by Peter Mellalieu
Mellalieu, P. J. (2006). Creating Enterprise in Extreme Environments: Strategic Leadership from an Entrepreneurship Development Centre at the University of Botswana (p. 67). Auckland, NZ: New Zealand Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Unitec Institute of Technology. Retrieved from http://web.me.com/petermellalieu/Teacher/Examples/Entries/2007/10/18_Creating_enterprise_in_extreme_environments__Strategic_leadership_from_an_entrepreneurship_development_centre_at_the_University_of_Botswana.html
This report presents recommendations to the University of Botswana’s Faculty of Business for extending substantially... more
This report presents recommendations to the University of Botswana’s Faculty of Business for extending substantially its Business Clinic into an Entrepreneurship Development Centre. Recommendations to the University beyond the Faculty of Business are also made.
Botswana has set itself the challenge of becoming an ‘innovative and prosperous nation’. The challenge appears daunting. The country has embarked on a journey to make the quantum jump to a country with world-class, high-growth companies by 2016. In contrast, at the time of independence in 1966 the country was a traditional hunter-gatherer village-based society. Accordingly, the education and development system required for Botswana's 21st century global citizen must extend to include identifying and developing job-makers: world-class entrepreneurs and innovators.
The principal focus of Botswana’s current formal education system seems mainly to educate job-takers for the public sector and larger companies. Furthermore, Botswana's impressive record of growth has not translated into socioeconomic transformation: "Over-dependence on diamonds, high unemployment levels and unacceptably high levels of poverty and inequality - both in terms of assets and income - are persistent problems." (Clover, 2003, p. 4). One approach to overcoming these persistent problems is to create an abundance of “grass roots” support for enterprising behavior throughout the nation.
The job-makers and wealth creators that Botswana requires are termed ‘serial innovators and entrepreneurs’. They are habitual and compulsive in their passion for innovation and creating substantial new enterprise. They are ‘weirdly wired’ people, who some might regard as ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’ in view of the risks they appear to take. However, these habitual innovators participate in leading substantial business and social change in the communities for which they create and provide new products or new service delivery systems. Furthermore, these entrepreneurs provide leadership in creating substantial forms of wealth - financial and/or social - from the new opportunities they identify, exploit, and grow into sustainable organisations.
A series of course topics is outlined for delivery as workshops and/or educational programmes through the proposed Entrepreneurship Development Centre. The course topics are directly linked to develop competencies required to embrace all elements of the entrepreneurial process model, developed by Bolton and Thompson (2001).
Furthermore, it is recommended that at least one of the three following courses are required to be studied by all students at the University of Botswana:
A strengths-based course in personal and professional career development;
Foundations of innovation and entrepreneurship;
New venture start-up project.
The most urgent recommendation is for the Faculty of Business to institutionalize formally a regular, monthly programme of 'real world learning adventures'. The format of these learning adventures was devised specifically for the Botswana context. The events are branded with the suggested name: Enterprise in Action™ (EIA). An EIA event focusses equally on business networking and knowledge exchange. Both business networking and knowledge exchange are crucial elements in aiding the success of entrepreneurs as they overcome the many obstacles that they experience in their pursuit of success. Three examples of ‘real world learning adventures’ were designed and implemented during the author’s four-month residence in the Botswana. The last adventure formed the pilot/prototype version for the Enterprise in Action format.
Many Batswana return to their homeland from study or work in foreign countries. They bring back knowledge, experience, and professional contacts to Botswana. However, a proportion of these returning Batswana are not deployed effectively upon their return home. Accordingly, one important opportunity is for a proportion of the Enterprise in Action programmes to focus on providing a networking opportunity to help the productive re-integration into Botswana business and community life of returning Batswana.
Fundamental to the success of the proposed initiatives is that the University of Botswana implements concurrently processes to identify and develop ‘entrepreneur enablers’. Entrepreneur enablers form a unique selection of teachers, consultants, advisors, and informal investors. Entrepreneur enablers intervene directly to help their ‘client entrepreneurs’ overcome obstacles, and build their entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Bolton and Thompson, 2004, 2006, Lucas and Cooper, 2004).
The full report outlines a series of five Strategic Focus Areas (SFAs) as a basis for collaborative development of the entire University’s commitment to becoming an enterprising institution. The Strategic Focus Areas are chosen to ensure that the University of Botswana builds a robust, widespread, and significant core-competency in entrepreneurship development for business, technological, and social contexts. The five Strategic Focus Areas recommended for institutionalization are:
SFA 1: Business innovation and entrepreneurship.
SFA 2: Design, technology, and science-based innovation and entrepreneurship
SFA 3: Social sector innovation and entrepreneurship
SFA 4: Mass entrepreneurship
SFA 5: Entrepreneur enabler identification and development
Beyond these initiatives, the University should evolve the Entrepreneurship Development Centre and the other SFAs into a university-wide, world-class applied research and development centre focussing on innovation and enterprise development studies in the southern Africa region: A Centre for Innovation and Enterprise Development Studies.
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