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Entrepreneurship Education inJapan

Philippe Debroux Soka UniversityFaculty of Business Administration

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Regional Innovation Policies and SMEsMaison Franco-Japonaise 2010, February 3-4

• ‘Entrepreneurship Education’ is becoming popular in Japanfrom primary and secondary education to tertiaryeducation

- primary and secondary schools’ programs are increasinglysophisticated and involve a growing number ofstakeholders outside of the schools themselves: otherschools, community, region

- programs in tertiary schools are integrated in MBA, EMBAand MOT courses and lead to the creation of incubatorsand practical large scale projects linked to regionaldevelopment

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Drivers of the Perceived Need forEntrepreneurship Education

Perception (right or wrong) that Japan is‘missing the boat’ of globalization:

• ‘Big Champions’ stuck into ‘innovation trap’ or/andunable to leverage their technological andmanagement expertise on world markets

• World class ‘Small champions’ are suffering fromageing top management. Even those in high tech/highgrowth industries have a relatively low profitabilitybecause they have difficulties to leverage competitiveadvantage outside of manufacturing

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• Shortage of innovative ventures: few innovative newcompanies emerged during the last 30 years taking advantageof the ICT revolution and there is little prospect of significantchanges in the short-term : Where are the Japanese Google,Cisco or Microsoft of the future ?

• In large companies and in SMEs: difficulties remain toundertake breakthrough innovation

• University spin-offs: they are mostly unprofitable andsuffering from poor management. Many may have specificknowledge and technologies but have problems to combinetheir intellectual assets with others in order to put productson the market

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• Perception than one of the reasons explainingthe situation is the lack of ‘entrepreneurialspirit’ in a broad sense in Japanese society

• The discussion centers on two separated butrelated issues:

How can Japan develop more innovators ?

How can it nurture, encourage and keep inJapan the innovators it already has ?

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Idea that Education System is one of the problemsand Part of the Solution

• Education system considered as ill-adapted to what is perceived as necessary todevelop innovation: acceptance of risk and failure, self-reliance, initiative-taking:the educational system discourage movement in unconventional directions, anddoes not encourage open inquiry and challenge against authority

• The image of entrepreneurship as a socially acceptable professional model is (atbest) moderate. The image of greed, fast money, individualism associated to socialirresponsibility is still attached to the concept

• Surveys indicate that a much lower percentage of young Japanese people declareto be interested in creating or working in a new venture than in the United States,South-Korea, China and a number of European countries

• Japan is close to the bottom of the table on entrepreneurial activities, for examplein the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey

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• Everybody in Japan agrees that reforms of theeducation system must emphasize dynamicprocesses of learning and commitment but thereis a large discrepancy about what should be donein public, business and academic circles:

- there is no agreement on the ideals andobjectives of the reforms of the education system

- the debate is on about what could be the mostappropriate policy and what could be the role ofthe main stakeholders in the reforms

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Reforms of the educational System ParallelingChanges in the Business system

• Since the 1980s, there was a shift fromstandardized education to ‘choice, discretion anddiversity’ at the primary, junior and high schoolslevels

• And changes at the level of universities to boostscientific research and promote relationshipsbetween universities and the business world

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• On the one hand, for some critics the reformsare a failure: it did lead to a decline in thequality of education, notably in mathematicsand science

• The reforms are said to have reduced the timeto study without fulfilling its objective offostering freedom of thought, initiatives andrisk-taking behavior and self-reliance amongchildren

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• On the other hand, many reformers maintain that Japan mustadopt much more radical reforms:

- The active questioning of authority must be incorporatedinto the school curriculum itself

- An environment where orthodox knowledge is openlychallenged and where new ideas are encouraged isindispensable in freeing imagination and fostering innovativethinking

- The reforms are not a complete success because too manycompromises have been done: initiatives have been dilutedand their impact diminished

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The terms of the debate on entrepreneurshipeducation

• Should entrepreneurship be taught in schools at all ?Opinion range from usefulness to pointlessness andeven dangerousness

But if yes:

• What should be taught ? How should it be taught ? Bywhom ? What would be the objectives ? How wouldthe result be assessed ? What does it imply in term ofchanges in the curriculum, training of the teachers,learning burden, cost, etc ?

