Entrepreneurship & Regional Development

ISSN: 0898-5626 (Print) 1464-5114 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tepn20

University training for entrepreneurship: Swedish

approaches

Bengt Johannisson

To cite this article: Bengt Johannisson (1991) University training for entrepreneurship:
Swedish approaches, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 3:1, 67-82, DOI:
10.1080/08985629100000005

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08985629100000005

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP & REGIONAI, DEVELOPMENT, 3 (1991), 67-82

University training for entrepreneurship:

Swedish approaches
BENGT JOHANNISSON
V k j o University, Sweden

Empirical research in Sweden on business venturing suggests that qualified experience and social
skills are more crucial to success than formal education. Adopting an action perspective on
entrepreneurship, a framework for identifying competences needed for an entrepreneurial career
is provided. It is argued that entrepreneurial training calls for a contextual approach, implying,
for example, that the social resources included in the personal network will supplement personal
and organisational resources. Within such an entrepreneurial-learning framework, different
Swedish academic programmes aiming at enforcing or supplementing management skills in small
firms are presented. The reported courses include a MBA-programme with internship and
training programmes for zstablished entrepreneurs. Implications of the Swedish experiences for
career management, the general school system and the re-training of management for
entrepreneurial initiative are discussed.

Kqwordr: entrepreneurial competences; university training; internship; action learning.

1. Diagnosing competences for venture success

The widely recognized contribution of small firms to employment constantly challenges

researchers to identify the determinants of business viability and success. Using a human-
capital approach, Preisendorfer and Voss (1990), drawing upon a German sample,
conclude that there is a convex relationship between founder age and venture survival.
They argue that young people cannot collect returns on investments in education while the
training experiences of older employees are outdated as a basis for business venturing. The
authors' general conclusion is that relevant formal training is a prerequisite for business
success. O n the one hand their findings are intriguing, on the other the applied indicator of
human capital value seems to be too simple. More elaborate models of founder and
venture attributes are also needed.
In 1987 we carried out a study of almost 400 prospective and newly started businessmen
in Sweden (see e.g. Johannisson
- - & Johnsson, 1988 for a presentation of the research
methodolo&). The identification of determinants of business success was one of several
research objectives. Focusing on those respondents already in business (183 respondents)
the relationships between educational variables and economic success were analyzed. With
respect to the level of educalion (ranging from basic through to academic), a chi-square
analysis indicated no significant differences ( P >0.10 - the level-of-significance generally
adopted below). As far as the educational orientation is concerned, a business background
seems to imply an increased risk for venture failure but also an improved private economy.
These findings suggest that the formal educational system does not improve entrepre-
neurial competences (see also Mugler 1988) but possibly capabilities of cheating the fiscal
system. Contrasting Preisendorfer and Voss' findings we identified no significant relation-
ship between the founder's age and perceived venture success. However we could state a
strong ( P C 0.01) negative linear relationship between the founder's belief in the firms'
future and hislher age.

0898-5626191 $3.00 @ 1991 Taylor & Franc~sLtd

 Most educational programs in Sweden are, like in most other Western industrialized
countries, based on a rational-linear logic. However, entrepreneurial logic is rather
intuitive-holistic. Consequently venture success should be related to practical experience in
general and entrepreneurial in particular. Contrasting Mugler (1988), our data show that
venture success correlates significantly with both the founder's general experience as a
businessman in terms of numbers of years in business and to the duration of the present
firmlventure. Improvement in private economy is especially strongly (P < 0.01) associated
with experience as an owner-manager. Furthermore the survey shows that length of
experience as a hired employee correlates positively with venture success. This experience
does not have to be gained by different employments. O n the contrary, persons who have
tried many (in the study eight or more) employments are less successful than others as self-
employed.
The additional competences needed to successfully launch a venture do not have to
relate directly to the individual entrepreneur. Partnership is another option to extend the
firm's capabilities. O u r findings suggest that one partner will increase venture viability
while several partners may reduce business success. A possible explanation is that a
complex partnership on the one hand provides a broader competence basis, on the other
hand it means that many opinions will have to be taken into consideration. T h e
entrepreneur, who is known to use resources episodically (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985),
prefers more flexible arrangements of supplementary resources, e.g. the ones offered by
the personal network.
As a matter of fact the kind of personal networks that new entrepreneurs build in order to
extend own capabilities and resources were the focus of the study (see also e.g. Aldrich &
Zimmer, 1986; Aldrich et al., 1987; Johannisson & Johnsson, 1988). Network indicators
included the number of persons as well as the time invested in enlarging and maintaining
the network. The findings are that older founders operate the smallest personal networks.
Networking activity does neither co-vary with educational level nor with the educational
background. Socioeconomic determinants seem to be more important. Entrepreneurs in
cosmopolitan areas build more extensive networks than founder-managers in rural areas
and entrepreneurs with role models within the (extended) family are favoured with wider
networks. There is a positive linear relationship between network size and employment
period while previous experience as an entrepreneur seems to reduce the need for net-
working. A single partner does not reduce the respondent's networking activity but several
partners implies that the responding founder can build and manage larger networks.
However, it seems important to balance the management of internal and external
networks, cf. above.
The findings reported above indicate crucial limitations to formal general education as a
road to entrepreneurial success (see also Mugler, 1988). In this paper I will try to provide
an understanding for this preliminary impression and report how various Swedish
academic programmes in entrepreneurial and small business management cope with the
obstacles. Basic assumptions concerning entrepreneurship are presented in Section 2 and a
framework concerning entrepreneurial competences that pays due respect to network
resources in Section 3. Section 4 reports on different Swedish academic entrepreneurial
programmes. The final section provides some challenges for the higher educational
system, in particular with respect to the design of entrepreneurial careers.
UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP

