Learning to Evolve; Increasing Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Putting the Market First

Interpreting venture creation as a process of learning allows potential entrepreneurs to help themselves, and develop the specific skills and competences they need for their businesses. In this chapter, the effectiveness of such a learning-based approach to enterprise education is explored. This study examines changing perceptions and performances of 88 undergraduate business students as they complete a new venture creation module. In this course, students are invited to interpret the start-up process as a process of learning, using an evolutionary metaphor. A number of key findings were revealed. First, the evolutionary learning approach increased the self-efficacy of participants, as their self-belief and confidence in their ideas and abilities increased over the course of the module. This increase was even more pronounced within a sub-group (18% of the cohort) who started their businesses within 6-months of completion of the course. Second, by adopting the ‘learning to evolve’ approach, participants increasingly focused changes made to their ideas on marketing-related issues (e.g. identifying target market, market research etc). The more the individual focused on marketing as a source of change, the better the improvement in quality of the idea. The findings of this research have implications both for enterprise educators and practicing entrepreneurs. It is seen that when one shifts the focus of attention to the external world, and when changes are increasingly driven by signals from that external world, the quality of emerging opportunities is enhanced. Alongside these changes, self-efficacy increases as nascent entrepreneurs gain confidence and self-belief both in their ideas, and the skills needed to make them happen. In brief, the shift in perspective towards the external market, is the key driver in triggering the entrepreneurial process. The approach put forward in this chapter thus promotes the notion that the entrepreneurship option is open to all who can ‘learn to evolve’.