Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

third most common competency was synthesizing
environmental forces across disciplines.
Competencies that appealed in fewer disciplines
were acquiring resources, financial skills, and
growing and managing the business (See Table 1).
As indicated earlier, our students through their
classes have an opportunity to refine these three
skills sets by becoming consultants and assisting
businesses in multiple areas, such as business
planning, market feasibility studies,
importing/exporting, etc., which refines the critical
thinking skills of the students. Again, a principal
component of this model is the interaction between
local residents who have challenges in multiple
areas and students. Thus the cross-campus
entrepreneurship program is built on learning
strategies that move entrepreneurship into the
mainstream of higher education learning. Students
become more competitive in the job market upon
graduation. Moreover, they develop entrepreneurial
mindsets and skillsets that are needed to start their
own business or grow an existing business when
they opt to take employment in a small/medium
enterprise.
Table 1 Critical Competencies based on Cross-
Disciplinary Entrepreneurship Learning Objectives
Typology of
competencies
appearing in program
syllabi
Developing personal
skill sets
Synthesizing
environmental forces
and issues
Applying
entrepreneurial
marketing strategies
Understanding
entrepreneurship in
different contexts
Employ effective
communication skills
Applying financial
skills
Recognizing
opportunities
Developing personal
creativity
Designing effective
teams
Number of
student
learning
objectives
Number of
disciplines
represented
53 15
39 10
33 6
26 13
24 9
18 5
14 7
12 5
9 5
Acquiring resources 3 3
Growing and managing
the business
2 2
from understanding how universal these objectives
really are. Knowing this will help to engage their
interest and commitment to entrepreneurship
education. These findings have the potential to
change the face of higher education as we know it.
One of the major issues that developing and
developed economies are facing is a lack of student
preparedness for real world employment as well as
the burden of student debt post-graduation. At the
same time, there have been major upheavals
globally, socially, politically, and technologically
(Welsh and Dragusin, 2011, 2013). These
environmental forces have constrained students’
success because almost nothing stays familiar for
long in today’s business environment. Thinking
critically and synergistically about business and
about life after graduation is the new imperative.
Cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship is not business
as usual.
REFERENCES
[1] Bloom B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational
objectives. Handbook I: The cognitive
domain. New York, NY: David McKay Co
Inc.
[2] Forehand, M. (2005). Bloom's taxonomy:
Original and revised. In M. Orey (Ed.),
Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching,
and technology. Retrieved February 2, 2017,
from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
[3] Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (1987). A working
definition of critical thinking. Retrieved
August 24, 2010, from
http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/crit2.html.
[4] Welsh, D.H.B., & Dragusin, M. (2011).
Entrepreneurship education in higher
education institutions as a requirement in
building excellence in business: The case of
The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. Forum Ware International
Journal, http://forumware.wu-wien.ac.at/,
Special issue on International Society of
Commodity Science and Technology, 1, 266-
272 (ISSN 1810-7028).
[5] Welsh, D.H.B., & Dragusin, M. (2013). The
new generation of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCS) and entrepreneurship
education. Small Business Institute© Journal,
9(1), 51-65.
CONCLUSION
The impetus on us in higher education institutions is
to infuse these competencies systematically across
the campus in all disciplines. Faculty will benefit
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