Challenges facing international students engaging in venture creation: a case study from Sweden

Paper i proceeding, 2010

Entrepreneurship education has evolved to include not only education about entrepreneurship, but educational training for and through entrepreneurial activity, allowing for experiential learning that can be applied in real time. Action-based entrepreneurial education, already challenged by specialized resource needs and infrastructure, faces additional obstacles when attempting to integrate international components into the structural design. At the same time, both the students and the potential entrepreneurial ventures benefit from a shift in focus towards more international perspectives, providing learning towards developing, if not ‘born global’ start-ups, than at least ‘born international’ start-ups. This paper presents a case study of an education in Sweden that integrated entrepreneurial education and venture creation, including both Swedish nationals and international students. The paper explores factors impacting both learning and venture creation stemming from macro-, meso-, and micro-levels, and concludes with some suggestions for how these challenges may be overcome in the future.