2. Competences for entrepreneurship: a n action perspective

Previous research into entrepreneurship offers several conceptual frames, cf. Peterson
(1981). Training programmes that aim at making people behave in an entrepreneurial way
must focus action. Some elements of an action theory of entrepreneurship will be
presented.
A first corner-stone of the ernerging conceptual framework addresses the basic issue of
how the entrepreneur relates to histher environment. A distinctive competence of the
entrepreneur is that of making his or her own desires and perceptions come true; the
entrepreneur 'enacts' histher environment (Weick, 1979; Johannisson, 1988). This implies
that his or her personal attributes, attitudes, abilities and knowledge, combine into a
personal outlook, an ideoloby that defines what is considered as important and
unimportant, right and wrong. Information is processed in order to enforce personal
belief, not to map the environment objectively (Brunsson, 1985). This retrospective
rationality preserves the entrepreneur's self-conjdence, i.e. internal locus of control and of
evaluation, histher most valuable personal attribute in the enactment process. Self-
confidence also provides the second corner-stone in an action theory of entrepreneurship.
Egocentricity is also needed to be a creative disturber in the Schumpeterian sense.
In spite of histher enactment capabilities, the entrepreneur requires support in order to
be able to act aggressively in the marketplace. Contrasting other people, who are furnished
with organizational or societal support structures, the entrepreneur builds histher own
support structure: a personal network. It includes social ties, family members, neighbours
and friends, as well as business colleagues, customers and providers of producer services
(Vesper, 1980; Aldrich & Zimmer, 1986;Johannisson, 1988). Although the entrepreneur
is free to choose histher network partners, (s)he, once the network is built, becomes
dependent upon it. This conditioned autonomy provided by the network represents the third
corner-stone to an action theory of entrepreneurship.

Share of
time budget

CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time for

ACTION BUDGETS feed-back

Figure 1: Entrepreneurial control - action and vision i n dialogue.

