Entreneurship Experience or Education

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i

1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Overview ............................................................................................................ 1

1.2 Current Situation on Entrepreneurship .............................................................. 3

1.3 General Public Opinion ...................................................................................... 6

2.0 Literature Review on the Importance of Education vs. Experience in Successful

Entrepreneurship ...................................................................................................... 8

2.1 Findings from Articles ....................................................................................... 8

2.2 Reality of Successful Entrepreneurship ........................................................... 14

3.0 Personal Opinions .................................................................................................... 19

4.0 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 22

References .......................................................................................................................... 24


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Abstract

Malaysia is in the process of developing a vibrant entrepreneurial environment in Malaysia

to support the small and medium industries. In order to achieve this aim, promotion of

entrepreneurship activities has been plenty and varied. Entrepreneurial skills are developed

among those who are already in business, about to retire and still undergoing secondary

and tertiary education. Growth in new business formation has been significant over the

years but failure of these business ventures has also been remarkably high. There has been

issues that stressed the important of entrepreneurship education to those embarking in this

sector yet there has been a lot of successful entrepreneurial activities among those who

have no academic qualification and relying on guts and instincts alone. This paper presentsan argument on which is more important: education or experience, to become a successful

entrepreneur. The current situation and what people think about this issue are presented,

supported by facts from previous researches.


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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview

Entrepreneurship has been recognized as being a fundamental importance

for the economy (Bruyat and Julien, 2000) due to its considerable macro-

and micro-level effects (Henry et al, 2003). Entrepreneurship gives rise to

new ideas, creating new enterprises and jobs, and nurturing the economy as

a whole (Hisrich and OCinneide, 1985). However, the concept of

entrepreneurship is wide.

Shane and Venkataraman (2000) argued that entrepreneurship and

opportunity exploitation do not necessarily imply the creation of new firms

but can also take place in existing organizations. In the organization,

entrepreneurship is known as intrapreneurship, which emphasizes on the

entrepreneurial process (carrying out new combinations) and

innovativeness (Guth and Ginsberg, 1990). Intrapreneurship is defined as

entrepreneurship within an existing organization, referring to emergent

intentions and behaviours that deviate from customary way of doing

business, which leads to not only new business venture but also other

innovative activities (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2004).

The term entrepreneurship becomes more complicated when it is

related to other terms such as enterprising behaviour and small business

management. Gibb and Nelson (1996) proposed the definitions of the three

by saying that entrepreneurship is the functional management skills and

abilities required to start, manage and develop a small business while small

business management was concerned with the personal capability of the

individual or individuals at the helm of the business. Enterprising behaviour

refers to the development of learning skills to enable learning to be


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personalized, applied to the workplace and continued beyond the education

or training programme, with the participant firmly in control of the process.

The argument of this paper: which is more important, education or

experience, in making a successful entrepreneur? This argument is based onthe definition or interpretation of what an entrepreneur is. Thus, an

entrepreneur in the context of this paper is an individual who perform

entrepreneurship, has entrepreneurial behaviors and a small business

manager as defined by Gibb and Nelson (1998) but not specifically relating

to intrapreneurship as defined by Antoncic and Hisrich (2004).

There are still considerable uncertainties that entrepreneurs are born

or made. This leads to comments whether or not entrepreneurship can be

taught (Fiet, 2000 in Henry et al. 2005). It also leads to comments whether

education is important in determining the success of entrepreneurs or not.

The focus of this paper is to present the current situation ion

entrepreneurship, to show whether entrepreneurs are running business

based on experience or by education. This can be done by looking at the

profiles of some successful entrepreneurs in this country. Some general

public opinion was gathered through an unstructured interview with 15

Malaysians from all walks of life.

Facts from literatures were also gathered to support the argument of

element more important to make a successful entrepreneur. These

literatures were collected from journals that presented findings from their

studies. Lastly, my personal opinion on this matter is also included in this

paper.


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1.2 Current Situation on Entrepreneurship

The argument of which one is the determining factor of a successful

entrepreneur, whether education or experience, is a hard one to answer

because the current situation on entrepreneurship shows that there are

successful entrepreneurs who made it based on experience alone, without

high education and there are others who ace entrepreneurship ventures due

to education.

An article from College Startup (www.college-startup.com) argued

that college education is definitely important but there are people out there

who became successful entrepreneurs without having any college degree.

