Can entrepreneurship be taught??

Blogger BL at Singapore Entrepreneurs once wrote a great essay entitled ‘Can entrepreneurship be taught?’, in which he argued that there are some things about entrepreneurship that cannot be taught. Being rather uncreative, Heavenly Sword decided to write a post on this topic as well and with the same title, except that in my title I've inserted one more question mark than BL. :) Anyway, over at Mr Wang’s immensely popular blog, a certain reader called Hinly hinted that entrepreneurship education is essentially rubbish, because ‘we can only read about success stories, and we cannot account for the failures’… Mr Wang modified that argument and created a more acceptable variant, which says that ‘entrepreneurship cannot be learned in a school environment.’ Other blog readers, including Wayne, linked the lack of an entrepreneurial activities in Singapore to the ‘culture of control’ here, thus adding a ‘political’ dimension to the issue. I shall tackle the above issues one by one....

My view is that the ‘nuts and bolts’ subjects required of an aspiring entrepreneur can and should be taught. For example, modules like financial accounting, cost/management accounting, taxation, & business/company law can and should be taught. Other potentially useful modules include business plan writing, business strategy, operations management, human resource management, marketing, and international accounting (if the person is thinking of venturing abroad). Thus in terms of content, at least the basics of the business world can and should be taught. This actually has a minor positive side-effect in terms of networking with fellow business associates. Sure, you may not need to bring out your ‘Porter’s five forces of industrial competition’ as you speak to your business associates, but the more things you know in your head, the more you can speak to them about, even if the jargon is not mobilized in your attempt to impress…

There is also another important point about entrepreneurship courses, which is that they don't merely aim to teach aspiring entrepreneurs what to do (the so-called 'success stories'), but also what not to do (that is, the stories of failure). The 'what to do' portion has no boundaries: nobody can really list out all the possible business strategies for an aspiring entrepreneur; creativity is needed and several permutations are possible in complex business situations…. But the 'what not to do' portion can be illustrated using case studies of what has failed despite using apparently sound strategies. Business education is more about learning what NOT to do. After all, why waste time (and money) making all the same mistakes that others had made before? That's why business schools like Harvard and Wharton use the 'case method' to teach business courses, including entrepreneurship courses. And in those courses, questions of 'what went wrong with a company's apparently brilliant business strategy?' always pop up. And this ability to not be blinded by superb-sounding strategies is a skill that can come about with practice, even if that practice is based on simulation on paper. (A disclaimer should be put in place here, though, for I do not think that everything should be taught by the formal education system: things like sex education should probably not have existed at all…) :)

Adding to the confusion in the discussions of entrepreneurship education is the unfortunate conflation of two things: the types of ‘entrepreneurship-related knowledge’ that I have discussed above, with a more elusive ‘entrepreneurial spirit’, which results in people talking past one another. I used to think that this elusive spirit simply cannot be taught, and so in a way I was supporting the ‘you either have it or you don’t’ argument. But I’m now more inclined to think that even that entrepreneurial spirit can be taught. As the philosopher Alastair MacIntyre wrote eloquently in After Virtue, ‘the well-trained soldier….may do what courage would have required of him in a particular situation, not because he is courageous, but because he is well-trained.’ So things like ‘spirit’ can indeed be cultivated through training, precisely because the human mind is flexible, capable of learning (as Mr Wang has wisely pointed out), and respond excellently to ego-boosters. That training could well have an important motivational effect, turning a previous timid person into one who is more self-assured, and more ready to take the steps needed to start a business. I believe that an appropriately motivationally-charged person will have that necessary burst of energy that an entrepreneur requires especially in the initial phase of his operations….

The last point of my essay is that entrepreneurship is a distinctly business-focused activity, de-linked from the sphere of the political. If one wants to be an entrepreneur, does he or she stop short at becoming one because there is a ‘culture of control’ that supposedly ‘stifles creativity’? A relative of mine is a winner of the Cultural Medallion, who did think that Singapore is kinda strict when it came to modes of expression, but nonetheless went on to produce many internationally-acclaimed creative works. My view is that if one really wants to do something, it’s surely possible. So even if that culture of control is really there, one should probably bash through it….Unfortunately, the situation now, which stifles entrepreneurship, is not one in which there are numerous young people thinking ‘wah I really want to start a business but cannot la, got culture of control here!’, it is in fact due to some other reasons that steer capable young people towards other areas or organizations - a phenomenon that I shall write about at a later date…