Entrepreneurship-Based Course Design: A Case Study of Its Application in Human Resource Planning and Development Course
Bayu Airlangga Putra, S.E., M.M. (bayu.airlangga@narotama.ac.id) M. Ikhsan Setiawan, S.T., M.T. (ikhsan.setiawan@narotama.ac.id)
Iswachyu Dhaniarti, S.T., M.HP. (rektor@narotama.ac.id)
Narotama University, Jl. Arief Rachman Hakim 51, Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia
Abstract:
The advancement and prosperity of a country are, in part, determined by the number of entrepreneurs in that country. Entrepreneurs can help a country’s economy by opening numerous job opportunities. In this respect, higher education institutions are expected to create a great number of entrepreneurs. One of the core components in a higher education activity is a course. Thus, a course should be better designed in such a way that can raise student’s motivation to get involved in entrepreneurial activities. This paper describes the application of an entrepreneurship-based course design in Human Resource Planning and Development (HRPD) course during the even semester of academic year 2014/2015 at Narotama University Surabaya. The most important part of that design is the main assignment that instructs the students to establish their own small business plans which cover vision, mission, and strategy for at least the next five years. After that, they must establish a detailed enough plan to conduct various human resource management activities directed to get qualified employees who can support the business in implementing its strategy. Finally, this paper also discusses the effectiveness of the HRPD course design in enhancing the students’ entrepreneurial motivation.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Higher Education, Course Design, Human Resource Management, Student’s Entrepreneurial Motivation.
Introduction
Entrepreneurship is a key for the prosperity of a country. Experts agree that entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful engines for economic growth (Kuratko, 2005 in Gedeon, 2014).
This is because entrepreneurs open large number of new businesses that provide jobs for more labors, which in turn reduce the level of unemployment. Entrepreneurs also tend to be innovative in their business operation. For instance, they often use technology that can enhance production process efficiency, so that increase the competitive advantage of their countries. In general, it can be said that entrepreneurship knowledge is a critical factor to attain success (Welsh & Dragusin, 2013). However, data show that in 2013 entrepreneur rate in Indonesia is only 1.56% of total population. This figure is below those in Malaysia and Singapore where entrepreneurship rate reach 5% and 7% respectively. Moreover, in developed countries, such as Japan and the United States, entrepreneurship rate can reach quite impressive figure of 10% and 12% respectively. Many researches suggest that the ideal number of entrepreneur in a developing country like Indonesia is at least 2% of its population (Santoso, 2014). Therefore, creating as many as possible entrepreneurs is a strategic activity that urgently should be done by governments. Higher education institutions, as government partners in education sector, have strategic role in assisting that process of entrepreneurship creation. University students are excellent human resources expected to become intellectual force in advancing a country in many aspects such as economy, technology, or culture. For that reason, after graduating in the future, they are expected to have knowledge, skill, and motivation needed to establish a business (Welsh & Dragusin, 2013). One of the core
elements in learning activity at university is lecturing activity. This activity is organized in the form of courses that can be taken by students every semester. In this respect, entrepreneur creation function must be integrated into lecturing activities which are manifested in the design of each course. This article reports the findings of a case study about the learning process and outcomes of Human Resource Planning and Development (HRPD) course during the even semester of academic year 2014/2015 at Narotama University Surabaya. The semester started from March 2015 and ended in early July 2015. In that semester, the HRPD course applied an entrepreneurship-based course design, even though it is not a subject that is directly related to business matter.
Research Method
This study is qualitative in its approach. It used a case study method as its strategy of inquiry, where the researcher deeply explores a program, event, activity, process, or one or more individuals. Case is bounded based on time and activity, and the researcher gathers detailed information using multiple data collecting procedures during a sustained time period (Stake, 1995 in Creswell, 2009). In this case study, one of the researchers is also the lecturer of HRPD course, so that gaining wide enough access to explore vast array of data related to the implementation of HRPD course, such as course design, teaching materials, students’
characteristics, students’ performances, and students’ attitudes toward the course. Active participants of HRPD course in even semester 2014-2015 is 11 (eleven) students. From that number, 5 (five) of them are involved as respondents for this study. Among those respondents, 3 (three) students gave answers interactively in several sessions of in-depth interview arranged by the researchers, and the other 2 (two) responded by filling in an open- ended questionnaire distributed via e-mail. Those in-depth interviews and open-ended questionnaires were used to explore as deeply as possible data about the learning process in HRPD course as well as conditions felt or experienced by students after completing the course. The data collection activity has been conducted in September and October 2015, about two months after the course finished. The expected outcome of this study is a comprehensive description about the implementation of HRPD course, which integrates some entrepreneurship principles into its design, and its effectiveness in raising entrepreneurial motivation among students.