There people are described in Table 1 below.
http://www.college-startup.com/http://www.college-startup.com/http://www.college-startup.com/http://www.college-startup.com/


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Table 1: Successful Entrepreneurs without any college degrees

No Name Description

1 Mary Kay Ash Founder of Mary Kay Inc, a cosmetic business which

is a global brand, with half a million people selling

her cosmetics. She didnt have a college education

2 Richard Branson A school dropout at 16 and started his first successfulbusiness venture, Student Magazine. He is the owner

of the Virgin Brand and its 360 companies

3 Gabriel Coco

Chanel

An orphan and trained as a seamstress. Her perfume,

Chanel No. 5 made her famous

4 Simon Cowell Started in a mailroom for a music publishing

company. Now, he is an artist and repertoire (A&R),

executive for Sony BMG in UK, a television producer

and judge for major television talent, including

American Idol

5 Michael Dell Dropped out of college at age 19, started his PCs

Limited which later was renamed Dell Inc., now the

most profitable PC manufacturer in the world. The

Michael and Susan Dell Foundation offered a $50

million grant to the University of Texas, Austin to be

used for childrens health and education

6 Walt Disney Dropped out of high school at 16. He is the most

influential animator, Disney. The Walt Disney

Company has an annual revenue of $30 billion

7 Henry Ford At 16, Ford left home to apprentice as a machinist. He

started Ford Motor Company to manufacture

automobiles.8 Bill Gates Ranked as the richest man from 1995-2006. He is a

college dropout but the initiator of Microsoft

Corporation

Another website (http://skorcareer.com.my) presented 10 great

Malaysia entrepreneurs as shown in Table 2. These people are a mix of

educated entrepreneurs and uneducated entrepreneurs, all successful in their

endeavors.
http://skorcareer.com.my/http://skorcareer.com.my/http://skorcareer.com.my/http://skorcareer.com.my/


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Table 2: 10 Great Malaysian Entrepreneurs

No Name Description

1 Loh Boon Siew

(Boon Siew Honda)

The late Boon Siew is responsible to start the

dealership of Honda motorcycles in Penang. He is

often known as Mr. Honda. He had virtually no

education. He started as a mechanic and slowly moveupwards with determination

2 Robert Kuok (Kuok

Group)

He is a successful and rich Malaysian tycoon, linked

to sugar business as well as other wide industries

including hospitality, energy, logistics and

manufacturing. He is the product of good education

and family wealth.

3 Tony Fernandes

(Air Asia)

The man behind Air Asia. With RM1, he bought a

defunct carrier, along with over RM40 million in

debts and created the most successful budget airline

company. He is an educated entrepreneur.

4 Syed Mokhtar al-

Bukhary (MMC)

A humble entrepreneur, the richest Malay and

bumiputra in Malaysia. As a kid, he had difficulties

doing school revision due to inadequate house

facilities and small space

5 Lim Goh Tong

(Genting)

A classic rag-to-riches story, a migrant from China

and came here as a youth. He did not speak English

and can only communicate in Chinese and Malay.

6 Maznah Hamid

(Securiforce)

She is not highly educated but is the proud owner of

Securiforce, one of the formidable security companies

in Malaysia. She and her husband started the company

from an almost bankrupt company, hold multiple tasksand persevered to her success today

7 Ananda Krishnan

(Astro)

An MBA from Harvard University and a Degree from

Melbourne University. He is the smartest

entrepreneur. He is worth more than $7 billion.

8 Azman Hashim

(Ambank)

He had good academic background in accounting

field. He almost died due to a horrible car accident but

that did not stop him. He moved his career along the

corporate path and responsible to transform Ambank

(Arab Malaysian Bank) into one of the largest

financial institutions in the country

9 Steven Sim (Secret

Recipe)

Dato Steven Sim is a modern entrepreneur, who

established the popular Secret Recipe Caf, which is

one of the most successful homegrown franchises. He

did not have any professional training in baking.

10 Mustapha Kamal

(MK Land)

The co-founder of MK Land (an associate company of

Emkay Group), which started small and eventually

became one of the property icons in Malaysia.


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These scenarios among the successful entrepreneurs of the world

and Malaysia cannot decide which aspect - education or experience is

more important in making a successful entrepreneur. These evidences

showed that both education and experience have a significant contributionto making the person as a successful entrepreneur.

