Applied Economics Teaching Resources

an AAEA Journal

Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Teaching Education Commentary

The Knowledge and Skills Required to Be a Successful Entrepreneur

Luis Alberto Sandoval
Zamorano University

JEL Codes: A20, L26, N36
Keywords: Data literacy, entrepreneurship, innovation, resilience, Zamorano, risk

Publish Date: February 7, 2022
Volume 4, Issue 1

View Full Article (PDF)

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has become an important topic at universities, especially in developing countries where the job market has become saturated and wages are low compared to the developed world. To strengthen its entrepreneurship curriculum, Zamorano University asked its alumni what knowledge and skills are required to be a successful entrepreneur. To analyze the responses, data mining techniques were employed. Interpretation of the results of word frequencies, associations, and a dendrogram yielded nine thematic areas that should be the focus of entrepreneurship programs at universities, according to actual entrepreneurs and experts working in agriculture. While some of the themes were expected, such as discipline-specific and business administration knowledge, other themes, such as resilience to a changing business environment, were sort of a surprise.

About the Authors: Luis Alberto Sandoval is Associate Professor of Agribusiness and Institutional Research Coordinator at Zamorano University (Corresponding author: lsandoval@zamorano.edu). Acknowledgements: Research with human subjects followed standard protocols and was approved by appropriate administrators at Zamorano University. Participation was anonymous and informed consent was received by participants.

Copyright is governed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA

References

Boren Alpizar, A., and S. Morales. 2018. “Celebrities and Slackers: A Grounded Theory of the Dynamics of Social Loafing on Student Teams.” The Journal of Leadership Education 17(2):42–59. DOI: 10.12806/V17/I2/R3.

Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. (n.d.). The Entrepreneurial Process. https://sites.fuqua.duke.edu/dukeven/selected-topics/the-entrepreneurial-process/.

Morris, M.H., and E.W. Liguori. 2016. “Preface: Teaching Reason and the Unreasonable.” Annals of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 2.

Oxford Languages. 2021. Oxford University Press. https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/.

PwC. 2021. “The State of Climate Tech 2020: The Next Frontier for Venture Capital.” https://www.pwc.com/climatetech.