Technology Entrepreneurship Aspects On The Master’s Degree Level Of Education

Abstract

Technology entrepreneurship plays a significant role in the emergence of new high-tech businesses and the development of the country's economy as a whole. Concerning technological development of a country there is a need for entrepreneurship training, which has certain specificity. Universities in this case generate and adopt elements from the traditional courses of entrepreneurship to the course of technology entrepreneurship. The aim of this study is to explore the present landscape of educational market on the course “Technology entrepreneurship” taught on master degree level programs. The authors took the example of Russian and American universities: Lomonosov Moscow State University, ITMO University, MIT and Stanford. A comparative analysis of MIT, Stanford university and collaboration of Russian universities was carried out according to the criteria of teaching methods and the set of topics covered in courses. Based on the analysis similarities and peculiarities of the course were discovered. The elements of teaching methodology in common were revealed - project approach, teamwork principle, use of case methodology, panel presentations and group discussions, mentoring and coaching. The distribution on topics taught on courses at different universities according to the methodology of Tony Bailetti’ clusters was investigated. It showed that all the universities work in all the clusters teaching technology entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Technology entrepreneurshipeducationmaster degree levelinnovative approaches in education

Introduction

Technology entrepreneurship as a phenomenon in the global economy has grown out of traditional entrepreneurship. It became the object of significant research at the end of the 20th century that is relatively recently. It was due to the transition to the fifth technological order, when new technologies began to play a key role, which became widespread due to the development of a worldwide information network. At the moment, we are already talking about economic activity within the framework of the sixth technological order, where the trend for business development based on innovative technologies is meaningful and represented in almost all areas (Liliyana et al., 2017). We are talking about digitalization, automation of production (Shymchenko, Tereshchenko, Ryabov, Salkutsan, & Borovkov, 2017), development of social technologies through virtual communities, the transformation of the economy through new forms of capital movement (cryptocurrency) and the business process (blockchain, big data analysis), etc. Under these conditions, technology entrepreneurship plays a significant role in the emergence of new high-tech businesses and the development of the country's economy as a whole. There is a need in the country for entrepreneurship training, which has certain specificity, if we are talking about technological development. Universities, being the key points of personnel development for all areas of the country's economic activity, could not ignore this phenomenon and part of them were already involved in the process of offering educational programs on the subject of technology entrepreneurship.

At the same time, there is no generally accepted approach nowadays to the term “technology entrepreneurship” itself, however, there are a number of key aspects to those that are present in most of them. Tony Bailetti made a great contribution to the concept development in his work in 2012 “Technology Entrepreneurship: Overview, Definition, and Distinctive Aspects”, having reviewed the approaches from the first definition given by Purdue University at the First Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship in 1970 and until 2011. Among the key themes that are present in most definitions, he singled out seven themes of technology entrepreneurship organized into three clusters:

• Technology venture formation (external factors that influence formation of technology firms, the influence of technology entrepreneurship on socio-economic development of a region, interdependence between technology path and small technology formation and growth and contributions to other fields)

• Small technology firms (cost reduction and revenue generation, operations and transformation of small firms)

• Mid-sized and large firms (corporate entrepreneurship)

The author himself has given the following definition: “Technology entrepreneurship is defined as "an investment in a project that assembles and deploys specialized individuals and heterogeneous assets that are intricately related to advances in scientific and technological knowledge for the purpose of creating and capturing value for a firm" (Bailetti et al., 2012, p. 9) He focuses on the fact that first of all we are talking about creating value, and not just about the activities of the company in which scientists and engineers work. It is also noted that technology entrepreneurship occurs as well in start-ups as in operating companies of small, medium and large businesses (Bailetti et al., 2012).