1.3 General Public Opinion

The general public opinions about the argument of this paper were alsosought from 15 Malaysians from all walks of life. The question was posed

to them: Which is more important to make a successful entrepreneur

education or experience? This interview was carried out in Kota Kinabalu

and the responses were mixed.

Five of the respondents stated that experience is more important and

proceeded to give some examples such as Bill Gates, Lim Boon Siew and

their personal friends who are uneducated successful entrepreneurs. They

commented on the enterprising spirits of the migrants (Filipino, Bengals,

Pakistanis, etc) here in Sabah who showed their success in business

although their education level is low or mediocre.

Three respondents emphasized the importance of education,

especially entrepreneurial training to ensure success in their endeavors.

They reasoned that the government is spending millions of ringgit in

entrepreneurial training at all levels because of the realization that

education is an important ingredient of entrepreneurship.


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The other seven respondents gave a mixed response. They stated

that both education and experience are important to become a successful

entrepreneur. They stressed that entrepreneurs need experience to ensure he

has resilience and know-how to do business whereas education gives them

the expertise to carry out business tasks. Among these seven respondents,they stated that experience is a must whereas education is an important

addition, which can be done later.

These public opinions still cannot come to a definite conclusion on

which is more important.


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2.0 Literature Review on the Importance of Education vs. Experience inSuccessful Entrepreneurship

2.1 Findings from Articles

Entrepreneurs are people who have entrepreneurial traits, not just business

acumens (Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006). The importance of education in

making a successful entrepreneur can be determined through evidences

from past researches that show the transference of entrepreneurship

knowledge and skills to learners. Thus, the first part of this literature deals

with evidences from researches indicating the possibility of education in

training people to become entrepreneurs.

Gorman et al (1997) stated that there is an increasing number of

empirical research conducted and reporting findings that there

entrepreneurship can be taught, or if not taught, at least developed by

entrepreneurship education. This implies that the making of a successful

entrepreneur is possible through education but not a definite possibility.

However, the teaching of entrepreneurship is an enigma as Jack and

Anderson (1998) stated that actual entrepreneurial process involves both

arts and science. The science part involves the business and management

functional skills, which appears to be teachable using a conventional

pedagogical approach. However, the art part which relates to the creative

and innovative attributes of entrepreneurship does not appear to be

teachable in the same way. Saee (1996) commented that some individualsare naturally talented, whilst others must work hard to achieve similar ends.

He suggests that a curriculum cannot create an entrepreneur, rather it can

only demonstrate the process involved in being successful. The individual

will always be responsible for their own success.


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Figure 1 below shows the entrepreneurial process encompassing

behaviours, skills and attitudes (Shook et al, 2003). The elements in the

entrepreneurial process indicate the validity of Jack and Anderson (1998),

Saee (1996), Shepherd and Douglas (1996), Miller (1987) and Boussoura

and Deakins (1998) arguments that some elements are indeed teachablewhile others are inherent to the person, which may be or may not be

transferable. The possibility of these elements being taught and assimilated

as learned behaviours of the individual lies with the individual itself. It also

implies that not all educated individuals will end up being a successful

entrepreneur.

Figure 1: The entrepreneurial process: behaviours, skills and attributes


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Gibb (1993) describes an enterprising person as being pioneering,

adventurous, daring, go ahead, progressive, opportunist and ambitious.

Figure 2 below illustrates a person displaying a set of behaviours,

associated skills and personal attributes. Hartshorn and Hannon (2005)

suggest that students must have to some extent, a degree of enterprise thatcan be developed through learning. The challenge for educators is how to

do so.

Figure 2:

Outcomes of enterprise education creating enterprise environment

context (Hartshorn and Hannon, 2005)


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Behaviours acting independently, actively seeking to achieve goals,

flexibly responding to challenges, coping with and enjoying uncertainty,

taking risky actions in uncertain environments, persuading others,

commitments to make things happen, opportunity seeking, solving

problems/conflicts

Skills problem solving, creativity, persuasiveness, planning, negotiating,

decision taking

Attributesself-confident, autonomous, achievement orientated, versatile,

dynamic, resourceful (adapted from Gibb, 1993).

If these behaviours, skills and attributes can be taught, then

education has a greater importance in creating successful entrepreneurship.

