HOW TO INTEGRATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND CREATIVITY INTO A BUREAUCRATIC ENVIRONMENT (CASE STUDY)

Research has revealed that there is a positive correlation between entrepreneurship and economic growth. As a consequence, the European Commission is taking action on enhancing entrepreneurship and recommends appropriate entrepreneurship training in schools and higher education. Besides other factors, entrepreneurship education is often characterised by creativity, problem solving, interdisciplinarity and practice orientation. With respect to these aspects, universities might not be the right environment to launch an education for entrepreneurship and creativity. They are often inflexible institutions characterised by bureaucratic structures, laborious decision processes, and highly regulated procedures. Although they should teach entrepreneurship and creativity, they are caught up in bureaucracy and stagnancy themselves. Nevertheless, universities are obliged by government to contribute essentially to entrepreneurship education. In this case study, we examined the integration of entrepreneurship education under the challenging circumstances mentioned above. The university in this case study is home to more than 32,000 students and 4,000 employees, 6 faculties, 76 departments, and about 120 study programs. Due to cooperation with other institutions, about 60,000 students are allowed to participate. The program in this study provides basics in management, entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship to increase general employability and to promote creativity, interdisciplinary thinking and entrepreneurial acting. The findings of our study indicate the importance of a setting that allows students to participate irrespective of their discipline or the progress in their studies. Moreover, it seems advantageous that students can customise the program according to their specific needs. The importance of flexible integration into regular academic studies has to be emphasised. In this study, we provide an adequate solution to master this challenge in a bureaucratic environment.