70 B. JOHANNISSON

The theory's fourth corner-stone points out the entrepreneur's ability to create a linkage
between hislher personal theory and practice, between vision and action. Figure 1 illustrates
a major finding from a qualitative study into successful Swedish entrepreneurship. The
entrepreneurs were asked how they would allocate their available time between different
activities with respect to how long it would take to get feed-back on the outcome. T h e inter-
pretation of the findings is that entrepreneurs divide their available time between, on one
hand, decisions which provide immediate feed-back, i.e. concrete action, and, on the other
hand, visionary reflections, i.e. activities with a very expanded feed-back loop (Quinn,
1978). Planning, the focus of traditional management training, is devalued by entre-
preneurs. Instead they appear as generalists, spanning not only 'functional specialization',
i.e. the focus on separate areas such as marketing, personnel and production management,
but also 'executive specialization', i.e. the separation of the making of a decision from its
execution. This need for hands-on management also in corporate settings promoting
innovation has been pointed out by, among others, Peters (1988).
Visions may concern individual ventures or the whole entrepreneurial career (Ronstadt,
1985). As visions are implicit and intuitive, often inexplicable even to the entrepreneurs
themselves, external observers often perceive entrepreneurial actions as being made on an
ad hoc basis. Rationality however is prospective. Kirzner (1973) points out that alertness
and 'opportunity management' is the trademark of an entrepreneur. By way of hislher
enactment and intuitive capabilities the entrepreneur jointly imagines and realizes hidher
vision. Strategy-making in this mode is obviously quite self-deceiving which made
Mintzberg (1973) coin the concept 'tunnel vision'. A variant personal network will reduce
the associated obvious risks.
My action-oriented definition of entrepreneurship has two implications that are
especially relevant here. First, the approach reconciles the debate between Carland el al.
(1988) and Gartner (1989) concerning whether entrepreneurs are defined by their
personalily or by what they do - organize original ventures by way of networking. Certain
personal attributes and skills, foremost self-confidence, are needed to turn vision into action.
Second, the framework points out both the difficulties associated with and the need for
entrepreneurial training. O n one hand the constituents of the framework are difficult to
influence, e.g. by training, on the other hand the entrepreneurs as part of their networking
must learn to cope with others who prefer management by planning and ready-made
structures.
Entrepreneurs as well as businessmen in general who operate on a small-scale basis trade
upon 'economies of overview', cf. Johannisson (1990). Some of these small business
operations are organized as independent business units, while others are semi-autonomous
parts of larger corporations. Even formally independent entrepreneurs are however often
integrated in a socioeconomic 'organizing context', cf. Johannisson (1988) and below.
Like Ginsberg and Bucholtz (1989) I therefore think that it is crucial to separate between
businessmen with respect to their creative and innovative capabilities in addition to stating
differences in decision autonomy and financial risk-taking.
The typical entrepreneur in my mind is highly innovative (at least as an organizer). This
statement influences the way we design our approach to entrepreneurial training as
opposed to (small business) management education (Gibb, 1987). Obviously the 'artisan'
or 'craftsman' entrepreneur, in most cases an owner-manager who runs a traditional o r
imitative venture, needs a different kind of training than 'my' entrepreneur who resembles
the 'classical entrepreneur' or 'opportunist entrepreneur'. However, before these
differences can be discussed, a general model of entrepreneurial learning must be
presented.
UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTRISPRENEURSHIP

3. Entrepreneurial learning: a framework

Since entrepreneurship is a genuinely creative process, entrepreneurs cannot be told what

to do in specific situations, only what not to do. Teaching entrepreneurs then must mean
facilitating their own learning processes. These include not only 'single-loop' but also
'double-loop' learning (Argyris & Schon, 1978), i.e. the reformulation of their original
visions associated with individual ventures and the overall career. 'Learning-by-doing'
thus combines with questioning their own established mindmap. Following Kolb et al.
(1984) entrepreneurs must both reflect upon concrete experiences, conceptualize into
personal theories and test these by experimenting. Lessem (1984) concludes that entre-
preneurial learning is experiential, calling for not only cognitive processes but for affective
commitment and action as well. General i d ~ a sabout such 'action learning' have been
elaborated by Revans (1980). Gibb (1989) argues that similar basic features are not only
shared by genuine entrepreneurs and traditional small business owners but also recognized
as indicators of an 'enterprising mode of education'. The 'action-learning' approach is
adopted in several non-academic management programs in Sweden. A Scandinavian
association on Action Learning has been founded, dominated by practitioners.
The suggested action theory of entrepreneurship indicates that entrepreneurial learning
does not take place in a social vacuum. The context of entrepreneurial action has to be
included. The immediate socioeconomic context, whether geographically, ethnically or
legally (the corporation) demarcated, helps the entrepreneur to enact, select and retain the
environment, i.e. to organize learning and unlearning processes (Johannisson, 1988). In
Table 1 , I present a two-dimensional classification scheme of entrepreneurial competences.
One dimension concerns different levels of learning, depending on whether they concern
attitudes/values/motives, skills or knowledge. The second dimension concerns the
individual and the context respectively.

Table 1. Entre~reneurialcom~etences:a taxonomic a ~ ~ r o a c h .

Level of learning The individual The context

KNOW-WHY Self-confidence, Entrepreneurial
(attitudes, values, achievement motivation, spirit, availability
motives) perseverance, risk of mentors and role
acceptance; models;

KNOW-HOW (skills) Vocational skills; Complex

occupational
and business
structures;

KNOW-WHO Networking Production and

(social skills) capability; social networks;

KNOW-WHEN Experience and Industrial

(insight) intuition, traditions;

KNOW-WHAT Encyclopedic information net-

(knowledge) knowledge, works, vocational
institutional training and a
facts; varied cultural life;
72 B. JOHANNISSON

