Promoting an Entrepreneurial Culture within the Community

The conditions required for establishing an Entrepreneurial Culture are:

Identification and promotion of Role Models: 

Women entrepreneurs, for example the ladies who lost their jobs in the textile sector and created ‘Charmin Sud’, a rural women entrepreneur partnership. They came on television to explain how being laid off from an ailing textile industry was for them a blessing in disguise. It allowed them to unveil their entrepreneurial potential and leadership abilities.

Role of media: 

For instance, in the promotion of Entrepreneurship as a business model. Until recently, the local TV ran a weekly documentary: ‘Portrait d’Elle’, in which a local women entrepreneur was portrayed as to her new place in society as an economic (and social) agent. Similarly, a few newspapers reserve a page regularly to promote entrepreneurial initiatives.

The Education system: 

Entrepreneurship modules in the curriculum at different levels. Entrepreneurship education is now beginning to be anchored in tertiary education curricula. We have now moved past the old paradigm whereby entrepreneurship was to be taught only in Business faculties. The present Super GEM is a living example of the new paradigm whereby the subject is available to all undergraduates from all fields. An IT student, a Fashion & Design student and all the others in fact, need to know the basic business and entrepreneurship skills that are required to start a business or to act entrepreneurially, to lead and innovate in their employer organisations.

Period of Incubation: 

Entrepreneurship development programmes spread over a period of time (and not one off initiatives). Initiatives like “La semaine de l’Entrepreneuriat” are beneficial for general awareness, but the enthusiasm soon dies away after the caravan has left. What is truly beneficial for culture change is a planned process that uses all the avenues mentioned in this section over a longer period with set objectives and performance targets. In Finland, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial culture developed as a result of a planned ‘Entrepreneurship decade’, that is, ten years of cultural change. This can take the form of entrepreneurship education starting at primary or secondary education level, targeting rural women with a Microcredit scheme and so on.

Participation of leaders (political, business, opinion): 

Political and religious leaders to promote entrepreneurship as a solution to current economic problems. As mentioned earlier under ‘leadership’, a strong, charismatic leadership is required to transform a community. To change the mentality from ‘qualifying to get a government job’ to ‘taking charge of oneself by being self employed’ requires psychological ‘push’ that can be facilitated by people who can influence the community. The first people to come to our mind are the political, social and religious leaders.

Reference: http://vcampus.uom.ac.mu/entrepreneurship/Unit9/Entrepreneurial_Culture.htm