January 2009
Can Entrepreneurship be Taught?
Students agree theory married with practice makes Wharton curriculum more than "just a binder of notes"
Lee Tobey arrived as an undergraduate student at Wharton, unsure exactly what he was supposed to take away from his core classes. However, once he took his first entrepreneurship course in his junior year, that all changed.
"I gained a big picture perspective about how those core courses matter and why they matter right away. It's hard as an undergraduate to see this because you haven't been in the real world yet, but as soon as you start writing a business plan, it's no longer just a binder of notes you need for an exam. What you are learning could propel you faster in launching your business," he says.
Tobey describes the entrepreneurship courses and related programs as an invaluable part of his education, but had he graduated a few decades earlier he might not have had access to any of it no matter where he went to school.
The Wharton School was a pioneer when it launched the first fully integrated curriculum of entrepreneurial studies in 1973 and, since founding the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program in 1997, has fortified its position as a leader in the field. These were significant milestones, especially given that in 1970 there were only 16 courses offered on the topic of entrepreneurship at all U.S. business schools combined.
Since then, the study of entrepreneurship has exploded. By the mid-1980s, 300 colleges and universities offered entrepreneurship courses. Today more than 2,000 colleges and universities offer them, according to the Kauffman Foundation. Wharton alone offers 50 courses related to entrepreneurship in seven academic departments with 4,800 students enrolled in the major every year. And many Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs outreach offerings such as the Venture Initiation Program (VIP) are in more demand than ever by students.
Despite its increasing popularity, there remains a debate about whether entrepreneurship can in fact be taught. Some maintain that entrepreneurship is more about personality traits – you either have what it takes to be successful or you don't.
Wharton Management Professor Raffi Amit and academic director of the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program, disagrees with that theory. "It is known, and my research has validated it beyond reasonable doubt, that there is no single set of traits that are absolutely necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. We all have what it takes to be very successful," he says.
Amit maintains that entrepreneurship can be taught by providing students with a balance of rigorous academic courses and hands-on programs in which they can turn their ideas into viable businesses.
"In classes, we teach students tools and techniques to address issues that entrepreneurs need to know like how to evaluate an opportunity to determine if it's right for you, how to finance ventures, and how to compete as a young company. And we teach them the entrepreneurial mindset so they learn to be flexible and to adapt rapidly to new situations and continuously search for new opportunities. We give them the tools that enable them to avoid fatal flaws and traps and better prepare them for the venturing process," he says.
Such tools complement the courses and are offered through such programs as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program, the Venture Initiation Program and internships at early-stage companies. Students also can participate in the Wharton Business Plan Competition and other events and conferences throughout the year. "The classroom experience lays the foundation that then gives them the principles to apply in the context of their own ideas," says Amit.
John Lusk, who graduated from Wharton's MBA Program in 1999, and subsequently launched Platinum Concepts with a classmate and wrote the book, "The Mouse Driver Chronicles: An Entrepreneurial Adventure," says that the knowledge he learned in courses was essential. "I still reference my notes from Prof. Leonard Lodish's class on Entrepreneurial Marketing. And one of the first courses I took involved a case study in which the entrepreneur utilized the network of everyone he knew all the way through the supply chain. That showed how your contacts are so important and why you need to utilize them to the hilt, which we absolutely did when we started our business," says Lusk, who is now vice president of marketing at WhitePages Inc.
Tobey, who graduated from Wharton's Undergraduate Program in 2006 with a concentration in entrepreneurship, agrees not only that entrepreneurship can be taught, but that those courses enrich students' overall academic experience.
Now a consultant with Oliver Wyman in Chicago, Tobey says that the practical opportunities like the VIP and EIR program are great opportunities to find mentors who further the learning process. "When you have people like Prof. Gary Dushnitsky or Jeffrey Babin of VIP talk about your ideas and ask questions you wouldn't think of off the bat, it helps guide you through the big idea process and go from theoretical to a vision of what you need to think about on a day to day basis – the entrepreneurial mindset. If you go out there yourself with no direction, it will be much harder and you might need to start two or three businesses before you pick that up."
Second-year MBA student Eurie Kim, who is concentrating in Entrepreneurial Management and is co-president of the Entrepreneurship Club, says that a lot of students are interested in starting their own business at some point, but many see entrepreneurship as a "big black box" that they are afraid to look in, as they are unsure how to take the first step toward an entrepreneurial venture. "These classes are helpful because they walk you through the process in a low-risk environment," she says.
Eurie points to an Innovation class taught by Prof. Karl Ulrich as an example. "He takes students through a framework of brainstorming business ideas and whittling them down to the viable ones. In another class taught by a VC you write a 40-page business plan and talk about the plan with visiting CEOs. And there are classes that walk you through the actual process of getting funding. No one will teach you that in the real world, but here we can learn all of these things."
She adds that even for students not planning to start their own business, the entrepreneurship curriculum is invaluable. "The courses teach students that there are many ways to be an entrepreneur as well as how you can tap into that in other parts of your life," says Kim, a VIP participant. "You can have an entrepreneurial state of mind in a consulting or banking firm based on how you approach problems and think about innovation. Firms that recruit are very excited to see an entrepreneurial spirit and feel that this type of person will make a real impact in their firm."
And for those students who do plan to launch a business, the entrepreneurship curriculum gives them a strong foundation from which to do so, according to Tobey. "In school you learn the tools and entrepreneurial mindset. You don't need to start a business for two years and fail because you have mentors and professors there to help you hone in on that mindset."
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Posted January 2009