The individual must be personally motivated and convinced about his or her own
capability of launching a business venture and beginning an entrepreneurial career. Such
KNOW- W H Y competences are generally innate, moulded by both heritage and environ-
ment. Some researchers like McClelland argue that attitudes and motives, such as need for
achievement and risk acceptance, can be trained. As high achievers entrepreneurs need
factual feedback. A context where entrepreneurship has become institutionalized as a way
of life will in addition supply recognition and support, explicitly conveyed by mentors and
role models. The need for such a reinforcing context depends e.g. upon the values
characterizing the nationallregional culture and social drawbacks of the would-be
entrepreneurs such as being an immigrant or an ex-convict.
KNOW-HOW literally connotates competences that can be used in action. Field
experience, possibly supported by tailor-made vocational training, is the basis for such
abilities. A context that offers many opportunities for imitative behaviour will support the
development of KNO W-HOWcompetmces. Such a context should be varied with respect to
both occupational skills and business activities because then it will in addition provide the
entrepreneur with supplementary competences.
A well-managed personal network is a prerequisite for successful imitation and
acquisition of lacking competences. Such KNOW- WHO competmces are partly embedded in
the individual's personal character, partly developed by practice. A supportive context is
generally crossed and recrossed by networks. Cultural networks, conveying basic
contextual values, operate as safety-nets and the production and information networks
supply the concrete and intellectual resources that the emerging firm has not yet managed
to collect. The network study presented in the introductory section concludes that the most
crucial network ties are contextual - even entrepreneurs involved in high-tech ventures
have four out of five primary network mates within the reach of an hour's drive.
When the innate capability of the entrepreneur to be resourceful, i.e. alert and
ingenious, has been moulded by practice it turns into an instrument for alertness and
'timing management'. In order. to take action based on facts that do not 'make sense' when
explicitly analyzed, the individual will have to trust his or her intuition. According to
philosophers like Bergson, intuition mobilizes not only cognitive resources but affective
ones as well. Intuitive choices call for acceptance of further rationalities than those
generally adopted in management thinking: 'We might distinguish between different
levels: conscious decision-making . . . and lastly synchronicity and meaningful coinci-
dences as produced by mind operating on yet another, inconceivable level' (Koestler,
1973, Renee Hagues in postscript, p. 148). Thus, KNOW- WHENcompetmces are crucial to
what is crucial to entrepreneurial venturing: opportunity management.
Experience accumulates as the entrepreneur discovers obstacles and options in his or her
career by successfully and unsuccessfully launching ventures. This construction process is
facilitated and speeded up in contexts where business values and practices have dominated
for a long time. This is forcefully illustrated in some small-business dominated regions in
Sweden where e.g. in one community with 9,000 inhabitants 300 manufacturing firms
operate, cf. Johannisson, 1983, 1987. The entrepreneurial career is quite natural in a place
where the owner-managed firms engage most family members and where even the
children at the day-care centers make plant visits!
Within a n action perspective KNOW- WHATcompetences rank the lowest with respect to
contribution to an entrepreneurial career. The would-bc entrepreneur must acquire
experiences in dialogue concrete business settings. However, even encyclopedic know-
ledge may be important since it nails down the limits to entrepreneurial enactment, e.g. by
presenting legal restrictions. Thus, indirectly, quantitative, institutional facts guide entre-
preneurial action as well.
UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP 73

Nowadays it is common to build contexts that are fertilized with K N O W - W H A T

competences. Research centres and science parks are established in the Scandinavian
countries at an exponentially increasing rate. In this respect Sweden does not differ from
e.g. Great Britain (Monck et al., 1988) or West Germany (Schamp, 1987). Computerized
information retrieval is one of the services offered by such institutions. It is however to be
kept in mind that these artificially created 'greenhouses' for new ventures only provide the
least refined competences for entrepreneurial activity: 'facts' or KNOW-WHAT
competences. However, such superficially creative environments will not necessarily
energize potential entrepreneurial talents. For similar reasons, problems arise when cor-
porations strive to provide a context for entrepreneurship (see e.g. Gibb, 1987;
Johannisson, 1988).
T h e classification according to Table 1 may give the impression that different
competences are easily separable. That of course is an illusion, especially in the case of
entrepreneurial learning. The entrepreneur's personality, existential situation and
venture concept decide in a unique way what competences are possible and feasible.
Entrepreneurs are reluctant readers and usually only interested in KNOW-WHAT
competences that concern the core technology of their business. According to Swedish
experiences small business people are furthermore fairly uninterested in continuing
education. More accessible data due to computer technology, may however make the
entrepreneurial community more responsive to KNOW-WHAT competences. Com-
munication networks will integrate them with K N O W - W H O competences. Vesper (1980)
also points out that formal education and practice combined seem to provide the safest road
to venture success. But still we expect knowledge stated in writing to be aimed for action,
not reflection, if useful for entrepreneurs. It will be actively searched as problems and
opportunities come by: KNOW-WHAT competences merge with K N O W - W H E N
competences.
The framework outlined above indicates different strategies to increase entrepreneurial
learning. T h e most efficient but also most time-consuming approach is to create a learning
context. O n the individual level it is more difficult to provide K N O W - H O W competences
than KNOW-WHAT competences, more complicated to convey by design K N O W -
W H Y competences than KNOW-HOW competences. Both Konstadt (1985) and Gibb
(1987) stress that KNOW-WHY and K N O W - W H O competences are fundamental to
success in the learning and practice of entrepreneurship. Keeping the significance of the
context in mind, I will from now on focus on the individual perspective. Contextual
approaches to business venturing are suggested in e. g. Johannisson, 1988 and to enterprise
education in e.g. Gibb, 1989.

