Abstract:

The European Union (EU) needs to increase its competitiveness in order to remain able to provide high living standards for its citizens and therefore competitiveness in high in the EU political agenda. It is commonly acknowledged that entrepreneurship is crucial for a country’s global competitiveness. While the EU countries have consistently high competitiveness rankings in the Global Competitiveness Reports, it is argued that Europe lags the world in entrepreneurship. My analysis shows that not all kinds of entrepreneurship are equally important for the country’s competitiveness in the EU. Only intrapreneurship is positively and strongly correlated with the country’s competitiveness. This means that in order to increase its competitiveness, Europe needs more intrapreneurship.

My analysis confirms that in the EU innovation and competitiveness are related phenomena, as innovation-driven economies are more competitive. Innovation requires entrepreneurial behaviour among employees working in companies i.e. intrapreneurship. But the levels of intrapreneurial activity are still low in the EU countries, which creates a challenge for European companies, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), regarding their competitiveness.

Education is the means to increase intrapreneurship in Europe. The sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is included amongst the EU list of eight key competences for lifelong learning. Developing the needed competencies of future employees is the role of higher education institutions (HEIs). This is especially relevant for the European SMEs, that are the engine of the European economy, but have fairly limited resources and capacity for in-service training of their employees.

There are two definitions of entrepreneurship education: narrow definition – students are supported to become entrepreneurs themselves, and broad definition – students are supported to act entrepreneurially and acquire entrepreneurial competencies, which they can use in working life, being employed by companies or other organisations. Entrepreneurship programmes in European HEIs typically focus on independent entrepreneurship, rather than developing an entrepreneurial mind-set. Students are prepared to become entrepreneurs, but not intrapreneurs. My analysis shows that entrepreneurship education based on the narrow definition is not correlated with the intrapreneurship levels nor the competitiveness of the countries in the EU. Entrepreneurship courses are also often elective courses in European HEIs and not available for non-business students. These are the major shortcomings of entrepreneurship education offered in Europe.

Entrepreneurship education in Europe needs to change if Europe wants to increase its competitiveness. The way forward is to use the broad definition of entrepreneurship education in the design of the curricula of entrepreneurship courses, which should be compulsory for all students, irrespective of their field of study.

Keywords:

Competitiveness, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, innovation, entrepreneurship education.