Entrepreneurship Concepts
Entrepreneur is a person who exploits opportunity, often by recombining available resources, and in the other hand also bears uncertainty in the execution (Gümüsay, 2014). According to Eze and Nwali (2012) entrepreneurship activities are generally viewed as having advantages because show certain attributes as follows:
• Entrepreneur take an initiative to combine and allocate various resources;
• Entrepreneur make decisions about policy;
• Entrepreneur is an innovator who always involved in the art of creating new idea/product/business;
• Entrepreneur is a risk taker/bearer.
According to Nadim and Singh (2011), entrepreneur is an individual whose actions are relied on his creative ideas. This means that an entrepreneur is a dreamer who acts, not someone who only dreams but never acts, nor someone who realizes other’s dream without having his own dream.
Entrepreneurship Education
Many studies show strong relationship between education sector and the emergence of entrepreneurs. For instance, one study finds that the role of resources and other support
mechanism in educational environment positively have impact on students’ perception of entrepreneurship as career choice (Johannisson, 1991 and Autio et al., 1997, in Fayolle et al., 2006). Recently, the idea about entrepreneurship-oriented university has risen. More familiarly called “entrepreneurial university”, such university is a natural incubator which tries to provide supportive environment where university members can explore, evaluate, and use ideas that can be transformed into various entrepreneurship-oriented social and economic initiatives (Guerrero et al., 2012).
Narotama University is a higher education institution that is very concerned with entrepreneurship development. Narotama University’s mission statement sounds “to present a valid contribution in the development of science and technology for the sake of society welfare through education activities, research, and community service by means of communication and information technology”. It is very clear that the mission contains a strong will to participate in the efforts to improve the wealth of society. Then, the will is translated by the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) as one of its educational objectives aims to produce graduates who have ability to become an entrepreneur in real economy sector (small and medium enterprises). For that reason, the management of FEB always encourages lecturers to incorporate entrepreneurial elements into their course designs, especially ones related to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). There are three phases of entrepreneurial career: first, potential entrepreneur, which comprises those who have entrepreneurial intention; second, early-stages entrepreneurial activity, which comprises nascent and new entrepreneurs; third, established entrepreneurs (Xavier et al., 2012 dalam Croitoru, 2013). Using this concept, the learning outcome of an entrepreneurship-based course design in Narotama University is more focused on the effort to increase students’
entrepreneurial intention. However, this case study uses student’s entrepreneurial motivation concept rather than student’s entrepreneurial intention concept. This is because the concept of entrepreneurial motivation is regarded as more comprehensive, covering various factors inducing individual to start a business. As Dunham (2010) proposes, entrepreneurs often strive to exploit opportunities for various reasons, such as desire for achievement, need for independence, and passion for certain ideas.
Human Resource Planning and Development Course Design
According to Schuler and Jackson (2006), professionals in the field of human resource (HR) management must perform roles as business partner, consultant, innovator, monitor, and change manager. Among these roles, at least roles as business partner, innovator, and change manager have relevance with the characteristics of an entrepreneur. The role as business partner demands an understanding of external environment and an ability to participate in strategy formulation and implementation. The role as innovator demands an initiative to take action and make improvement in HR policies and practices continuously by taking advantage from technology advancement. Finally, the role as change manager demands a capability to understand long-term vision and strategy and to predict talents for future needs. Therefore, from above explanation, it can be concluded that HR management professionals must equip themselves with an entrepreneur attributes. It is this premise that at first triggered the development of entrepreneurship-based design for courses in HR management concentration, including Human Resource Planning and Development (HRPD) course. As stated by Fayole and Gailly (2008), an educator needs to plan his teaching model by initially answering five questions: what?, for whom?, why?, how?, and for which result? Question “what?” is related to the content of a course itself. Question “for whom?” refers to the target audiences of a certain course. Question “why?” has to do with the learning method to be used. The last, question “for which result?” is related to the evaluation and assessment. Based on the
questions above, the following is a general description of an entrepreneurship-based HRPD course. The content of HRPD course is about concepts and practices in HR planning and development oriented toward the implementation of entrepreneurial business strategy. The audiences of this course are management major students who had chosen HR management as their study concentration. The learning objective of HRPD course is equipping students with a number of competencies which are necessary in planning and developing HR in an entrepreneurial organization. In this respect, the students are directed to assume themselves as entrepreneurs focusing on the preparation of employees in order to support the business activity. The purpose of such arrangement is to raise students’ entrepreneurial motivation, even though not necessarily start early in their career. To accomplish the learning objective, a combination of tutorial, exercise, design project, and discussion was used as the learning method. Next paragraphs briefly explain the design project instructions as one of the important parts of HRPD course. In HRPD course, the students were asked to initially make a plan to establish a small business. Then, based on that plan, they were asked to design an HR planning and development scheme that appropriate enough for supporting the strategy implementation. The focus on small business was determined based on the premise