4. Swedish university programmes i n small business management

Even if some entrepreneurship competences in my opinion thus can be learnt this does not
necessarily imply that they can be taught, and, if so, that universities are especially suited
to provide programmes for entrepreneurial management. Scandinavian experiences in
higher education, as those of most countries, reflect a bias for KNOW-WHAT
competences. Internships are not very frequent in management programmes; rather case
applications to large corporations are prevalent. Ronstadt (1985) reports from the North
American scene that entrepreneurial programmes still have to legitimate themselves. O n
the other hand he optimistically argues that recent research into entrepreneurship suggests
that education can provide good support as the entrepreneurial career evolves. H e also
74 B. JOHANNISSON

points out that entrepreneurial programmes should include K N O W - H O W competences

in addition to KNOW-WHAT competences. Gibb (1987, 1989), reflecting upon British
experiences, argues that the kind of 'learning culture' that the universities represent is in
opposition to one that would favour entrepreneurship and training for it.
However restricted the universities' capabilities in teaching entrepreneurship may be,
some missions remain for academic programmes in entrepreneurship and small business
management. First, considering the huge succession problems in many family businesses,
cf. e.g. Savage, 1979, programmes that provide the junior generation with a qualified
'driving licence' are urgent. Second, all the industry recipes, negotiated agreements,
general laws and public regulations that permeate a corporatist decentralized state like the
Swedish one alone motivate academic programmes for small firms. Third, providers of
external resources need to expand their knowledge in the field in order to be able to adapt to
the needs of entrepreneurs. These parties, for example, include banks, insurance
companies and public agencies organizing small business support.
The competences of the owner-manager and the small firm's personnel must be
supplemented quantitatively and qualitatively. My model of entrepreneurial vision and
action as illustrated in Figure 1 can be used for a discussion about various strategies to
achieve this. O n the one hand, training programmes for enhanced competences within
small firms must maintain the entrepreneur's unique capability of combining vision and
action, and, on the other hand, adequate programmes must make additiond competences
and management compatible with the entrepreneur's personality and qualifications.
A major strategy thus is to let the universities teach (full-time) students management
techniques adapted to small firms and leave the entrepreneurs themselves alone.
Universities are mainly able to teach KNOW-WHAT competences, e.g. techniques like
planning and budgeting. Entrepreneurs in their actionlvision orientation (cf. Figure 1) are
able to mobilize KNOW-WHY and K N O W - H O W competences. Considering that an
operating firm in order to coordinate internal and external resources needs a management
that draws upon all competences - cf. the horizontal line in Figure 2 academic small
business programmes should focus on 'filling the gap'.

Share of
time budget
t
KNOW WHAT

i.e. traditional academic knowledge, KNOW-WHY

factual information about guidelines,
laws and rcgulations, quantitative data

KNOW-WHO
KNOW-HOW

KNOW-WHO KNOW-WHEN

CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time for

ACTION BUDGETS feed-back

Figure 2: Small business management: building entrepreneurial support.

UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP 75

A condition for success however is that the student shares the entrepreneur's 'holistic'
perspective concerning the operation of the business.
The suggested strategy for a small business programme has further advantages. T h e
academic bias for KNOW-WHAT competences, possibly a drawback in the everyday
activities within the venture process, can be considered as a strength if the student operates
as a 'broker' between the small business and the funds of knowledge that the university
system controls. In addition, considering that the next generation of entrepreneurs will
probably include many corporate entrepreneurs, academic knowledge may become more
suitable in venturing processes.
Most of the arguments provided above were anticipated when Vaxjo University in
Southern Sweden in 1975 launched its first and pioneering programme in Small Business
M a n a g m t . The following basic principles were outlined and have remained over the
years:

