research article is innovation being addressed in...

Research ArticleIs Innovation Being Addressed in EntrepreneurshipUndergraduate Programs? An Exploratory Study

Robert I. Berry, Anil Kumar, and James P. Scott

Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, USA

Correspondence should be addressed to Robert I. Berry; [email protected]

Received 29 April 2014; Accepted 26 June 2014; Published 16 July 2014

Academic Editor: Yi-Shun Wang

Copyright © 2014 Robert I. Berry et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Entrepreneurial programs have experienced a phenomenal growth in the past two decades. In this exploratory study the authorssurvey undergraduate entrepreneurship programs to identify courses that are being offered by these programs with the objective ofdetermining if innovation is being addressed in the programs. The study explores innovation from both startup and corporateperspectives to see if industry needs are being met by academia. Findings suggest that entrepreneurship programs focus onfunctional knowledge and an opportunity exists to include courses that address innovation, design, intellectual property, and socialmedia. Further research is needed to align market needs with academic offerings in entrepreneurship programs.

1. Introduction

Entrepreneurial education should be an enabling educationthat focuses on innovation, which we define as the creationof new capacities for wealth creation. Drucker [1] definedinnovation as “the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the meansby which they exploit change as an opportunity for adifferent business or a different service. It is capable ofbeing presented as a discipline, capable of being learned,capable of being practiced” (page 17). We define innovationas the process of creating a product or service solution thatdelivers significant new customer value. Just being a new orincremental improvement by itself is not innovation unlessthe idea is capable of creating value or capacity for wealth cre-ation. Entrepreneurship is the exploitation of the innovationactivities. Innovation creates the potential to fuel economicgrowth in a nation. New products, services, or redesignedprocesses that result from innovation create new marketsor enhance existing markets leading to economic growth.Sustaining economic growth in a nation can be challengingunless the potential to innovate is harnessed. Innovation cantake place either in a startup organization or an existingorganization that is well established in the marketplace (see[2, page 10]). While the number of startups created canbe used to estimate innovation in startups, it is challenging

to determine innovation in established organizations. Datafrom the Kauffman Foundation report titled Kauffman Indexof Entrepreneurial Activity published in April 2013 indicatesthat 300 out of 100,000 adults created a new business eachmonth in 2012 in the United States.This rate, which is a slightdrop from the 2008–2011 periods, is at the same level withfindings from 2007. Organizational innovation is difficultto measure as money spent by organizations on researchand development may not necessarily lead to innovativesolutions. Booz & Company’s findings in their annual report,The Global Innovation 1000 Study indicates, “What reallymatters is how those R&D funds are invested in capabilities,talent, process and tools” [3]. If innovation is to continue,it is important that academic institutions are prepared forthis challenge. Therefore, entrepreneurship programs needto provide the students with the basic business skills and anunderstanding of innovation in order to build the capacity forthe exploitation of new business opportunities.

To address innovation needs there has been an interestin offering undergraduate entrepreneurship programs byhigher education institutions. A recent report titled TheInnovative and Entrepreneurial University: Higher Education,Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Focus published by theUS Department of Commerce in October 2013 reports that

Hindawi Publishing CorporationEducation Research InternationalVolume 2014, Article ID 839505, 7 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/839505

2 Education Research International

there are at least 450 colleges and universities across theUnited States that offer entrepreneurship programs. Thereport also states that as a result of the Startup AmericaInitiative more than 170 community colleges across thecountry have introduced entrepreneurship programs. It isevident that higher education institutions in theUnited Stateshave understood the need for entrepreneurial education forfostering innovation and have adapted accordingly. Data onundergraduate entrepreneurship programs offered by schoolsoutside the United States is not easily available. The listof Business’s of Colleges with majors in entrepreneurshipor small business maintained by St. Louis University JohnCook School identifies 43 undergraduate entrepreneurshipprograms outside the United States. While it is true thatundergraduate offerings in entrepreneurship have increasedover the years, it is not clear whether these programs havemet the innovation needs of economies and organizations.To explore the topics, this research addresses the followingquestions.

(1) What courses undergraduate entrepreneurship pro-grams are offering?

(2) What is the focus of the undergraduate entrepreneur-ship programs, startup or corporate innovation?

(3) Are the needs of startup and corporate innovationbeing met by existing undergraduate entrepreneur-ship programs?