Shepherd and Douglas (1996) suggest that it is important to teach

entrepreneurship as a science and an art. They conceded that the spirit of

entrepreneurship is not endemic in every person or may require awakening

and enhancing. Therefore, business education should teach not only the

various business disciplines but also the essence of entrepreneurship. They

commented that a lot of education and training initiatives to create

entrepreneurs have focused mainly on the science part of entrepreneurship,

which is selective, analytical, sequential and fixed but there has been large

neglect on delivering the art side of entrepreneurship.

Miller (1987) argued that not all aspects of entrepreneurship can be

taught and that educators cannot create entrepreneurs or produce foolproof,

step-by-step recipes for entrepreneurial success. What educators can do,

according to Miller (1987) are to provide an understanding of the rigorous

analytical techniques required to set-up a new business and an appreciation

of the limitation of those techniques. He claims that many of the


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entrepreneurial characteristics, such as self-confidence, persistence and

high energy levels, cannot be wholly acquired in the classroom.

Boussoura and Deakins (1998) presented their studies on the

development of high technology small firms and suggested thatentrepreneurs learn, not through structured teaching, but through experience

and trial and error. They studied 23 technology-based entrepreneurs who

had started out in non-technical ventures and demonstrated that this type of

start-up can in fact act as a nursery for these individuals in the

development of their technology based businesses. These preparation and

nursery stage were deemed important for the entrepreneurial creative

process.

Another aspect of the argument of which has more importance

education or experience leads to findings about the importance of

previous experience to build entrepreneurial behaviours.

Rae (2005) explored the concept of mid-career entrepreneurship and

the learning needs and characteristics of mid-career entrepreneurs. The

need to train mid-career people aging 35 and above was necessary as the

lifespan increases and people are now working after the age of retirement.

Therefore, a transition of career to entrepreneurship-based career became a

potential choice among these people. The study showed that most people by

mid-career, have acquired extensive skills, knowledge and experience

through immersion within their industry. Rae (2005) presented the

argument that these provide a rich resource of capabilities and expertise on

which to draw it, but it may also restrict their entrepreneurial outlook unless

they are able to reframe or unlearn less useful aspects of their prior

learning for entrepreneurship.


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Gibb (1991) explained that people from career backgrounds in large

and complex industrial, public sector and uniformed services often have

highly developed skills, yet find transferring these to the life world of the

small firm, which requires flexible, opportunistic and innovative rather than

systematic behaviour, to be a difficult transition. However, Rae (2005)stressed that people in mid-career are in the optimum position to identify

and develop opportunity by using their experience, skills, networks and

energy to create and build business ventures. The ability to identify or

create and use opportunity from contextual experience can be learned from

entrepreneurial learning.

Rae (2005) suggests that entrepreneurial learning should include a

balance of practical theories with techniques and methods which can be

readily applied. The practical theories include practical investigation of

opportunities by using the tools provided and by market research, social

inquiry and interaction, innovation and planning (Rae, 2005).

Reviews from these literatures cannot definitely determine which

element is more important in creating a successful entrepreneur. However,

these findings suggest some key points which are presented below.

(1) Education can make successful entrepreneurs but not all as there areaspects of entrepreneurs that are teachable and others that are endemic

to the individual. The chance of creating successful entrepreneurs

from education and training lies with the individual himself.

(2) Experience can boost a persons potential as entrepreneur but how theperson reframes or unlearn his experience to suit the entrepreneurial

requirement is depending on the person. An individual who can

unlearn and utilizes his experiences has a high chance of becoming a

successful entrepreneur.


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These findings imply that entrepreneurship success is not

determined by education or experience although these aspects are important

determinants of success. The deciding factor is the individual himself.

2.2 Reality of Successful Entrepreneurship

Morrison (2000) proposed that the process of entrepreneurship initiation

has its foundations in person and intuition, and society and culture. It is not

a simple economic function but represents a composite of material and

immaterial, pragmatism and idealism. Morrison (2000) stresses that the key

to initiating the process of entrepreneurship lies within the individualmembers of society and the degree to which a spirit of enterprise exists, or

can be initiated.

