3. As a Community dedicated to a culture of learning
and building great companies, we take a keen interest
into what’s going on inside the academic realm for
entrepreneurs. So it’s with great pleasure that we welcome
Dr. Suresh Kumar’s contribution to this discussion.
A serial immigrant entrepreneur, Dr. Kumar served as the
key-founder of three successful entrepreneurial startup
ventures over the past 12 years. Due to his diverse
experiences and by completing his doctoral dissertation
in the field of entrepreneurship, Dr. Kumar has developed
deep insights and expertise in the field of high-growth
entrepreneurship and developing entrepreneurial eco-
systems. Along with his teams, Dr. Kumar is the recipient
of multiple industry and community recognition for
leadership and entrepreneurial excellence including the
Ronald Reagan Gold Medal (2005) by the Congressional
Business Advisory Council, the INC 500/5000 Award (2008,
2009, 2010, 2011), the US Pan-Asian American Chamber
Fast 50 Firm Award (2008, 2009, 2010), the Indo-American
Center of NY Award (2007), The Indian American Cultural
Society Award (2009), the US Chamber of Commerce Blue
Ribbon Award (2009, 2011), the Deloitte Fast 500 Award
(2011) and Asian MBA Award (2009).
Dr. Kumar’s doctoral research titled “Linkages Between
Cognition, Behavior, Culture, and Opportunity Among
High-growth Asian American Immigrant Entrepreneurs” is
available at www.drsureshkumar.net. He has presented his
research papers at various academic conferences in 2011,
including the International Council of Small Business, the
US Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship,
and the Global Entrepreneurship Conference at George
Washington University.
Dr. Kumar has been graceful enough to share this paper
with the Small Giants Community.
For more information on Dr. Suresh Kumar visit
about.me/drkumar and www.drsureshkumar.net. You may
contact him at drkumar@email.phoenix.edu.
Hi there.
4. 4
Introduction
During the past few years, as an entrepreneur and a doctoral
researcher, I had the unique opportunity to straddle the
worlds of practice (founding Inc 500/5000 ranked firms) and
academics (education research, and outreach) in the field of
entrepreneurship. In mid 2008, driven by intellectual curiosity
and the excitement of new learning, I went about exploring
what lay at the intersection of the worlds of academics
and practice. Since the United States has been the leading
economy in the world for several decades now, prior to my
study I had assumed that there would be a high degree of
interplay between the world of academics and practice. To
my great surprise I discovered how loosely connected (or
disconnected) the two worlds were from each other. While
there are many parts and players, large and small, involved in
the complex yet highly evolved entrepreneurial eco-system of
the United States, this article highlights some of the gap that
exists between the worlds of academics and practice in the
field of entrepreneurship.
The Entrepreneurial
Eco-system in the
United States
For those who are not fully conversant with the
entrepreneurial eco-system in the United States, it will
help to get an overview of the key players. Among the well-
known government agencies and organizations that have
entrepreneurship development as one of their primary
objectives are the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S.
Small Business Administration (SBA), and the state/county/
township level Economic Development Authorities (EDA’s).
There are several well known foundations such as the
Kauffman Foundation and the Coleman Foundation that
play important roles in promoting entrepreneurship. There
are hundreds of reputed universities, business schools,
community collages, and centers of entrepreneurship all
over the United States that teach, conduct research and
promote entrepreneurship. The premier associations that
represent academic institutions include the Academy of
Management (AoM), the U.S. Association for Small Business
and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) - the U.S. affiliate of the
International Council of Small Business (ICSB), and the
National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship
(NACCE). Advocacy organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, various state and city chambers, and the National
Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) play important
roles in the formulation of policy related to small business
and entrepreneurship.
The more recent and fast growing part of the eco-system
is represented by social and professional networks of
successful minority and immigrant groups such as the
Indus Entrepreneur (TIE) for South Asian Americans and
the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association
of Greater Washington for Chinese Americans. Popular
national and regional media outlets such as Inc. magazine
and Entrepreneur; publishing houses, and a host of blogs/
social media outlets are heavily invested in supporting
and promoting entrepreneurship. Put together all these
organizations, along with thousands of others that has a
secondary focus on entrepreneurship, play vital roles in the
development, education, research, advocacy, outreach, and in
provide networking opportunities for entrepreneurs.