To answer the research questions we used the list of schoolsthat offer undergraduate entrepreneurship as a major com-plied by the Saint Louis University John Cook School of Busi-ness (http://www.slu.edu/x17964.xml). This list was accessedin October 2013 and eighty-four different schools offering theentrepreneurship programmajor were used for this research.As shown in Figure 1 all regions of the country are includedin this list and there are several international schools also.

The remainder of the paper is divided into four parts.In the next section we examine the courses that are offeredby undergraduate entrepreneurship programs included inthis study. The following section presents the focus of theundergraduate programs. Next the paper discusses the needsof startup and corporate innovation and if the entrepreneur-ship programs are meeting the needs for innovation. Finallywe conclude with a discussion of innovation education inundergraduate Entrepreneurship programswith implicationsfor future research and practice.

2. Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Courses

Management courses were the most common courses offeredby undergraduate entrepreneurship programs followed bymarketing and finance courses. As shown in Figure 2, approx-imately two-thirds (67%) of the schools surveyed offeredthree or more management courses. While one-third (33%)offered more than 3 or more marketing courses, approx-imately one-fourth (25%) offered three or more financecourses. The data suggests that most entrepreneurship pro-grams surveyed offer business courses that help studentsunderstand different aspects of creating and operating a

29%

MidwestNortheastSoutheast

SouthwestWestInternational

15%

11%

11%

20%

14%

Figure 1: Regions represented by schools.

business. For example, the need to create a business strategyand plan may be taught in management courses, while theskills to communicate to stakeholders and make a pitch topotential investors may be taught in a marketing course.Similarly students will get the basics of funding and thefinancial statements that go alongwith funding fromafinancecourse.

Approximately two-thirds (65%) of the programs didnot require a technology course, and 43% of the programsoffered at least one technology course as an elective. Ofthe schools that required a technology course 46% werebased in theMidwest. Technology courses as an elective weremost popular in the Midwest (27%) followed by Northeast(24%) and the West (16%). Technology courses generallyhelp a student understand the transformative and disruptivepotential of digital technologies. These courses also helpa student develop skills that pertain to creating a digitalpresence.

Of the 84 programs surveyed for this study, 52% offeredat least one course in innovation. Innovation courses providethe foundational theories and frameworks that help studentsunderstand how to create new products and services forthe global marketplace. Entrepreneurial programs in theMidwest region (28%) offer the most courses on innovationfollowed by the Northeast (23%). A third (33%) of theprograms offered at least one course in corporate innovation.Again, the Midwest (26%) led in offering the corporate inno-vation course followed by the Northeast (22%) and Southeast(22%). Corporate innovation helps a student understand thecomplexities of working with cross-functional teams in an

Education Research International 3

0 20 40 60 80 100

Technology(required)

Technology(elective)

Innovation

Finance

Marketing

Management

Corporateinnovation

No courseOne course

Two coursesThree or more courses

(%)

Figure 2: Courses offered by entrepreneurship programs.

organization to create new products and services or how toimprove organizational processes.

The data suggests that entrepreneurship programs rely ona departmental approach when it comes to course offerings.Although innovation and technology courses offer the oppor-tunity to an instructor to integrate concepts from businessdisciplines, most departmental courses focus on teachingbusiness skills that emphasize functional knowledge. It isinteresting to note that there were no offerings that focus ondesign, a critical concept for new product or service offering.Similarly courses that focus on leveraging social media fornew ventures are not being offered as required courses by theprograms surveyed.

3. Focus of Entrepreneurship Education

Innovation is critical for driving organizational growth inboth startups and established organizations.While in the caseof startups innovation helps introduce something completelynew in the marketplace, corporate innovation requires thecapability to create and acquire new knowledge that bringsnew ideas to the marketplace. It is clear that both star-tups and existing organizations need and value innovation.Entrepreneurial programs need to help students understandboth perspectives and equip them with skill sets that can beused in either type of organizations.

In this study of the 84 undergraduate entrepreneurprograms that we explored, approximately one-third (32%)of the programs focused on innovation in both startup andestablished organizations. Slightlymore than one-third (35%)of the programs focused on startup organizations and only 1%

focused on established organizations. The final third (32%)did not focus on either, which means that their programwebsites do not specificallymention the focus of the program.It is quite possible that they may focus on one, either, orboth but do not mention it on their website. The findingsindicate that innovation in startups ismore popular as a focusfor undergraduate entrepreneur programs than innovationin established organizations. The focus on innovation instartups is understandable as the popular media is full ofstories about new companies that emerge in the marketplaceand often create a buzz that excites both faculty and students.The Western region (24%) of US leads in terms of theprograms that focus on startups followed by the Northeast(21%) and Midwest (21%). Technology clusters based in theSilicon Valley, Boston, and New York areas explain whyprograms in these regions focus on startup innovation. Afterthe downfall of the Midwest manufacturing base it has triedto reinvent itself as a technology hub, which provides apossible explanation for the entrepreneurial programs focuson startup innovation in the region. It is surprising thatcorporate innovation is not the focus of entrepreneurialprograms as these organizations are constantly disrupted bynewcomers and have a dire need for innovation.