The technology entrepreneur differs from the traditional not only in that it works with technologies, but also searches for new ones and acts as a development leader (Schumpeter,1947). Technology entrepreneurs influence a significant change in the nature of the activities of their partners, changing the majority of business operations to an entrepreneurial nature, giving them the characteristics of innovative and technological development. They help engineers to reorient their business building — from a cost centre in vertically integrated corporations — to a profit centre in technology contracting companies. They enter into partnership with the management of global corporations, which, instead of increasing the cost of internal management costs, are beginning to buy regularly new technology start-ups. Also, they change the investment infrastructure of technology businesses and create start-up factories that mass-build new businesses. In this case, venture investors invest not in a single high-tech business, but spread risks by investing in a pool of potentially profitable start-ups.

Problem Statement

There is no uniform practice of teaching technology entrepreneurship in the world, but the set of topics is quite similar. At the same time, speaking about what and how to teach for further development of technology entrepreneurship, it should be noted that traditional methods and approaches do not work in this case. It occurs because this type of activity is focused on a combination of seven themes from Tony Bailetti, which are inherently more practically oriented, and where the result of the study should be practical business activity - the creation or development of a technology business. Taking into account the existing division in subject areas in management, the authors propose to consider the reflection of technology entrepreneurship topics in three aspects: innovation, technology, and business (management). The innovation aspect involves ideation processes, searching ideas. The technology aspect requires an understanding of what stage of readiness technologies (TRL) are and what development tools they require. The business aspect gives an understanding of which business models a technology entrepreneur can use, and what strategic management tools are applicable to existing technologies taking into account the value they create. Technology entrepreneurship education programs affect these aspects to some extent, but there is a different focus. The question arises if there are some common approaches and topics that are mandatory in all educational programs on technology entrepreneurship and that are used by leading universities.

Research Questions

The authors set up the task to find out what is common in the programs of the Russian Federation and the United States in universities, which are considered to be leading in terms of entrepreneurship development. Based on this, the following questions were formulated:

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to clarify similarities and peculiarities of teaching technology entrepreneurship on the master’s degree level of education in leading American and Russian universities. That could be the basis for further constructing the system of common principles and efficient methodologies used to grow up successful technology entrepreneurs and the environment of its development all over the world.

Research Methods

This research follows a technology entrepreneurship aspects on the master’s degree level of education by using a case study method. The case study is a method which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings (Eisenhardt, 1989). This method in the research involves multiple cases. The study is based on data collected from the official websites of MIT, Stanford, Lomonosov Moscow State University and ITMO University. The subjects were selected on the basis of a fact that entrepreneurship education was started to popularize during the 1970s in the USA (Kuratko, 2005). In our research, we present the exploratory case of a technology entrepreneurship aspects at Universities by describing courses. So a unit of the analysis is a master degree course at the University. An exploratory case study follows what is to be explored, the purpose of the exploration, and the criteria by which the exploration will be judged successful (Yin, 1994).

First, programmes and courses related to aspects of technology entrepreneurship were identified at universities. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology programmes and courses on technology entrepreneurship were studied. MIT Sloan School of Management together with the School of Engineering, and in collaboration with the Emeritus Institute of Management programmes and courses are described. As part of the studying process a number of commercialisation centres, laboratories and teams actively working at MIT were reviewed. As a result of the analysis, 2 schools were identified for more detailed analysis and 3 courses in Stanford University. The content of the found programs and courses were described with teaching methods. Russian venture company, ITMO, Lomonosov Moscow State University and training course "Innovative Economics and technological entrepreneurship" were studied. The main purpose of the course was identified. The characteristics of the main teaching methods during the program were described and given. Then a comparison of teaching methods was made in 3 objects of study. The analysis of topics on technology entrepreneurship based on clusters extended by Tony Bailetti was also conducted.

