Kozminski University: Developing Minds for Ambitious Entrepreneurship and Training Teachers at Other Universities

Abstract

Kozminski University (KU) is a Polish private business and law school established in 1993. It has 5300 students and a leading position in management education in Poland as well as Central and Eastern Europe. KU offers curricular EE for Bachelor, Master and PhD degrees. Most offers are for BA students in Management with a Major in Entrepreneurship. While KU had been offering entrepreneurship courses since its early years, since 2004 the University has embarked on promoting ambitious entrepreneurship among students. This proved to be a fruitful direction but necessitated reshaping minds and attitudes of students and teachers, shifting their focus away from small-scale establishments to business ventures with growth ambitions. Such a shift turned out to be challenging: the pool of students with the right mindset for ambitious entrepreneurship was so far found to be limited at KU itself. However, KU established links with students from other universities in the region and country and from non-business academic disciplines in extra-curricular activities. In these activities it was particularly fruitful for the quality of business projects to mix students from various disciplines like business management, engineering, agriculture and arts. KU also initiated a programme for training entrepreneurship lecturers from other higher education institutions who in turn introduced entrepreneurship courses in 40 non-business universities in Poland. KU’s experiences in EE and lessons learned may be particularly relevant for “catching up” higher education institutions with limited prior experience in teaching entrepreneurship. It may be important for the transferability of such experiences that a substantial part of teaching materials is already available in written form.

References

Research for this case was conducted by Professor Jerzy Cieślik, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Kozminski University, on behalf of the study for supporting the entrepreneurial potential of higher education (sepHE). The author has been deeply involved and in fact managed the process of engaging Kozminski University in ambitious EE. Although effort has been made by the author to ensure objectivity, some personal reflection was unavoidable.

Sources and references used include:

• Panel discussion held on 25 of July 2014 at Kozminski University premises with two entrepreneurship lecturers at Kozminski University Prof. Izabela Koładkiewicz and Prof. Piotr Kaczmarek-Kurczak

• Interview with Prof. Agnieszka Skala—an entrepreneurship lecturer at the Warsaw Polytechnic. The interview has been carried out on 23 July 2014 at Warsaw Polytechnic premises

• The case relied heavily on discussions and presentations of students and graduates participating in various extra-curricular programmes initiated by KU. Some of them have been summarised in an unpublished master thesis by Balicka (2009) or videotaped

• As a background material, a large-scale questionnaire survey covering 28% of the entire population of KU students has been used. The survey has been administered on behalf of KU Chair of Entrepreneurship in May 2013

1.1 Literature

Balicka M (2009) Kształtowanie postaw przedsiębiorczych studentów poprzez programy edukacyjne (Shaping entrepreneurial minds of students through educational programmes). Unpublished KU Master Thesis, Kozminski University

Cieślik J (2006) Przedsiębiorczość dla ambitnych: jak uruchomić własny biznes (Ambitious entrepreneurship. How to launch your own business). WAIP, Warsaw

Cieślik J, Guliński J, Matusiak KB, Skala-Poźniak A (2011) Edukacja dla przedsiębiorczości akademickiej (Education for Academic Entrepreneurship). PARP, Warsaw

Cieślik J, van Stel A (2014) Comparative analysis of recent trends in private sector development in CEE transition economies. Entrep Res J 4(2):205–235

Katz JA, Green II RP (2011) Entrepreneurial small business. McGraw Hill, New York

Kwiatkowski S, Edvinsson L (eds) (1999) Knowledge Café for Intellectual Entrepreneurship. Leon Kozminski Academy for Entrepreneurship and Management, Warsaw

Longenecker JG, Petty JW, Palich LE, Hoy F (2011) Small business management: launching and growing entrepreneurial ventures. South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, OH

Stam E, Bosma N, van Witteloostuijn A, De Jong J, Bogaert S, Edwards A, Jaspers F (2012) Ambitious entrepreneurship: a review of the state of the art, Vlaamse Raad voor Wetenschap en Innovatie. StudieReeks 23. Brussels, Belgium