The Importance of Soft Skills Development to Enhance Entrepreneurial Capacity

Abstract

Soft skills development has come with the intention of an all-rounded development of individual personality and entrepreneurship can be taught or not has been an argument until today. Therefore, this study was designed to explore the importance of soft skills to enhance entrepreneurial capacity. The three key soft skills that researchers examined were communication, leadership, and critical and problem-solving skills while the entrepreneurial capacity was the dependent variable of this study. A total of five successful entrepreneurs were purposively selected to be the informants of this study. Researchers employed a qualitative method using interview protocol as an instrument to conduct in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The results revealed that critical thinking and problem-solving skills is the most significant soft skills to assist entrepreneurs to improve their competitiveness and productivity. Moreover, all the informants came to the consensus that higher education should teach the students the three required soft skills to be successful entrepreneurs. They emphasized the importance of soft skills that can assist entrepreneurs not only to compete in the formal labor market but also has the potential to reduce youth unemployment, drive economic growth, and reduce poverty. The overall results are successfully contributed to a growing body of research by suggesting that soft skills, namely communication, leadership, and critical thinking and problem-solving skills associated with entrepreneurial success are malleable and can be trained through higher education institutions.