Findings

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship education programs have gained great importance and interest from academics and businessmen in the modern world (Kuratko, 2005; Nabi, Liñán, Fayolle, Krueger, & Walmsley, 2016). Existing studies are dedicated to such aspects as entrepreneurship education, individual growth, inclinations and intentions for entrepreneurship, interrelation with social aspects (Bae, Qian, Miao, & Fiet, 2014), differences between countries in terms of goals, target audience, format of pedagogical approach for the development of entrepreneurial thinking among university students. A number of scientists are exploring entrepreneurial thinking in universities and entrepreneurial centers in universities (Ndou, Secundo, Schiuma, & Passiante, 2018).

It should be noted that the priority of business entrepreneurship education has changed. Technology entrepreneurship has become an important aspect that needs to be revealed at all levels of education and for various disciplines. Due to the rapid development of new technologies, entrepreneurship is expanding on other disciplines and programs (for example, science and technology). The development of such skills is crucial for the launch and development of fast-growing, technological enterprises (Boocock, Frank, & Warren, 2009). This led to the development of programs in the field of technology entrepreneurship (Cassia, De Massis & Meoli, 2014; Mian, Lamine, & Fayolle, 2016; Shih & Huang, 2017).

Technology entrepreneurship can be understood as the ability, competence and attitude to the transformation of new ideas, technologies and inventions into commercially viable products and services to create economic and social value through innovative business models (Ratinho, Harms, & Walsh, 2015; Villani, Linder, & Grimaldi, 2018). This concept has a fundamental importance in modern business; that’s why it is necessary to take it into account in the field of education, teaching and learning (Henrekson & Rosenberg, 2001; Passiante & Romano, 2016).

Based on the findings we can conclude that teaching technology entrepreneurship in different countries and universities has in common following elements of teaching methodology - project approach, teamwork principle, use of case methodology, panel presentations and group discussions, mentoring and coaching. It has some peculiarities based on different institutions participating in processes like MIT has the collaboration with its particular Sloan, using online instruments such as online Bootcamp. Stanford has very diversified infrastructure of collaboration with venture capitalists, industries and government. It creates the course on the basis of this infrastructure and involves all the participants of entrepreneurial activities in its support and development. Russian case shows us that we use universities’ collaboration in teaching this course providing connection between student teams from different universities.

As for the topics according to the distribution methodology of Tony Bailetti American universities affect in all the clusters whether Russian universities do not involve the third cluster - mid-sized and large firms. We can suppose that Russia has not enough high-tech mid-sized and large firms’ history to analyze currently at the moment to evolve it into the teaching processes. Global trends of digitalization, automation, technology-driven innovations influence on Russia as well as on the other countries. The development of high-tech mid-sized and large firms is moving forward. Based on it we recommend to use international experience on the third cluster and include it in the course of technology entrepreneurship for Russian universities. The main focus of study in all the universities is surely the first one that is dedicated to technology venture formation. It could be suggested that it occurs because nowadays one of the main global goals in the leading countries is economic development via technologies that are based on new tech ventures.

Turning to limitations we should mention that information about the courses was taken from the open resources in the Internet. Developing the analysis we suppose to organize interviews with teaching staff and students to get the holistic view. Also there should be more cases to get more data from other leading universities. It could be used for example the analysis of universities’ world rankings to create the representative sample covering all the continents.