that small business can provide conducive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation, which not always has to rely on know-how and resources control like the characteristics of a large scale production, but needs commitment and close cooperation among organization members (Sahut & Peris-Ortiz, 2014). The students must at first determine the business field they would focus on. In this case, it also includes goods or services that would be produced and offered to consumers. They must also explain the initial condition of the business, potential competitors, and strategy and innovation for coping with competition. Moreover, they must also determine profiles of the market segments they target. After that, they must formulate vision and mission statements for the business. The mission statement needs to explain business process and HR management policy that are in line with the competitive strategy and innovation. Next, the implementation of that mission needs to be concreted in the form of objectives to be achieved in the next five years. Here, they must also set target for the realization of the planned business innovation. The realization must be manifested in product features and physical appearance of the business, along with its expansion profile in the future. Next, the student must formulate strategies to achieve the vision, mission, and objectives. In this part, they also have to formulate strategies or special agenda to face the era of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Included here is the connection between strategy and innovation which already formulated before and the predicted business environment changes in the AEC era. After the strategy has been formulated completely and detailed enough, the students were instructed to plan HR needs for their small business. Here, they must specify various aspects such as organization functions needed and the number and qualification of employee required for each function. Further, they must specify various aspects concerning HR development processes, such as job analysis, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance evaluation, and compensation. In addition to the above project instructions about small business plan and HR planning and development design, in mid-term and final-term examination sessions, there are several additional assignments must be done by the students in order to enrich the project in progress. For example, the students must give a description of the use of HR information system and the utilization of change management techniques to cope with global environment dynamics.
Finding and Discussion
This section describes important and relevant findings of this case study. Two important themes that can be identified from the findings are competencies gained by the students and
their motivation to start entrepreneurial activity. According to the students, after completing HRPD course they gained competencies in the following matters:
• Ability in generating innovative business ideas;
• Skill in developing business plan more systematically;
• Knowledge about the process of HR planning and development, especially in entrepreneurial small businesses;
• Self-control and self-direction;
• More responsible attitude;
• Leadership potential to become a role model.
All student respondents said that after completing this course they felt a strong intention to become an entrepreneur. That semester, one of them actually had already been running family businesses in building materials trading and printing. At the end of the course, he had more enthusiasm in starting new business. He manifested that enthusiasm by setting up a small restaurant as the first business owned by himself, not his family. He said that he did so to attain self-actualization and made his family proud that he finally can be independently do business. The other student had once been an entrepreneur, but for a certain reason had to quit. After completing HRPD course, he raised up and had an intention to start a business again. Now, he already runs a small restaurant also.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Generally, it can be concluded that the students’ entrepreneurial motivation after completing the HRPD course. However, they also suggest that the course should be complemented with more real examples about how to solve business problems. For that purpose, several learning innovations can be considered, for instance by applying action learning method and business simulation. As described by McHardy (2000 in Jiwa et al., 2005), action learning places participants in a situation which requires real problem solving in a directional and logical manner. This method makes participants empowered, act rationally, and develop critical thinking skill. This increases their capacity to investigate, understand, and, if necessary, change the existing situation, all of these with minimum external support. Action learning method gives hope for a greater impact on students’ entrepreneurial motivation growth. This is because, with this method, beyond the cognitive level, entrepreneurship concept can also be felt in the affective and psychomotor level.
Finally, this case study is expected to contribute in establishing curriculum for higher education institutions oriented toward entrepreneurship development. The positive findings of this study can motivate higher education practitioners to further develop this kind of course design. For the future, alternative learning models of entrepreneurship-based course design need to be explored and studied. These models should to be applicable in almost all courses in a university in an integrated way. For instance, the project of small business plan can be applied as a joint project done by cross-courses students representing various managerial functions of an organization. A small business plan project, for example, is done by students from various study concentration, such as marketing, finance, HR, operation and strategic management. By doing so, the business plan developed from this process will be more comprehensive and feasible enough to be worked out as a real and prospective venture.
Opportunity to cooperate with several business incubators also needs to be explored.
Business incubators can help in the realization process of prospective business plan. This kind of cooperation is necessary in stimulating students to start their own business seriously.
The recommendations above, when done properly, are expected to help in attaining the
desired result of ideal number and significant role of entrepreneurs for the prosperity of a nation.
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