Abstract:

Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education (EE) was proven to have a positive economic impact on societies. EE is being extended to various educational disciplines and levels, and even outside university borders. Research on EE is following a similar trajectory and has been growing rapidly in recent years. A focus on new innovative methods and practices, investigating the “how” and “through” rather than the “what” and “content” is asked for by both researchers and practitioners to find solutions to the critical limitations of traditional approaches to EE: catering for to the increased demand, lack of qualified educators, and difficulty in teaching practical skills to students.

Digital/ educational technologies is argued to improve entrepreneurial competences (EC) and provide a sense of familiarity to new tech-savvy generations, thus reducing resistance to EE and improving its propagation. As literature is advising for more research to be done at the nexus of digital technologies and EE, researchers also suggest it might be time to take a step back, have a more strategic look and conduct comparative reviews of existing work to help direct future research and practical endeavors.

Hence, the purpose of this paper it to map digital/ educational technologies used in entrepreneurship education against the entrepreneurial competences they help develop. For this purpose, I conducted a systematic literature review for empirical papers investigating impact of the different digital technologies in entrepreneurship education. Findings related to the benefits, outcomes, effects, and impacts of the technologies listed in the reviewed papers were translated into comparable ECs and using the EntreComp Framework as a reference tool.

A total of 48 relevant papers were selected from Scopus, WoS and a snowballing method. The papers were then reviewed and analysed using a predefined methodology (Tranfield et al., 2003). The review found that the most commonly investigated technologies are business simulations and serious games. The range of ECs that the reviewed technologies help develop differ based on the used technology and the purpose it is used for. However, it was found the “into action” (practical) set of competences were the most to be developed through the use of digital technologies.
The research will help advance literature at the nexus of digital technologies and entrepreneurship education, provide a link between ECs and the EE research fields. In addition, it can provide insights to educators, education managers and educational technology experts on which technology to use for what purpose, and how they impact the development of ECs in their students and target users

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship education, Educational technology, Entrepreneurial competences, EntreComp, Literature review.