TEACHING ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INITIATIVES: SOME CASES OF SUCCESS

There are many investigations about what young people should study before going to the university in order to motivate them to be entrepreneurs. One of the most famous forums is the one that takes place in Lyon (France) almost every year called “World Entrepreneurship Forum”.

This Forum brings together over 80 international entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and politicians, as well as academics working in the field of entrepreneurship. The forum has a guiding principle: “entrepreneurs are creators of wealth and social justice: long-term and sustainable prosperity for all will depend, in large part, on their imagination, courage, energy, and skills” (Encouraging social and commercial entrepreneurship, 2009).

The article reinforces the need to teach entrepreneurial initiatives not just in Business and Technical Schools, but in previous stages of learning. It is important to analyze in deep entrepreneurial initiatives from an historical point of view. The objective of the paper is to understand the importance of making students know about successful initiatives where they can identify themselves as potential entrepreneurs. The paper is oriented to provide lecturer's with tools on how to teach and analyze companies from the moment they were startups up to now and the analysis of the main reasons why they have become successful businesses. This paper tries to become a guide for Education Institutions in order to understand various aspects, first of all, the entrepreneurial aspects that students have to consider before starting a business, second, the characteristics that successful businesses have in common, and finally how an entrepreneur can be innovative and how he/she can achieve success.