Innovation in pedagogy for engineers' entrepreneurial culture

Is it possible to develop an entrepreneurial culture amongst students studying in engineering schools?. Business organisations recruit employees with new competencies (Zarifian, 2004), including entrepreneurial skills, and that, since engineering graduates will be required to display such skills, engineering schools will have to take this into account. Consequently, engineers have to acquire the appropriate relational and social values. As the education of engineers tends to focus on technical know-how, however, these new competencies do not always come naturally. We assume that a degree of "acculturation" is possible within the framework of a specifically designed constructivist educational programme in which the active participation of students is encouraged. We attempt, in the first part of the paper, to clarify what is meant by the term entrepreneurial culture, based on Hjorth and Johannisson's perspective (2007). Then, we focus on one action-based learning programme designed to develop an entrepreneurial spirit in young students studying in engineering schools. In the second part, we introduce the background context of the programme and describe the research methodology, which involved the use of a Likert scale questionnaire before and after the course followed by a series of interviews. In the third part, we present some of the results. The most striking changes were observed in the following areas: self-confidence, followed by decision-making skills, a critical mindset and lastly, problem-solving skills. There was less change in criteria such as creativity, curiosity, persuasion and leadership. However, the criteria differed according to the entrepreneurial family background of the students.