneurial intention, behavior and capacity. Thus the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the pedagogy for entrepreneurship by explaining the meaning and significance of the entrepreneurial Know Why and by describing an educational approach that facilitates its development.