(a) the programme in Small Business Management is based on an interplay between

the student, the university and small businesses in the region, i.e. the context;
(b) Students are individually stationed at family businesses or other small business
units and supervisors are appointed both in the firm and at the university.
(c) theory andpra~ticeare mixed on a weekly basis - the student spends one or two days a
week in the firm - which means that the university's functional specialization by
subjects is confronted with the small business's problem-oriented and holistic
perspective;
(d) within each course over 10 weeks the student is expected to produce a written report
in which theory is used to diagnose or solve a company problem. These reports
are confidential and discussed with the university supervisor present in the small
firm.
The original one-year programme offered two options, dependent upon whether the
mandatory one-year university experiences were in languages or in business administra-
tion. Later the programme was offered as an integrated two-year academic programme.
Within that, the students could specialize towards either general management or
accounting in small firms. This differentiation was later abandoned; now general
management competences arc provided. When the university management programmes
in Sweden were generally reformed in the early 80s, Small Business Management was
made an option within the streamlined structure of three-and-a-half-years national
'civi1ekonom'-programme. From 1985 onwards such programmes in Small Business
Management were offered at altogether five Swedish universities. With respect to the
pedagogics applied, the Viixjo programme was imitated although local variations have
emerged following different educational strategies. At Umeti University the student's
understanding of small business and entrepreneurship is developed and at Stockholm
University control systems for small business are being taught.
The curriculum at Viixjo University reflects the characteristics of entrepreneurial
learning as outlined above. First, a holistic perspective is nurtured in various ways: every
functional problem is related to the integrated setting of a specific firm; a general
perspective focusing on network theory is provided; the student group is held closely
together. Second, a rather extensive law section reflects the conviction that it is important
to convey to the entrepreneur what (s)he should not do. Third, strategic and other delicate
matters, such as the entrepreneur as a leader, are included the very last term. Then the
student hopefully is not only well acquainted with the firm and its potential but has also
gained the confidence of its staff.
76 B.JOHANNISSON

Independent external evaluations of the programme have indicated some crucial

elements in its design. This especially concerns the linkages between the entrepre-
neur/supervisor at the small firm and the supervisor at the university and how the student
is integrated with both of them. However, ever since the three-and-a-half-year programme
was launched and the students entering the internship consequently were more qualified
than their predecessors, the company-university relationship has worked well. The
external evaluations also show that the programme provides capabilities beyond K N O W -
WHAT competences. The students' K N O W - H O W competences have increased, not the
least the K N O W - W H O competences. The latter include general social skills as well as
elaborate personal networks among course mates - these is a special students' association
in Small Business Management - and within the company and its business environment.
Since most of the students are well motivated - the student group size is restricted to about
20 and recruitment is nationallscandinavian - KNOW-WHY competences are initially
there and have only to be maintained over the programme. Nevertheless, over the years
some reluctant would-be family business successors have been brought to the university by
their fathers and duly 'converted'.
The ultimate indicator of success of our small business programme must be that the
student starts his or her own business or becomes employed in a small firm. However, ever
since the programme was extended to its present structure few students have graduated to
become entrepreneurs. A former two-year student, now running a very successful own
business states: 'No real entrepreneur will survive three and a half years at a university'.
Many students, though, are offered a position at the small firm where they spent their
internship - on the average one third of them - and others are employed by organizations
providing services for small firms, such as accounting agencies, banks and regional
development funds. These careers, as well as that of a trainee within a large corporation,
indicate the need for an entrepreneurial perspective in further areas than that of
independent small business.

(a) Management Consulting (b) Owner-Management Training

Share of 4
time budget

C
CONCRETE PLANS VISION
.
Time for
J
CONCRETE PLANS VISION
*
Time for
ACTION BUDGETS fecd-back ACTION BUDGETS feed-back

Figure 3: Emerging Swedish small business university programmes.

I n Figure 3 two additional Swedish university programmes aiming at supplementing

entrepreneurial capabilities are outlined using the basic design provided by Figure 1. O n e
university will in 1990 introduce a 'civi1ekonom'-programme aimed at training full-time
UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP 77

students to become consultants to small and medium-sized firms. As Figure 3a suggests,