4. Aligning Innovation Needs

An organization that needs to hire human talent for inno-vation will rely on an individual’s skills or knowledge baseto assess if they are a good fit. For example, in the case of astartup organization the founding partners may be lookingfor creativity as a key skill. A creative individual may be ableto help the founders with improving the design of a newproduct or service. Similarly a manager in an establishedorganization might be more interested in someone withcollaboration and teamwork skills. This helps them workwith people from different functional areas to solve complexorganizational problems. Entrepreneurial programs have toensure that their course offerings help students acquire skillsand build a knowledge base that are aligned with needsof the market they serve. Keierleber [4] reports findingsfrom a Gallup-Lumina Foundation partnership study thatshows that only 11% of business leaders believe that collegegraduates have the necessary skills and competencies towork in business organizations. An overwhelming majority(96%) of academic leaders expressed confidence in theirschool’s ability to prepare students for the workplace. Theresults from the surveys clearly highlight the misalignmentthat exists when it comes to perceptions about graduates’competency levels. Fischer [5] reports similar findings bypointing out that over half of the employers surveyed ina study conducted by Maguire Associates Inc., a higher-education consulting firm, on behalf of The Chronicle andAmerican Public Media’s Marketplace, struggled to findthe right candidates. It is also interesting to note that inthe Gallup-Lumina Foundation study findings indicate thatbusiness leaders place more importance on knowledge offield (84%) and applied skills (79%) than their majors (28%)and degree (9%). The Association of American Colleges and


Universities in a recent report titled It Takes More than aMajor: Employer Priorities for College Learning and StudentSuccess highlights that skills rather than a student’s majorare more important when it comes to employability [6].Interestingly not just the major, academic reputation [7] isalso considered to be a less important factor for employerswhen looking for employability of graduates. So if knowledgeof field and applied skills are important the question thatarises is what skills are important for employers and whyis there a misalignment between employer expectations andacademic preparation?

Multiple academic scholars and studies have identi-fied soft skills that include both written and verbal com-munications [6–8], problem solving and critical thinking[6, 7, 9], functional skills [7], and experiential learningopportunities [5, 7, 10], as the most important skills thatemployers seek when looking to hire graduates. Humphreys[6] reports that skills that help graduates innovate intheir workplace are more important than all other skills.Academic leaders [11] reinforce the findings of academicstudies.

From an industry perspective, multiple studies havefound that innovation is critical for organizations and indus-tries. According to the PwC 17th Annual Global CEO Survey(PwC) ofmore than 1,300 company leaders from 68 countriesconducted in 2013, more than a third of the CEO’s were look-ing to use their companies’ ability to innovate to create newproducts or services to fuel organic growthwith the company.The PwC report states, “The smartest CEOs are concentratingon breakthrough, or game-changing, innovation. They’reexplicitly incorporating it in their strategies. And they’reusing technology not just to develop new products andservices, but also to create new business models, includingforging complete solutions by combining related productsand services. In fact, they don’t think in terms of productsand services so much as outcomes, because they recognizethat products and services are simply a means to an end.”[12]. In another study of corporate innovation conducted bythe Boston Consulting Group in 2010, 1,600 senior executivesput innovation near or at the top of their priority lists [13].They reported that they have increased funding and 84% ofthe respondents thought that innovation was important orextremely important to their companies. It is obvious thatinnovation is critical for organizations though what is notclear is how effective are companies at innovation. Jaruzelskiet al. [14] in their report titled The Global Innovation reportthat of the companies surveyed just 43% of participantssaid that their innovation efforts to generate new ideas werehighly effective; to paraphrase the report, the companieswere not very good at it. This suggests that organizationsare struggling to leverage their human talent when it comesto innovation. This seems to suggest that the human talentmay not have been adequately prepared for expectations oforganizations when it comes to innovation. It is here thatentrepreneurial programs can fill the void and support bycreating programs that graduate students with the relevantknowledge base and skills that enable them to facilitateinnovation in organizations.

