Abstract:

The current economic system in which companies develop their activity has generated an increasing need of versatility and adaptability which, in turn, has affected the competences demanded by these firms. However, though these competences are frequently reflected in the curricula, they are not always applied in practice, what entails both a theoretical and practical ignorance on the part of the students.
With the intention of solving this ambiguity, in this paper we propose a pedagogical activity based on an approach to a real problem that many students may face after finishing their studies: the development of a successful business idea. In particular, such activity is aimed to be carried out by all the students enrolled in a certain degree, in this case in the degree in Engineering and Business Management of EDEM-Business School, which must be organized in multi-level groups. In this way, and using all the materials, techniques and methods studied during the degree, students are supposed to generate a complete business model and prototype of their idea which must be jointly evaluated by their peers and a committee of experts in the subject at the end of the exercise. Coming up next and as a wrap up of the activity, students should be asked to score the level in which the activity has contributed to develop a series of competences inherent to their degree.
Our findings show that this activity is able to generate an adequate learning and practicality environment in which students make use of both their teamwork and synthesis skills in an integrated way with the goal of reaching a feasible and consensual solution. Likewise, this activity also allows us to collect direct information about the competences worked by students during a particular exercise which, in turn, gives us a great opportunity to draw conclusions about the differences among the theoretical competences showed in the curricula and the competences really obtained and recognized by its participants.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship, competences, decision-making, business model, teamwork.