the students graduating from the 'Management Consulting'-program will be able to support
entrepreneurs with management competencies along the same line as the graduates from
the 'Small Business Management'-programme presented above. However, inasmuch as
no qualified internship is included in the programme, the participants will not have a
corresponding hands-on knowledge of the way entrepreneurs think and act. Instead the
'Management Consulting' graduates will be more able to operate as 'liaisons' between the
individual firm and further providers of external competences. As the programme will be
carried out in close cooperation with established management consultants and accounting
firms, academic and practical considerations will jointly be made within the programme.
In Sweden the universities are organized and financed by the state. The existing public
management support to small and medium-sized firms is mainly channelled through
Regional Development Funds, altogether 24 units which are jointly set up by The Swedish
Board of Industry and County Councils. These funds to some extent operate as inter-
mediaries between the universities and the small firms. In order to improve this transfer of
competences, the Swedish Board of Industry 1989 joined forces with universities, banks
and firms of chartered accountants in five cities. A programme in general management has
been developed - ' To Run a Business' - and is offered to owner-managers in firms within the
range of 50 to 100 employees. The course runs on a part-time basis over a year. It is mainly

0
staffed with university people, supplemented by bank managers and qualified accountants.
As Figure 3b indicates the focus of the programme is to make the participants reallocate

;..
their time to more planning at the expense of exaggerated involvement in shopfloor

(a) General Networking (b) Professional Intermediaries

Sham of
timc budget 4 time budget
Shme of 1

\
\ J

-
\ /

CONCRETE
:-4'

PLANS VISION Timc for CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time fur

.
ACTION BUDGETS fccd-back ACTION BUDGETS feed-back

(c) Professional Management (d) Status Quo

Share of t
time budget

1 0 I *
CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time for CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time far
ACTION BUDGETS feed-back ACTION BUDGETS fccd-back

Figure 4: Supplementary competences strategies for small firms.

78 B. JOHANNISSON

activities. However, the action-learning methodology adopted, e.g. encouraging exchange

of experience between participants, guarantees that the unique characteristic of entrepre-
neurial learning, the combination of vision and action, is preserved.
In Figure 4 some further options for enchancing entrepreneurial competences are
outlined. An alternative is of course to manage more systematically the own personal
network Uohannisson, 1986; Peterson & Ronstadt, 1986), cf. Figure 4a. The pnsonal
network as a tailor-made external resource-system on the one hand enforces the entre-
preneur's vision-action orientation, on the other hand it reduces tunnel-vision and
repeated mistakes in concrete action. Another option is to build strong ties to resour~eful
i n t m d i a r i e s , e.g. bank managers and staff members at the Regional Development Funds,
cf. Figure 4b. Together with e.g. professionals on the board of directors, these
intermediaries can act as qualified 'brokers' between the small firms and external resource
providors. A third alternative is to hire profssional management to bridge the gap between
vision and action (Figure 4c). However, this strategy, besides being expensive, probably
means that the entrepreneur will have to give up some power. Therefore the last strategy
depicted in Figure 4d - suggesting statur quo - often comes out as more attractive in the
entrepreneur's mind. It suggests that the entrepreneur either gives up growth ambitions or
that (s)he desinvests in the established firms in order to launch a new venture where hislher
original entrepreneurial mode does itself justice.

5. Challenges for entrepreneurial training and career management

The major conclusion is that there are several limits to entrepreneurial training. Firstly,
such training is not easily achievable because entrepreneurial knowledge is tacit,
embedded in both the entrepreneur's personality and in hislher context. Such knowledge
is partially ascribed, partially achieved along with the practice of entrepreneurship itself.
Second, training in a classroom setting may even ruin the unique capability of the
entrepreneur to initiate and implement new ventures. However, several strategies remain
to furnish the emerging entrepreneurial firm with supplementary management
competences without eroding accumulated tacit knowledge.
I n the emerging 'knowledge society', communicative capabilities become increasingly
important. Specialization will increase and, consequently, the use of producer services.
Internationalization of business, e.g. due to the creation of the European Single Market,
will enforce the need for strategic alliances and external venture capital. In this perspective
tacit knowledge alone based on experience implies several drawbacks. First, tacit know-
ledge is not only difficult to communicate externally but will also counteract internal
communication and employee participation. Second, reliance upon tacit knowledge alone
may imply that the entrepreneur runs into problems trying to legitimate hislher business
on public support markets. Third, the computerization of commercial exchange means a
degradation of tacit, qualitative information. To summarize, in their own and society's
interest, entrepreneurs must actively search and adopt a learning strategy that increases
their 'absorptive capacity' (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) for non-tacit (formal, encyclopedic)
knowledge.
Unlike employed managers, founder-managers existentially build their own organiza-
tion and career. This calls for a concern for the 'subjective' rather than the 'objective'
career, very much a neglected perspective in career research (Collin & Young, 1986). T h e
transition from an organizational to an entrepreneurial career has been paid little interest
in the career literature. Nevertheless career choice models, like the one suggested by
UNIVERSITY TRAINING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP 79