Vernon-Wortzel and Wortzel (1997) stated that the initiation of

entrepreneurship must consider culture because it determines the attitudes

of individuals towards entrepreneurial endeavors. Timmons (1994)

elaborated the importance of an entrepreneurial culture. He said, a culture

that prizes entrepreneurship, an imperative to educate our population so that

our entrepreneurial potential is second to none, and a government that

generously supports pure and applied science, fosters entrepreneurship with

enlightened policies, and enables schools to produce the best educated

students in the world.

Morrison (2000) further commented that the role of family,

immediate and extended, is recognized as having the potential to make a

positive contribution towards entrepreneurial behaviour through the

provision of inter-generational role models and as tangible and intangible

support providers.


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Morrison (2000) also describe the profile of a successful

entrepreneur one who is intelligent and analytical, is an effective risk

manager and networker, possesses a strong set of moral, social and business

ethics, exhibits a basic traders instinct and is dedicated to life-long learning

in its many forms.

Berglund and Johansson (2007) explained that effective

entrepreneurs are more likely than others to systematically plan and

monitor network activities as well as to undertake actions towards

increasing their network density and diversity. Entrepreneurs are involved

in planning or starting firms and must engage in a continuous process of

appraising prospects for success. Entrepreneurs are extremely efficient and

flexible at delivering a product or service.

Gurol and Atsan (2006) stated that there are five characteristics

describing a successful entrepreneur and these are:

(a)Risk taking propensity(b)Tolerance for ambiguity(c)Locus of control(d)Need for achievement(e) Innovativeness(f) Self-confidence


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Chen at al (2005) suggests that entrepreneurs should have the

following traits:

(a)Self-efficacy an individuals cognitive estimates of his or her own(Wood and Bandura, 1989).

(b)Independenceneeded to bring in new ideas and undertake risks

(c)Achievement motivation individuals with the strong need to achieveoften find their way to entrepreneurship and succeed than others

(Carsrud and Johnson, 1989; McClelland, 1965)

(d)Risk-taking entrepreneurs are undertakers of innovation and venturebusiness and must have the courage to forward venture (Caird, 1988)

(e)The capability to endure the uncertain circumstances entrepreneursshould have enough confidence and endurance in the uncertain

circumstances

(f) The ability to seize business opportunities from the complicated market this differentiate an entrepreneur and common employees (Caird,

1988)

(g)Interdisciplinary knowledge and multi-function working background entrepreneurial activities require comprehensive qualities

(h)The ability to learn from failures

Although these facts reveal that a successful entrepreneur is the

product of the person and his intuition, society and culture also play their

importance in creating one. Hynes (1996) stated that there is argument that

enterprise culture is developed naturally, but the changing environmental

conditions necessitates that we cannot solely rely on this passing on of

knowledge, and there is a need to provide intervention to promote the

entrepreneurial culture. Education, according to Hynes (1996) can be

viewed as an important intervention. This was supported by other

researchers (Weber, 1980; Collins and Moore, 1964) who suggested that

entrepreneurial role can be culturally and experientially acquired with

education and training.


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The role of education in creating a successful entrepreneur cannot be

denied. However, literatures pointed that not all entrepreneurial learning or

not all kind of education will lead to the creation of a successful

entrepreneur. A study conducted by Kolveried and Moen (1997) indicated

that graduates with an entrepreneurship major are more likely to start newbusinesses and have stronger entrepreneurial intention than other graduates.

This means that simply a higher education level does not guarantee

entrepreneurial behaviours, much more success in entrepreneurship.

Education in this sense means, entrepreneurship education and training,

which can significantly provide a better chance of success for potential

entrepreneurs.

Hansemark (1998) suggests that there is a specific learning

discourse that can effectively produce successful entrepreneurs. He

suggests those superior pedagogical models, problem-based learning (PBL)

and action learning (AL) should be used in entrepreneurial education. AL

(Revans, 1982) means learning by doing and these actions with some risk,

to be used on problems with no solutions fixed in advance. PBL (Baud and

Feletti, 1991) means that the real world situations are the starting point for

problem solving that the individual is responsible for personal own learning

and that learning occurs in a group setting.

McMullan and Long (1987) suggest that instructional methodology

is not well suited to aspiring entrepreneurs. They argued that in order to

provide effective entrepreneurial education, students should deal with

ambiguity and complexity. They must learn how to find problems as well as

how to design solutions and should have substantial hands-on experience

working with small firm sector.