References

1. About MIT Sloan (n.d.). Retrieved from https://mitsloan.mit.edu/about/why-mit-sloan
2. Bae, T. J., Qian, S., Miao, C., & Fiet, J. O. (2014). The Relationship Between Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Meta-Analytic Review. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 38(2), 217-254.
3. Bailetti, T. (2012). Technology entrepreneurship: overview, definition, and distinctive aspects. Technology Innovation Management Review: Technology Entrepreneurship, 2, 5–12.
4. Bailetti, T. D., Bot, S., Duxbury, T., Hudson, D., McPhee, C., Muegge, S., … Westerlund, M. (2012). An Overview of Four Issues on Technology Entrepreneurship in the TIM Review. Technology Innovation Management Review, 2(5), 28–34.
5. Boocock, G., Frank, R., & Warren, L. (2009). Technology-based entrepreneurship education: Meeting educational and business objectives. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 10(1), 43-53.
6. Cassia, L., De Massis, A., & Meoli, M. (2014). Entrepreneurship research centers around the world: Research orientation, knowledge transfer and performance. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 39(3), 376-392.
7. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building Theories from Case Study Research. Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 14 (4), 523-550.
8. Etzkowitz, H. (2013). StartX and the 'paradox of success': Filling the gap in Stanford's entrepreneurial culture. Social Science Information, 52(4), 605-627.
9. Henrekson, M., & Rosenberg, N. (2001). Designing Efficient Institutions for Science-Based Entrepreneurship: Lesson from the US and Sweden. The journal of technology transfer, 26(3), 207-231.
10. Kuratko, D. F. (2005). The emergence of entrepreneurship education: Development, trends and challenges. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29(5), 577-597.
11. Liliyana, F. N., Svirina, A. A., Polina, O. R., Garanin, D. A., Lukashevich, N. S., & Leventsov, V. A. (2017). TechnoMOOC development of the basis of remote lab access. In S. Shaposhnikov (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference "Quality Management, Transport and Information Security, Information Technologies", IT and QM and IS 2017 (pp. 680-684). St. Petersburg; Russian Federation: IEEE.
12. Mian, S., Lamine, W., & Fayolle, A. (2016). Technology Business Incubation: An overview of the state of knowledge. Technovation, 50, 1–12.
13. MIT Entrepreneurship Online Bootcamp from Idea to Startup in Eight Week (n. d.). Retrieved from: https://executive-ed.mit.edu/thankyou-n.html
14. Nabi, G., Liñán, F., Fayolle, A., Krueger, N., & Walmsley, A. (2016). The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education in higher Education: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 16(2), 277-299.
15. Ndou, V., Secundo, G., Schiuma, G., & Passiante, G. (2018). Insights for shaping Entrepreneurship Education: Evidence from the European Entrepreneurship centers. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10(11), 4323.
16. Passiante, G., & Romano, A. (2016). Creating Technology-Driven Entrepreneurship: Foundations, Processes and Environments. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
17. Ratinho, T., Harms, R., & Walsh, S. (2015). Structuring the Technology Entrepreneurship publication landscape: Making sense out of chaos. Technological forecasting and social change, 100, 168-175.
18. Roberts, E. B., Murray, F., & Kim, J. D. (2015). Entrepreneurship and Innovation at MIT Continuing Global Growth and Impact. Cambridge: MIT Sloan School of Management.
19. Russian venture company (n.d.) Education course "Innovative economy and technological entrepreneurship". Retrieved from https://www.rvc.ru/eco/education/innovative_economy/
20. Schumpeter, J. (1947). The Creative Response in Economic History. The journal of economic history, 7(2), 149-159.
21. Shih, T., & Huang, Y. Y. (2017). A case study on technology entrepreneurship education at a Taiwanese research university. Asia Pacific Management Review, 22(4), 202–211.
22. Shymchenko, A. V., Tereshchenko, V. V., Ryabov, Y. A., Salkutsan, S. V., & Borovkov, A. I. (2017) Review of the computational approaches to advanced materials simulation in accordance with modern advanced manufacturing trends. Materials Physics and Mechanics, 32(3), 328-352.
23. Stanford Graduate School of Business (n.d.) Stanford Entrepreneurship Courses. Retrieved from https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/experience/learning/entrepreneurship/courses
24. Stanford. Bulletin Explore Degrees 2018-19 (n. d.) Management Science and Engineering. Retrieved from https://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/managementscienceandengineering/#masterstext
25. The World University Rankings (n.d.) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved from: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/massachusetts-institute-technology
26. Villani, E., Linder, C., & Grimaldi, R. (2018). Effectuation and Causation in Science-based New Venture Creation: A Configurational Approach. Journal of Business Research, 83, 173-185.
27. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research and applications: Design and methods. Applied Social Research Methods Series, 5, 1–53.