Driver (1979, 1988) may be useful when researching the need for supplementary
entrepreneurial competences. According to Driver, people typically hold the following
concepts concerning their careers (1988:247) '(1) Steady state - career choice is made once
for a life-time commitment to an occupation. (2) Linear - career activity continues
throughout life as one moves up an occupational ladder. (3) Spiral - career choice evolves
through a series of occupations (7-10 year durations) where each new choice builds on the
past and develops new skills. (4) Transitoty - career choice is almost continuous - fields,
organizations, jobs change over 1-4 year intervals with variety the dominant force'.
Owner-managers may work with one or several career concepts. Artisan owner-
managers are existentially motivated and their way of life is stable indeed ('steady state').
Given this way of life their position both on the market and in community will be
reinforced if they aspire business growth ('linear'). Entrepreneurial owner-managers often
leave their present mature firm in order to launch a new venture using the experience and
resources accumulated, not the least in their personal networks ('spiral'). At the same time
entrepreneurs operate any venture in an episodic way, alertly responding to opportunities
by network management ('transitory').
A basic challenge to any educational system is to help entrepreneurs to identify and implement a
competence strategy as suggested in figures 3 and 4, by paying respect to their basic career
concept. Business owners whose ambitions are not beyond a steady state or linear career
could e.g. hire professional management (Figure 4c). Entrepreneurs whose ambitions are
successively to launch more challenging ventures could choose to combine personal
training (Figure lb) and cooperation with professional intermediaries (Figure 4b). An
entrepreneur with a transitory career choice should maintain a vital personal network
(Figure 4a). Since career choices integrate, the strategies for competence development will
however often combine.
A second challenge would be to teuh individuals to become not only more enterprising but
businessmen as well. However this is undertaking that in both time and scope is beyond the
capabilities of an academic business school. Research at V k j o University indicates that
although most people as kids have entrepreneurial capabilities, the local societal structure
and its (lack of) an enterprising spirit influence young people while still at high school
Uohannisson, 1989; see also Gibb, 1987, 1989 and Mugler, 1988). Thus, not only does the
whole school system but the Swedish culture at large have to change in order to provide the
university system with proper 'raw material' in terms of openminded students.
However, only if the business schools themselves change their educational methodology
pedagogics will they be able to contribute to an enterprising society (Gibb, 1989). This
means for example that they will have to adopt the pedagogics that are now practised at
schools of art - entrepreneurship is just as much an art as a science. O n the one hand the
universities then must reestablish their traditional role as arenas for creativity and critique.
This may imply partial detachment from industry and public commissions, now
flourishing in Sweden. On the other hand the universities' responsibilities and capabilities
for infusing an entrepreneurial spirit in both the business and the public sector thereby will
increase.
Recapitulating some of the major concepts promoted in this article, I illustrate in Figure
5 a third challenge with respect to programmes in entrepreneurship and small business
management. It concerns the re-training of small business managers or alumnis from business
schools who have got stuck in the role of the caretaker in small andlor large organizations.
Many of them nowadays work in the public sector where the caretaking role is institutiona-
lized. However, due to increasing decentralization within the public sector and subsequent
privatization for example, the need for entrepreneurial leadership within public and other
non-profit organizations steadily increases in countries like Sweden.
 B. JOHANNISSON

Share of
time budget
t

CONCRETE PLANS VISION Time for

ACTION BUDGETS feedback

N unlearning DI Learning

Figure 5: Retraining for entrepreneurship: need for learning and unlearning.

Following the arguments outlined above, managers who by experience or education are
stuck in a caretaking position use their time budget according to the curved graph in Figure
5. This means that they focus on standard management procedures, i.e. tactical (financial)
planning. If they are going to vitalize their latent entrepreneurial talents or learn new ones,
they also will have to unlearn some of the cognitive structures and action patterns that they
have become used to and taken for granted. If this unlearning is going to be successful not
only will the course participants have to make considerable sacrifices in terms of time and
possibly prestige, but the university staff must also be supplemented with experienced
entrepreneurs.
A fourth challenge is to develop the role of the university into an energizerfor local and regional
development. This is an area where universities in Sweden nowadays are expected to take
initiatives. Today the students not only contribute to solutions of concrete problems in
small firms (the final projects during the seventh term often concern subjects such as the
review of the firm's economic control system, introduction of computer-aided planning
systems and feasibility studies of new products andlor markets). The students may also
work as 'Junior Consultants' in individual firms or as research assistants in university
projects aimed at developing a sustainable region.

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