Hansemark (1998) explains that the fundamental purpose of the

entrepreneurship program is to develop abilities, knowledge, skills,

attitudes and personal attributes important for the entrepreneurial activity.


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Abilities include a person can see possibilities, create reliable business

plans, build personal networks, create financial resources, create an

organization to implement the business idea, and implement it on the

market, and to make a good choice in startup timing and choice of location.

Development of knowledge includes the aspects of marketing,

business law, business economics and how to create financial resources.

Skills development includes creativity, planning, oral presentation and

argumentation, decision making, and interpersonal skills. The goal for the

programme also includes learning about the cultures, norms, values and

attitudes, in which the entrepreneur works, for example positive attitudes

for new development and renewal. In addition, entrepreneurship

programme should also develop the participants psychological

characteristics, need for achievement and locus of control (Hansemark,

1998).

Jack and Anderson (1999) highlighted another important point on

the aspect of education and its contribution to making a successful

entrepreneur. They stated that entrepreneurship is both science and art.

Some aspects of entrepreneurship cannot be taught and it is fundamentally

experiential. Gibb (1993) suggests that this can be overcome by having

students work in small business, thus learning by doing. Students who work

as entrepreneurs will encounter the risks and ambiguity of the unstructured

situation experienced by most entrepreneurs. True entrepreneurial learning

should encompass both concept and procedure, so that people are

encouraged to use their own initiative to secure their economic future

(Bridge et al, 1998).


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3.0 Personal Opinions

The question, which is more important education or experience?to become a

successful entrepreneur, is a difficult one to answer. In my personal opinion, themaking of a successful entrepreneur requires both elements education and

experience. However, in determining which comes first, education or experience, I

am in favour of experience. However, going though an education program that

promotes entrepreneurship is also an experience so in this sense, the experience

gathered from the education efforts provides the person with the behaviours, skills,

attitudes, and personal attributes to make a successful entrepreneur.

It is my personal belief that entrepreneurial spirit comes from experience

which is provided by the culture and world view of the individual. Characteristics

that build entrepreneurial spirits such as risk taking, opportunist, fearless,

manipulator, daring and so on are developed through life experiences. Specifically,

past experience in relation to work plays a significant role to create an interest in

entrepreneurship. This was commented by Mohd Salleh (1992) whose study

revealed that the influence of different types of work experience on business

students entrepreneurial tendency in higher education. His research revealed that

majority of students who had not permanent full time job experience after their

secondary education were less enterprising compared to those with greater number

of permanent full-time job, especially among those having full-time jobs in small

business organizations. Thus, this suggests the importance of certain type of work

experience in creating an enterprising individual.

This implies that not all experience lead to success in entrepreneurship. Avery experience person who has work in conglomerate companies, dealing with

complex business dealings or working at executive level for a long time in the

public service might fail at entrepreneurship. This means not all experiences lead to

successful entrepreneurial endeavors but rather, specific experiences which


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promote the behaviours, skills, attitudes and personal traits of a successful

entrepreneur are what count the most.

It could also come from education as going through the process of education

itself presents experience that can mould these characteristics in a person.However, I believe that a person lacking in entrepreneurial spirit might find it hard

to survive as an entrepreneur. Nonetheless, education can help strengthen the

entrepreneurial elements of a person, which contribute to becoming a successful

entrepreneur.

Thus, in my opinion, experience is more important in making a successful

entrepreneur. This experience however does not refer to the general experience but

rather, experience that supports the development of an entrepreneurial person.

Thus, a person who is a pensioner, having worked for more than 30 years could be

regarded as a highly experienced person but does not guarantee his success as an

entrepreneur. However, if his work and personal experience (which is reflected by

the culture where he lives) played a significant role in developing his enterprising

behaviours, skills, attitude and personal trait, then he will surely be successful.

These are portrayed in the successful entrepreneurs of the world and in Malaysia.

Their experiences from work or personal background mould them to have certain

characteristics needed to succeed in entrepreneurial endeavors.

Nevertheless, I would also say that education is an important learning

experience to make a successful entrepreneur. In Malaysia, as in other nations,

building and developing an entrepreneurial culture has become inevitable to create

more entrepreneurs. Students in primary, secondary and tertiary education are now

educated or given the learning experience with intention to assimilate

entrepreneurial traits and values. This is education, yet at the same time, it spells

out an intentional learning experience.