5. Discussion

The need for entrepreneurship programs that help preparestudents for innovation in organizations around the worldis emerging due to global economic needs. Rising unem-ployment especially in the case of recent graduates has ledto disillusionment and provides the impetus for growth ofentrepreneurs around the world. Growth of governmentpolicy to promote entrepreneurship as a foundation foreconomic development is found at all levels of government:federal, state, and local.The development of entrepreneurshipprograms is not restricted to the United States but is aglobal phenomenon due primarily to government policiesthat advocate entrepreneurship as an economic developmentstrategy. According to O’Connor [15] who developed a con-ceptual framework for entrepreneurship education policy,government policy makers see entrepreneurship as an eco-nomic development tool for revitalizing and stimulating eco-nomic growth. As entrepreneurs around the world continueto grow and are expected to reach 1 billion by 2020 fromapproximately 400 million in 2012 [16], they create endlessopportunities for academic institutions. To meet the needs ofthe global entrepreneurs, academic institutions need to offerprograms that help prepare potential entrepreneurs acquirenecessary skills and knowledge base to foster innovationin entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. Multiplefactors that are interrelated and intertwined have to betaken into consideration before such programs are designedand offered to potential entrepreneurs. In the followingparagraphs we discuss the focus and curriculum factors usingthe data from existing entrepreneurial programs presentedin previous three sections. A summary of this discussion ispresented in Table 1.

5.1. The Focus. We argue that all entrepreneurship programsshould have a focus, that is, startup or corporate innovationthat drives their program and curriculum. Schools that arenot resource constrained can develop programs that focuson both startup and corporate innovation. As entrepreneursaround the world continue to drive economic activity, it isimportant that academic programs serve their needs. If theseentrepreneurs are to succeed in their pursuits it becomescritical that academic programs support them. Support canbe provided in different forms, that is, helping studentscreate innovative products and services or a more behavioralapproach where programs help students develop an inno-vative entrepreneurial mindset. Developing an innovativeentrepreneurialmindset implies that students understand theprocess of generating new ideas, conducting research anddevelopment (R&D) and testing value creation for improvingprocesses or revamping products and services. The challengefor any program is to decide what they want to focus on.

As a first step in this process a program should make surethat they align their focus with the mission of the collegeand the university. Misalignment may hamper growth, assupport of top administrators in the institution and academicunit may be either limited or even missing. Care mustbe taken to ensure that all stakeholders; that is, facultyand students (internal), the local community, and potential


Table 1: Characteristics of entrepreneurship programs.

Characteristics Startup innovation Corporate innovation

Focus Value creation by designing and creating newproducts and services

Value creation by improving processes, revampingproducts and services, or conducting research anddevelopment (R&D)

Curriculum Technology versus design orientation coursework Functional versus cross-functional courseworkExperiential learning New venture competitions Internships

Alignment with market needs Digital versus traditional businesses Small and medium enterprises versus largeorganizations

Skills Systems thinking, problem solving, criticalthinking, and communication

Functional knowledge of business, team work, andcommunication

employers (external) are involved in the process. Sharedvision will play an important role in getting commitmentof all the stakeholders as they will view it as their personalvision [17]. Internal stakeholders impact what happens in theclassroom and external stakeholders ensure that necessarysupport can be provided to create a thriving entrepreneurialecosystem. Though the focus may be local to address theneeds of external stakeholders, global perspective should notbe ignored. For example, if a program decides to focus onstartup innovation in general and digital entrepreneurship inparticular, the potential for online businesses to reach globalmarkets becomes important.

5.2. The Curriculum. Not all courses are equally useful andthe focus of the program should determine the coursesthat are important for the program. As the data suggests,entrepreneurship programs focus on courses that help stu-dents achieve functional specialization. Although we didnot collect any data, it is likely that courses may be cross-listed in different departments. For example, if a course iscross-listed as a management and entrepreneurship coursethen it becomes very difficult to design the course for anentrepreneurship student, as needs of management studentscannot be ignored completely. There are management theo-ries and concepts that students from both disciplines need toknow even though the perspective varies. Similarly, a coursein information systems (IS) can be taught in the IS andentrepreneurship disciplines; however, the viewpoint in thetwo disciplines can be different. We believe that the focus ofan entrepreneurship program should drive the curriculumin the program. Courses that help emphasize functionalknowledge should be combined with courses that transcendfunctional boundaries and help students understand the bigpicture. This implies that core courses in entrepreneurshipprograms may differ driven by the focus of the program.