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Definition of Entrepreneurship Education

• Entrepreneurship education refers to thepedagogic processes involved in theentrepreneurial activities behaviors andmindsets from the point of insight andcreativity at the outset to innovation andprogress when fully implemented

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• Integrative learning involves intentionallearning characterized by the individualstudent’s ability to make deep levelconnections between the process of academiclearning, reflective self-awareness, personaldevelopment and experiential learning in arange of practical contexts

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• There is a growing awareness thatentrepreneurial creativity and its realizationin practice requires precisely this integrativeapproach since it needs a mixture ofknowledge and understanding, interpersonalskills and competences and various thinkingstyles and behaviors in order to be successful

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• The characteristics associated with successfulentrepreneurial activity can be categorized interms of the entrepreneur as catalyst,opportunist and manager

• The growing recognition and demand forentrepreneurship education is thereforemotivated by the increasing need for thesecharacteristics

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The Terms of the Debate on EntrepreneurshipEducation

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry(METI) and the Ministry of Science, Educationand Technology (MEXT) advocateentrepreneurship education in a broader sensegoing beyond start-up type of entrepreneurship

It should encompasse all dimensions of self-reliance,risk-taking, curiosity that everybody shoulddevelop in our society as a business creator,salaried person, housewife or any other activities

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• In business term, entrepreneurship is notlimited to small companies: attitudes andbehavior that is attached to it, should pervademanagement of all types of organizations

• The ‘Silicon Valley model’ of entrepreneurshipis just one model among others, and may notbe the most appropriate to Japanese societyand economy

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• There is a need to replace entrepreneurship in itssocio-economic context: community and regionaldevelopment – social roles of entrepreneurship –support of both opportunity and necessity-typesof entrepreneurship

• This is a point of view that is in line with PeterDrucker’s argument: entrepreneurial spirit shouldbe embedded in all parts of society. It is linked tothe image of entrepreneurship andentrepreneurs in society at large

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At the level of primary and secondaryeducation there is a debate on theappropriateness of entrepreneurshipeducation:

- Fear of potential negative effect onschooling results: overcrowding of thecurriculum

- Positive effects are not obvious: difficult toassess through standard examinations

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- The connotation of money, greed andindividualism may be perceived negatively bysome parents and teachers

- Entrepreneurship education is resourceintensive in terms of academic and support staff:new competencies are required from teachers

- It goes against the strong tendency in Japaneseschools to compartmentalize learning rather thanintegrating the benefits, knowledge,understanding that students can gain in differentsituations and from different sources

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As a conclusion in a system completely drivenby entrance examination concerns,entrepreneurship education is considered asexpensive, cumbersome because it requiressignificant changes in the teaching habits anda reconsideration of evaluation systems, andits impact is difficult to appraise

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Several approaches are feasible:

- those engaging the students throughintegrative and reflective learning: inputs frompractitioners – engagement from the teachersand learners are expected – number of studentsinvolved is generally small because mentoringand group work are not conducive to large blockslectures – it requires more learning time to beeffective and new evaluation methods

In most schools it is difficult for the time being toconvince the parents and educators to make thelong-term investment

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- The second approach largely based onlectures does not supposes a strongengagement from the teachers and learners –it does not requires new specific curriculum –it does not require much learning time – it canaccommodate a larger number of students – itis less costly

It is generally more acceptable by staff,parents and students

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Japanese primary and secondary schools tryto conciliate the two approaches:

- Programs are devised to combine thestrength of learner engagement with large-scale impact in term of student numbers

- They are integrated in existing curricula in adiscrete manner: no or little increase on thelearning burden and no specificcomprehensive retraining of the teachers

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- In most schools entrepreneurship conceptsare linked to society welfare in general: thedimension of social responsibility is stronglyemphasized in all practical applications

- External interventions are often quite limitedas a result of time and budgetary constraints

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There is also a debate on the purpose andpracticality of the entrepreneurship educationprograms in universities

- Visible achievements such as qualificationsand certifications are considered as necessary,especially in a time of rising unemployment ofyoung graduates

- Reforms of the education system must focuson what actually works

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The central objective is not entrepreneurial creativity and

effective problem solving or on the actual innovation of newconcepts in practice, although the situation is changing withthe growing role of the incubators, and the largerinvolvement in local development projects

Most programmes fall in-between:

- entrepreneurial creativity and problem solving

- innovation and practice

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• Very few universities have a comprehensiveprograms fully devoted to entrepreneurship,although the number is growing

• In most leading public and private universitiesentrepreneurial education is part of coursestaught in MBA and MOT programs atgraduate level and career and personaldevelopment programs at undergraduatelevel

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• Identifiable areas of focus are taught and learntin modules such as finance and accounting,marketing, HRM, business policy and planning

• It often involves significant levels of group workand non-examination based work with guestspeakers and case studies analysis

• As in primary and secondary education levels:emphasis is put on the point thatentrepreneurship education cannot beseparated from corporate governance,compliance, social responsibility and businessethics

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• Collaboration with the public and privatesector provides useful material for students tolearn in middle ground

• New assessment methods are developed toevaluate student’s work

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Conclusion

Most Japanese schools at all levels are still lookingfor the best formula

On the whole it is still difficult to measure theimpact of the entrepreneurship programs thathave been put in place

Entrepreneurship education is only one aspect ofthe laying of foundations for a new educationparadigm but it is an important one because itcould be the trigger of deeper and broaderreforms of the education system

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