I also agree with the literatures which highlighted that the content as well as

the delivery method of entrepreneurial education and training must be taken into


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consideration. Experiential learning, action learning and problem-based learning all

but integrate education and experience. In other words, experience becomes the

teacher. We cannot simply blame entrepreneurship major students who failed as

entrepreneurs after their training or reluctance and failure of participants who

attended entrepreneurship training because the training itself did not consider thesignificance of right content and methods of delivery.

As a personal experience, I have attended some entrepreneurial training

workshops which seemed to be teaching or imparting skills of entrepreneurs such

as development of business plans, revelations of entrepreneurial traits and

characteristics, information about entrepreneurship supports in Malaysia,

information about potential opportunity and business ventures in Malaysia but

delivery? Participants sit down to listen to lecture; they do hypothetical business

plans, without actually leaving the training premises; case studies not related to

their context and interests were used; among other things. I believe with such

approaches, entrepreneurs were not made, simply given the hope that they might

survive the demanding world of business and if they do fail, it is understandable.

Therefore, in my opinion, experience is the best teacher that makes a

successful entrepreneur but education itself is a learning experience which, when

the content and delivery can promote and develop the persons behaviours, skills,

attitudes and personal attributes required by enterprising activities, then education

is also important.

Which comes first? It depends. If the person is educated in entrepreneurship

and this becomes a learning experience for him, then education comes first; on a

condition that the education serves as a learning experience. Experience comes

first, if it also promotes entrepreneurial acumens. When this did not happen, then

experience has to be supported by education and it is up to the individual to

reframe and unlearn in order to pick up the right ingredients for successful

entrepreneurship.


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4.0 Conclusion

The question, which is more important and which comes first experience or

education, is crucial to answer because the Malaysia government is currentlypursuing a concerted effort to promote entrepreneurship among the population

especially the Bumiputeras, which is seen as lagging behind the rest of the

population. This is gleaned from the Ninth Malaysia Plan whereby, 80,000

participants will undergo entrepreneurship training and another 102,000 will be

given coaching and advice services. Until 30th November 2005, Tabung Ekonomi

Kumpulan Usaha Niaga (TEKUN) has provides loans to 104,202 small business

enterprises which amounted to RM495,165,500. Most recently, the government

through the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Development (MECD) had

announced plan to establish the Entrepreneur Development Board (Majlis

Pembangunan UsahawanMPU) in all major towns throughout the country. These

are governments effort in creating more new entrepreneurs in the country.

The slowdown of economy, the rising of unemployment and the ever-

turbulent job market have all but led to the rationale of creating more

entrepreneurs. Lessons learnt from the economic recession in 1996-8 showed that

entrepreneurial activities from the small and medium industries enabled the

country to withstand pressures from economic recession. Malaysia was not hard hit

by recession, as experienced by neighboring countries at that time.

These recent changes necessitated the move toward entrepreneurs or self-

employment, which will have an increasingly important element of economic

growth and development (Hynes, 1996). To ensure sustainable increase in self-employment, it is critical that Malaysia has in place, the correct infrastructure to

facilitate this development. One critical aspect of this infrastructure is the creation

of an enterprise culture which will encourage and entice individuals to take the risk

of starting a business (Haynes, 1996).


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However, the country cannot rely on building the number of entrepreneurs

alone. We need successful business ventures with sustainability, resilience and

ability to embrace the changes as they come. In short, successful entrepreneurs are

called for. Thus, it becomes important to identify which is more important and

why. Education, training and development are human capital developmentactivities which have become costlier but crucial to develop quality knowledge

workers for the country.

Thus, if experience and education are important to create successful

entrepreneurs, then the question now is what kind of experience? What kind of

education? This paper has illuminated some clues to these questions. Nevertheless,

continuous and further researches are imperative to answer these questions.

In conclusion, there is still a valid argument among scholars, practitioners

and the public on which aspect is more important: experience or education.

However, this paper has highlighted that both are important. It is not a question of

which is more important education or experience. What is more important is

whether the experience and/or education were able to mould the person to have

entrepreneurship behaviours, skills, attitudes and personal traits. Whichever

develops the individuals enterprising acumens is considered as the superior one or

the more important one. Nevertheless, both are important to the development of a

persons entrepreneurial characteristics.


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Entreneurship Experience or Education