Is It Real? : Experiencing Entrepreneurship in Only 30 Minutes

Abstract

The Is It Real? exercise gives students a glimpse into the entrepreneurial experience by prompting them to have a brief experience with and reflect on the pressures, constraints, and incentives of new business creation. Given that entrepreneurship education encourages the creation of more ventures, and generally encourages students to act entrepreneurially, this exercise helps students understand the importance of the opportunity formation process and ethical decision-making under pressure. Through a 30-minute moneymaking competition, completed in small teams, students develop an appreciation for the variety of business models, the benefit of creating sustainable revenue streams, and the importance of doing business in an ethical way. The debriefing following the exercise gives students an opportunity to reflect on these activities and learn from the experiences of others in the class, building knowledge of the entrepreneurial experience.

Keywords

entrepreneurial opportunity formation business models sustainable revenue streams ethical decision-making by entrepreneurs

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alvarez

S. A.

Barney

J. B.

(2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1–2), 11–26. doi: 10.1002/sej.4.

Baron

R. A.

(2006). Opportunity recognition as pattern recognition: How entrepreneurs connect the dots to identify new business opportunities. Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(1), 104–119. doi: 10.5465/amp.2006.19873412.

Baron

R. A.

(2008). The role of affect in the entrepreneurial process. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 328–340. doi: 10.5465/amr.2008.31193166.

Baron

R. A.

Shane

S. A.

(2007). Entrepreneurship: A process perspective. Thompson Higher Education.

Bhide

(1996). The questions every entrepreneur must answer. Harvard Business Review, 74, 120–130.

Bhide

Stevenson

H. H,

(1990). Why be honest if honesty doesn’t pay. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 121–129.

Bowman

Ambrosini

(2000). Value creation versus value capture: towards a coherent definition of value in strategy. British Journal of Management, 11(1), 1–15. doi: 10.1111/1467-8551.00147.

Brenkert

G. G.

(2009). Innovation, rule breaking and the ethics of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 448–464. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2008.04.004.

Chau

L. L.-F.

Siu

W.-S.

(2000). Ethical decision-making in corporate entrepreneurial organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 23(4), 365–375. doi: 10.1023/a:1006144910907.

10.

Cope

(2003). Entrepreneurial learning and critical reflection: Discontinuous events as triggers for “higher-level” learning. Management Learning, 34(4), 429–450. doi: 10.1177/1350507603039067.

11.

Day

N. E.

Hudson

Dobies

P. R.

Waris

(2011). Student or situation? Personality and classroom context as predictors of attitudes about business school cheating. Social Psychology of Education, 14(2), 261–282. doi: 10.1007/s11218-010-9145-8.

12.

EU (2006). Recommendation of the European parliament and the council of 18 December 2006 on key competencies for lifelong learning. (2006/962/EC) 12, European Parliament.

13.

Freeman

R. E.

(2010). Managing for stakeholders: Trade-offs or value creation. Journal of Business Ethics, 96(1), 7–9. doi: 10.1007/s10551-011-0935-5.

14.

Freudenreich

Lüdeke-Freund

Schaltegger

(2019). A stakeholder theory perspective on business models: Value creation for sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics, 40(3), 1–16. doi: 10.1007/s10551-019-04112-z.

15.

Gino

Ayal

Ariely

(2009). Contagion and differentiation in unethical behavior: The effect of one bad apple on the barrel. Psychological Science, 20(3), 393–398. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02306.x.

16.

Greve

H. R.

Palmer

Pozner

J. E.

(2010). Organizations gone wild: The causes, processes, and consequences of organizational misconduct. Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), 53–107. doi: 10.5465/19416521003654186.

17.

Hannafey

F. T.

(2003). Entrepreneurship and ethics: A literature review. Journal of Business Ethics, 46(2), 99–110. doi: 10.1023/a:1025054220365.

18.

Harris

J. D.

Sapienza

H. J.

Bowie

N. E.

(2009). Ethics and entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 407–418. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2009.06.001.

19.

Hegarty

W. H.

Sims

H. P.

(1978). Some determinants of unethical decision behavior: An experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63(4), 451–457. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.63.4.451.

20.

Hills

G. E.

Shrader

R. C.

(1998). Successful entrepreneurs’ insights into opportunity recognition. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 18(2), 30-41.

21.

Hisrich

Peters

Shepherd

(2019). Entrepreneurship (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill.

22.

Kajackaite

Gneezy

(2017). Incentives and cheating. Games and Economic Behavior, 102, 433–444. doi: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.01.015.

23.

Kirzner

I. M.

(1979). Perception, opportunity, and profit: Studies in the theory of entrepreneurship. University of Chicago Press.

24.

Kish-Gephart

J. J.

Harrison

D. A.

Treviño

L. K.

(2010). Bad apples, bad cases, and bad barrels: Meta-analytic evidence about sources of unethical decisions at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 1–31. doi: 10.1037/a0017103.

25.

Lackéus

(2018). “What is value?”– A framework for analyzing and facilitating entrepreneurial value creation. Uniped, 41(1), 10–28. doi: 10.18261/issn.1893-8981-2018-01-02.