A program that focuses on startup innovation needs todecide what aspect of startup innovation is of interest tothe school. For example, is the program focused on startupinnovation from the perspective of solving local communityeconomic or social problems or is it technological innovationin general? In the former case, courses that help studentsunderstand setting up small businesses in local communitiesbecomemore important, while in the latter case the emphasiscan be on technology courses. Needs of setting up small

businesses differ from needs of a technological business andthese needs should drive the coursework in the program.If the startup is creating an innovative product or servicethen design is critical. It can be argued that most businesscourses do not focus on design. A program should considerincluding design courses that may or may not be offered bythe department. Similarly when designing a new product orservice it is important that students understand the conceptof intellectual property and how to protect it. The processof searching and applying for patents are time and financialconsuming activities and students need to understand itssignificance. Courses that focus on design intellectual prop-erty become relevant and important for an entrepreneurshipprogram and should be included depending on the focus ofthe program.

Entrepreneurship programs that focus on corporate inno-vation need to take a systems thinking view that concentrateson putting in place a disciplined innovation strategy whendesigning their programs.Asmentioned in earlier paragraphsfunctional knowledge is important, though equally impor-tant is the understanding that innovation in organizationshappens when organizational boundaries are crossed andexisting mental models are ignored. This can be achieved inacademic settings when courses are specifically designed tohelp students understand cross-functional problem solving.Faculties from different disciplines need to participate indesigning such courses and academic unit leaders need toprovide support to these faculties. Often resource constraintsand promotion and tenure requirements limit involvement offaculty from different disciplines in such endeavors. Formaland informal communication systems can be created to sup-port faculty and students as they attempt to create innovativesolutions to organizational problems or exploit opportunities.Emerging technologies such as social media tools should beharnessed to enable faculty and students to work in teams orindividually.

Experiential learning should be mandatory for allentrepreneurship program students to understand innova-tion. Entrepreneurship programs either require their stu-dents to intern in organizations or provide competitiveplatforms such as new venture competitions where studentscan compete for seed money to support their entrepreneurialventures. Both are good experiential learning opportunitiesfor students, although it may not be adequate for aspiringentrepreneurs. Many entrepreneurs that have succeeded have


experienced multiple failures over the years. Unfortunatelythe media stories center around their successes and oftenignore their failures. Failure can be a practical learningtool for students. It is the multiple failures and the failureanalysis that students need to experience before they graduatefrom an entrepreneurship program. Every student in anentrepreneurship program should be required to build orcreate an innovative product or service. Once a student hascreated something they should present it to their peers andfaculty to get feedback.The local business community shouldalso be involved in this process in order to provide feedbackand analysis of the student’s efforts. The emphasis shouldbe on providing students the opportunity to fail fast andfail often during their program so that they understand thepath traversed by entrepreneurs. It is equally important thatstudents enrolled in entrepreneurship programs are providedthe opportunity to learn from the failures and mistakes ofstudents that graduated from the program. Either invitingalums as guest speakers or offering a special topics courseon failures and mistakes can accomplish this. Over the yearsprograms can create a database of lessons learnt from failuresandmistakes, which can become the content for a course thataddresses this topic.

5.3. Aligning Focus and Curriculum to Market Needs. Datapresented in the previous section clearly indicates that CEOsconsider innovation to be critical for sustaining corporatesuccess and they feel that college graduates are not preparedadequately to work in the real world. Specifically graduateswere seen lacking knowledge of field and applied skillsthat help them become marketable. If graduates do nothave sufficient field knowledge, an understanding of digitaltechnologies, and applied skills, then innovation in corporateorganizations may be difficult to achieve. Similarly if onewere to view the startup landscape it is important thatgraduates of entrepreneurship programs possess skills thathelp them build or create startups. Based on the data onfocus of entrepreneurship programs and courses offered (seeFigure 3), it is evident that an opportunity exists for programsto adapt their offerings for aligning with market needs .For example, even though one-third of the schools surveyedfocused on startup innovation the courses offered focus onfunctional knowledge. A focus on startup innovation callsfor preparing students with skills that have them build astartup. Functional knowledge is very important; even for astartup you first need to create something. It is only when youcreate something that you have to think about managementor finance. Creating or building a startup necessitates thatstudents can identify problems in society, view problemsfrom multiple perspectives, and then brainstorm with theirpeers, faculty and community to find potential solutionsto problems. Skills that become critical in this scenarioare systems thinking, problem solving, critical thinking,and communication. While courses focusing on functionalknowledge may address these skills, it is not the focusof the course. We did not collect data on the number of

1%

35%

32%

32%

Established organizationsNew ventures

BothNeither

Figure 3: Focus of entrepreneurship programs.

innovative startups from the schools surveyed, but we believethe number will be very low.

