Edita Petrylaite and Michele Rusk
This paper aims to explore the learning styles of nascent entrepreneurs in developing their entrepreneurial marketing (EM) skills in teams while studying for the entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the learning styles of nascent entrepreneurs in developing their entrepreneurial marketing (EM) skills in teams while studying for the entrepreneurial business degree in one UK University. It advances the interlink between EM and entrepreneurial learning (EL) theories and demonstrates how working in teams assists in developing EM skills through EL in the educational context.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative case study adopts a thematic approach to analysing 9 audio-recorded workshops of 13 entrepreneurial students who work in teams to develop entrepreneurial ventures. Audio-recorded sessions were used to monitor the entrepreneurial and marketing behaviour of the young entrepreneurs and reveal the context and skills used in their learning process.
Findings
The findings show that the observed undergraduate entrepreneurial students develop their EM competence through collective, exploratory and exploitative, as well as supportive and individual learning. These learning styles intersect and prove to be effective in mastering both marketing and venture development skills in teampreneurial educational setting.
Originality/value
This case study demonstrates how the concepts of EM and EL are linked in both theory and practice. It makes suggestions on how entrepreneurial courses at the university could be further developed to assist the young entrepreneurs in effectively acquiring business knowledge and skills. This knowledge can also be implemented by small and large organisations to foster a co-creative collective learning environment leading to more innovations, experimentations and creative thinking.
Details
Keywords
Edita Petrylaite and Angus Robson
This interpretive ethnographic research explores the relationship between leadership and masculinities in an entrepreneurial team context. The team is situated in a higher…
Abstract
This interpretive ethnographic research explores the relationship between leadership and masculinities in an entrepreneurial team context. The team is situated in a higher education (HE) environment in the northeast of England, where its members develop startups while studying for a degree in entrepreneurial business management. The chapter contributes to entrepreneurship and leadership literature with a conceptual basis for understanding the links between gender and leadership in an entrepreneurial team in a way that transcends binaries, by focusing on masculinities as plural and nuanced, and on leadership as shared and mutual. The 13 young male entrepreneurs’ performances of gender and leadership are captured through nine audio-recorded observations. The thematic analysis of the data using a Global Leadership and Organizational Behaviour Effectiveness (GLOBE) framework reveals that young male entrepreneurs lead and relate to each other in assertive, supportive, and participative ways with assertive leadership behaviors linked to hegemonic masculinities and the latter two ways to inclusive masculinities. Those gender and leadership constructions are embodied, nuanced, plural, and shared in the situated entrepreneurial community. We recommend that new educational programs, developing leadership and/or entrepreneurship, need to be sensitive to local contexts, and should take account of plurality and nuances of doing gender and leadership in particular localities.