26.

Lepak

D. P.

Smith

K. G.

Taylor

M. S.

(2007). Value creation and value capture: A multilevel perspective. Academy of Management Review, 32(1), 180–194. doi: 10.5465/amr.2007.23464011.

27.

Longenecker

J. G.

McKinney

J. A.

Moore

C. W.

(1988). Egoism and independence: Entrepreneurial ethics. Organizational Dynamics, 16(3), 64–72. doi: 10.1016/0090-2616(88)90037-x.

28.

Longenecker

J. G.

McKinney

J. A.

Moore

C. W.

(1989). Do smaller firms have higher ethics? Business and Society Review, 71, 19–21.

29.

Lyons

Zhang

(2018). Who does (not) benefit from entrepreneurship programs? Strategic Management Journal, 39(1), 85–112. doi: 10.1002/smj.2704

30.

Man

T. W. Y.

Lau

(2005). The context of entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 12(4), 464–481. doi: 10.1108/14626000510628162.

31.

Maurya

(2012). Running lean: Iterate from plan A to a plan that works. O’Reilly Media.

32.

McMullen

J. S.

Shepherd

D. A.

(2006). Entrepreneurial action and the role of uncertainty in the theory of the entrepreneur. Academy of Management Review, 31(1), 132–152. doi: 10.5465/amr.2006.19379628.

33.

Morris

M. H.

Schindehutte

Walton

Allen

(2002). The ethical context of entrepreneurship: Proposing and testing a developmental framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 40(4), 331–361. doi: 10.1023/a:1020822329030.

34.

Neck

H. M.

Greene

P. G.

(2011). Entrepreneurship education: Known worlds and new frontiers. Journal of Small Business Management, 49(1), 55–70. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-627x.2010.00314.x.

35.

Neck

H. M.

Neck

C. P.

Murray

E. L.

(2019). Entrepreneurship: The practice and mindset. Sage.

36.

Osterwalder

Pigneur

(2010). Business model generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons.

37.

Picken

J. C.

(2017). From startup to scalable enterprise: Laying the foundation. Business Horizons, 60(5), 587–595. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2017.05.002.

38.

Pittaway

Cope

(2007). Simulating entrepreneurial learning: Integrating experiential and collaborative approaches to learning. Management Learning, 38(2), 211–233. doi: 10.1177/1350507607075776.

39.

Potters

Stoop

(2016). Do cheaters in the lab also cheat in the field? European Economic Review, 87, 26–33. doi: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.03.004.

40.

Pruett

Shinnar

Toney

Llopis

Fox

(2009). Explaining entrepreneurial intentions of university students: A cross-cultural study. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 15(6), 571–594. doi: 10.1108/13552550910995443.

41.

Savickas

M. L.

Nota

Rossier

Dauwalder

J.-P.

Duarte

M. E.

Guichard

van Vianen

A. E. M.

(2009). Life designing: A paradigm for career construction in the 21st century. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75(3), 239–250. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2009.04.004.

42.

Schurr

Ritov

(2016). Winning a competition predicts dishonest behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(7), 1754–1759. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1515102113.

43.

Schwepker

C. H.

Jr. (1999). Understanding salespeople’s intention to behave unethically: The effects of perceived competitive intensity, cognitive moral development and moral judgment. Journal of Business Ethics, 21(4), 303–316. doi: 10.1023/a:1005950108509.

44.

Schwieren

Weichselbaumer

(2010). Does competition enhance performance or cheating? A laboratory experiment. Journal of Economic Psychology, 31(3), 241–253. doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2009.02.005.

45.

Seelig

(2009). What I wish I knew when I was 20: A crash course on making your place in the world. HarperCollins.

46.

Shane

Venkataraman

(2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–226. doi: 10.5465/amr.2000.2791611.

47.

Shinnar

Pruett

Toney

(2009). Entrepreneurship education: attitudes across campus. Journal of Education for Business, 84(3), 151–159. doi: 10.3200/joeb.84.3.151-159.

48.

Short

J. C.

Ketchen

D. J.

Jr. Shook

C. L.

Ireland

R. D.

(2010). The concept of “opportunity” in entrepreneurship research: Past accomplishments and future challenges. Journal of Management, 36(1), 40–65. doi: 10.1177/0149206309342746.

49.

Tang

Kacmar

K. M.

Busenitz

(2010). Entrepreneurial alertness in the pursuit of new opportunities. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(1), 77–97. doi: 10.1016/J.JBUSVENT.2010.07.001.

50.

Walter

S. G.

Block

J. H.

(2016). Outcomes of entrepreneurship education: An institutional perspective. Journal of Business Venturing, 31(2), 216–233. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2015.10.003.

51.

Welter

Baker

Audretsch

D. B.

Gartner

W. B.

(2017). Everyday entrepreneurship—a call for entrepreneurship research to embrace entrepreneurial diversity. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(3), 311–321. doi: 10.1111/etap.12258.

52.

Wiklund

Shepherd

D. A.

(2008). Portfolio entrepreneurship: Habitual and novice founders, new entry, and mode of organizing. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 32(4), 701–725. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2008.00249.x.