Entrepreneurs as Architects: Design (ing) Focus in Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

Designing requires skills that are different from making and is an integral part of venture creation. To encourage considerations of design in entrepreneurship education, this paper elaborates how designing can be embedded in entrepreneurship education as a distinct composite capability to be developed. It outlines a perspective of entrepreneurial action as design, whereby activities of framing, modeling, and performing give a concrete action its entrepreneurial meaning of concerning a future venture. We discuss how the underpinning capabilities can be developed in educational settings, using principles, methods, and examples as distinct types of instructions to be deployed by entrepreneurship educators in different combinations and for different purposes. We develop the implications of our work by offering a set of design principles tailored for entrepreneurship education.