To alignmarket needs with the focus of the entrepreneur-ship program and coursework we recommend that a schoolfirst consider the ecosystem that it is a part of. If a school islocated in a geographic region where there is limited accessto large corporations that provide potential employmentopportunities for graduates, then the school needs to viewalignment from the perspective of creating an entrepreneurialecosystem that focuses on startup innovation. The focus onstartup innovation can then be viewed from two differentaspects, small business startups or technology startups.Whilesmall business startups can be helpful to build businessesthat meet local needs or solve economic problems that thecommunity faces, technology startups provide an opportu-nity for students to become a part of the global network ofentrepreneurs leveraging technology. It is important for theschool to assess their resources and capabilities to ensure thatstudents are provided the opportunities to create innovativestartups.

6. Conclusion

Entrepreneurship programs provide an opportunity for aca-demic institutions to graduate students that can contribute inmeaningful ways to solve complex societal and organizationalproblems. The knowledge base and skill set needed forinnovative solutions to societal and organizational problemsrequires a unique mindset for designing an entrepreneurshipprogram. Entrepreneurship programs that focus on creatingan entrepreneurship ecosystem aligned with market needsand taking into consideration the resources and capabilitiesavailable will graduate students that are in demand. The


entrepreneurship ecosystems can be viewed from either astartup or corporate innovation perspective. In this researchwe provide recommendations and suggestions for the knowl-edge base and skill set that must be considered when design-ing entrepreneurship programs. These recommendations arebased on an exploratory review of existing entrepreneurshipprograms. We understand that the data used for the studylimits generalizability but it provides a foundation for futureresearch. We recommend that future studies expand thedataset of entrepreneurship programs especially from outsidethe United States and test if our recommendations aremeaningful.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interestsregarding the publication of this paper.

References

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[2] D. O’Sullivan and L. Dooley,Applying Innovation, Sage Publica-tions, Thousand Oaks, Calif, USA, 2009.

[3] B. Jaruzelski, J. Loehr, and R. Holman, “The 2013 GlobalInnovation 1000 Study: Navigating the Digital Future,” 2013,http://www.booz.com/global/home/what-we-think/reports-white-papers/article-display/2013-global-innovation-1000-study.

[4] M. Keierleber, “Business and academic leaders disagree onquality of college graduates, surveys find,” The Chronicle ofHigher Education, no. 25, article A15, 2014.

[5] K. Fischer, “A college degree sorts job applicants, but employ-ers wish it meant more,” The Chronicle of Higher Edu-cation, 2014, https://chronicle.com/article/The-Employment-Mismatch/137625/#id=overview.

[6] D. Humphreys, “Employers More Interested in CriticalThinking and Problem Solving Than College Major,”2014, http://www.aacu.org/press room/press releases/2013/leapcompactandemployersurvey.cfm.

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[8] T. Chamorro-Premuzic, A. Arteche, A. J. Bremner, C. Greven,and A. Furnham, “Soft skills in higher education: importanceand improvement ratings as a function of individual differencesand academic performance,”Educational Psychology, vol. 30, no.2, pp. 221–241, 2010.

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[10] J. Gault, J. Redington, and T. Schlager, “The benefits of under-graduate business internships: implications for the student,university, and business community,” Journal of MarketingEducation, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 45–53, 2000.

[11] J. Jiambalvo, “Dean’s Corner: How Entrepreneurship ProgramsHelp Students Meet the Needs of Corporate Recruiters,” 2013,http://enewsline.aacsb.edu/deanscorner/jiambalvo.asp.

[12] P. Cheah, A. Lang, S. Snowden, and S. Watts, “PwC 17thAnnual Global CEO Survey,” 2014, http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/index.jhtml?WT.ac=vt-ceosurvey.

[13] S. David and R. Dreischmeier, “(Technology-Enabled) In-novation: A Weapon to Win the Battle for CompetitiveAdvantage,” The Boston Consulting Group, 2010, https://http://www.bcg.com/documents/file50205.pdf.

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[16] A. Vital and V. Shyshov, “The next billion—women en-trepre-neurs,” 2014, http://fundersandfounders.com/the-next-billion-women-entrepreneurs/.

[17] P. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of theLearning Organization, Doubleday/Currency, New York, NY,USA, 1990.

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