Business and entrepreneurship skills and experience
Table 1: Skills required for entrepreneurship
Technical Skills |
Business Management Skills |
Personal Entrepreneurial Skills |
Written and oral communication |
Planning and goal setting |
Inner control/discipline |
Monitoring environment |
Decision making |
Risk taking |
Technical business management |
Human Relations |
Innovative |
Technology |
Marketing |
Change orientated |
Interpersonal |
Finance |
Persistent |
Listening |
Accounting |
Visionary leader |
Ability to organise |
Management |
Ability to manage change |
Network building |
Control |
|
Management style |
Negotiation |
|
Coaching |
Venture Launch |
|
Being a team player |
Managing Growth |
|
Skills and experience have a positive effect on entrepreneurship because they provide the basis for a company’s dynamic capabilities, the ability to learn and adapt to changing circumstances (Teece et al., 1997). Business and entrepreneurship skills are essential for the formation, survival and growth of a new business, as well as for the upgrading of existing SMEs. A number of recent studies underline this connection and point out that the capacity to continually learn and acquire knowledge are essential qualities of successful entrepreneurs (Smilor, 1997; Minniti and Byrgave, 2001; World Economic Forum, 2009). Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners/managers can be viewed as “jacks-of-all-trades” since they require a combination of horizontal and vertical skills (Lazear, 2004).
Figure 1. School education provided enabling skills and know-how to run a business, in percentage, 2012

Figure 2. Why is it not feasible to become an entrepreneur? Percentage, 2012



StatLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932829495
Note: The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities.
Figure 3. Percentage of the population aged 18 to 64 years old who received any type of training in starting a business, during or after school, 2008.

StatLink http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/835542183283
Education policies
Some argue that entrepreneurship cannot be taught because entrepreneurial behaviour is rooted in the character and personality of the entrepreneur and success is often due to chance. However, there is a widespread view that entrepreneurship can be facilitated and that exposure to entrepreneurship can have positive effects, even if students do not become self-employed. Education policies can promote the development of business and entrepreneurship skills and experience to help potential entrepreneurs overcome common challenges.
Policy can support and implement entrepreneurship education in the school systems, higher education and in vocational education. Entrepreneurship education should have the goal of developing the entrepreneurial mindset, as well as delivering specific skills. Policy should aim to increase the number of entrepreneurship courses and participating students, where there is evidence that these courses have been successful. It is also important to ensure that entrepreneurship teaching meets high quality standards and extends across a broad range of subjects to reach a wide range of potential entrepreneurs. Teachers should be trained and supported in using interactive methods that emphasise “learning by doing.”
Policy can also support closer links between education institutions and the private sector. This is particularly important for innovative entrepreneurship and there are a number of ways to achieve this. First, policy should support more widespread use of entrepreneurs in the delivery of education through guest lectures, or through coaching and mentoring students. This could also include working with students on short-term projects through “start-up weekends.” Second, policy can encourage and support the integration of entrepreneurs into faculty and staff at universities to bring more entrepreneurship experience into higher education institutions. Third, policy can facilitate private sector funding and involvement in entrepreneurship chairs and incubation facilities at universities. Fourth, policy can support better integration between the private sector and university start-up support facilities, which can be accomplished through coaching and mentoring, and also through networking events and business competitions.
Use of the vocational education and training system requires a different approach from that commonly used for teaching more technical subjects and appropriate policies for changing teaching methodologies, and not just curricula, need to be formulated (Gibb, 2009).
Training policies
Policy should encourage a greater emphasis on the challenges of enterprise growth in training programmes, rather than business plan development and business management skills. In doing so, training should focus on opportunity identification, risk taking, strategy making, leadership, negotiation, networking, building strategic alliances and intellectual property protection.
Training policies can also support the development of entrepreneurship and business skills in the staff of new small enterprises to help facilitate the development of business and management skills. These skills are needed during a company’s growth and having staff equipped with these skills can help businesses deal with pressures as they arise. Training could be used to develop team leaders, impart entrepreneurship skills across occupations involved in product and process development, and increase project management skills.
In addition, policy could support increasing the number of apprenticeships in SMEs, since apprenticeships are ideal for developing entrepreneurship skills among students.
- European Commission (2009), Entrepreneurship in the EU and Beyond - A survey in the EU, EFTA countries, Croatia, Turkey, the US, Japan, South Korea and China, Flash Eurobarometer 283.
- Gibb, A. (2009), “The small business and entrepreneurship challenge to vocational education: Revolution or evolution?”, paper presented at the OECD Conference on SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Udine, Italy, 22-23 October 2009, OECD LEED Programme, Paris.
- Hisrich, R.D. and Peters, M.P. (1992), Entrepreneurship: Starting, Developing, and Managing a New Enterprise, Irwin, Boston, MA.
- Hoffman, A., N. Vibholt, M. Larsen and M. Moffet (2008), “Benchmarking entrepreneurship education across US, Canadian and Danish universities”, in J. Potter (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Higher Education, OECD, Paris, Ch. 6, pp. 139-164.
- Inter-American Development Bank (2009), High Growth SMEs, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Assets: Study of High Growth SMEs in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico.
- Lazear, E. P. (2004), “Balanced skills and entrepreneurship”, American Economic Review, Vol. 94, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the One Hundred Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, San Diego, CA, 3-5 January, 2004 (May, 2004), pp. 208-211.
- Minniti, M. and W. Byrgave (2001), “A dynamic model of entrepreneurial learning”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 5-16.
- OECD (2013), “Culture: the role of entrepreneurship education” in Entrepreneurship at a Glance, OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/entrepreneur_aag-2013-en [4]
- OECD (2011), Entrepreneurship at a Glance 2011, OECD Publishing.
- OECD (2010), "Entrepreneurship skills", in OECD, SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, OECD Publishing, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264080355-49-en [5]
- OECD (2010a), Entrepreneurship and Higher Education, OECD, Paris.
- OECD (2010b), Taxation, Innovation and the Environment, OECD, Paris.
- OECD (2010c), High-Growth Enterprises: What Governments Can Do to Make a Difference, OECD, Paris. See Chapter 1.
- OECD (2010c), “Entrepreneurial talent”, in Measuring Innovation: A New Perspective, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264059474-26-en [6]
- OECD, (2010), SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, OECD, Paris. See Chapter 4.
- OECD (2010b), High-Growth Enterprises: What Governments Can Do to Make a Difference, OECD, Paris.
- Potter, J. (ed.) (2008), Entrepreneurship and Higher Education, OECD, Paris.
- Smilor, R. (1997), “Entrepreneurship: Reflections on a subversive activity”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp. 341-346.
- Tether, B., A. Mina, D. Consoli and D. Gagliardi (2005), “A literature review on skills and innovation: How does successful innovation impact on the demand for skills and how do skills drive innovation?”, CRIC report for the Department of Trade and Industry, Manchester.
- World Economic Forum (2009), “Educating the next wave of entrepreneurs: Unlocking entrepreneurial capabilities to meet the global challenges of the 21st century”.