Society,Educational Systems and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

A great deal has been written on the subject of entrepreneurship. This paper attempts to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship and society at large, and specifically between entrepreneurship and the educational processes that society employs. The paper presents a discussion on a number of critical questions, beginning with why society needs entrepreneurship and whether the promises of entrepreneurship satisfy that need. The conclusion reached is essentially that cultural change has to take place, towards a societal state that reflects the characteristics of entrepreneurship, if the economic infrastructure of society is to be capable of coping with the increasingly turbulent environment. The paper further suggests that, if a culture shift is to be made, then an appropriate point of intervention would be through the educational system, and that it would likely be some 10 years before society could observe not only a culture shift but also a measured benefit to it. Accepting that the starting point should be the educational system, then further fundamental questions must be addressed. These concern the academic processes involved in presenting entrepreneurship, and how it challenges traditional teaching paradigms. Indeed a fundamental question often asked with regard to entrepreneurship is ‘Can it be taught at all?’ – some suggest that individuals who behave in an entrepreneurial way do so as a function of some kind of genetic influence. The paper concludes that the only constant is change, and that society needs to contend with the various dimensions of it. In doing so, we need to develop a collective mind-set, capable of coping with uncertainty, tolerant of risk, and opportunistic in coping with the turbulent and dynamic demand patterns with which it is faced. In other words, we need to foster an entrepreneurial culture.