Organizations charged with
fostering the practice and
education of entrepreneurship, at
least for the most part, operate in
silos that separate rather than bring
them together.
5. Resolving the Disconnects Resolving the Disconnects Between Academics and Practice in Entrepreneurship 5
The Disconnect
As previously stated, I limit my observations to the world of
academics and practice in the field of entrepreneurship. Many
major academic and practitioner organizations such as AoM,
USASBE, INC, and TIE conduct large annual conferences for
their members. My experience attending some of the events
has been that, barring a few exceptions, there is very little
by way of strategic dialogue and sustainable partnerships
between academic and practitioner organizations that tie
in practice, research, education, advocacy and policy in
meaningful ways. I have found that organizations charged
with fostering the practice and education of entrepreneurship,
at least for the most part, operate in silos that separate
entrepreneurs from educators and researchers. For example,
academic conferences that are focused on entrepreneurship
organized by USASBE and ICSB are attended just by a handful
of practicing entrepreneurs, usually those who have a recent
success story and have been invited to speak. The reasons?
(a) there is hardly any outreach by academic conferences to
entrepreneurs, (b) entrepreneurs have busy schedules and
select events where they can get proven and practical ideas
that could address their immediate concerns and can be
applied to their businesses, not abstract research finding,
and (c) entrepreneurs and the organization that represent
them often lack the training to find and see the relevance in
academic research that could contribute to better decision-
making. The disconnects are amplified as you go down the
line to state and local organizations.
I have invited some of my entrepreneur friends to attend
academic conference and the response almost every
time has been some version of either “How will it benefit
me?” or “I don’t know anyone there”. Having being part of
the doctoral consortia of USASBE and ICSB, I can testify
that there are plenty of excellent mentoring and learning
opportunities for researchers at academic conferences.
However, the value proposition for practitioners is not the
same as for the majority of the papers presented at academic
conferences the practical applicability is suspect. Why? As
was brilliantly argued by William Bygrave, Ph.D., (2007),
professor emeritus of Babson Collage, one of the most highly
regarded experts in entrepreneurship in the United States,
I found that the primary reasons are the use of improper
dataset (examples: mom and pop business thrown in with
high-growth businesses; or findings from VC funded firms,
which are relatively few in numbers used to make broader
generalizations), widespread use of secondary data, research
models based on weak theory, research questions that have
little relevance to practice, and use of esoteric quantitative
techniques that is for the most part far removed from the
reality of what actually happens inside the complex and
chaotic world of start-up’s. According to Dale Meyer, Ph.D.,
(2011), professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, the
academic field of entrepreneurship is “stalled” due to the
use of econometric methodologies and secondary databases
that “distance researchers from actual people and behaviors
that catalyze entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship” (p. 7).
Truth be told, having sat through over 25 research paper
presentations, including many award winning ones, barring
a couple of notable exceptions, there have not been many
‘takeaways’ that I could apply to my business. And remember,
I was the one who went to the academic conferences actively
seeking research findings I could apply to my study and
practice.
On the practitioner organization side, over the years, I have
attended many events and annual conferences such as
the Americas Small Business Summit organized by the US
Chamber of Commerce, Tie-con of TIE, and the annual Inc.
500/5000 Conference by Inc. magazine. At each of these
events I was hard pressed to find well respected experts
from research and academia. The reasons for this missed
opportunity? (a) there is hardly any outreach by practitioner
organizations to the entrepreneurship educators and
researchers, (b) majority of the organizations representing
practitioners stick with a narrow agenda that is designed to
get the immediate attention of their membership at the cost
of addressing long term systemic issues that are supported
and validated by painstaking research, (c) educational
institutions do not give tenure credit to researchers who
conduct workshops, do research, or speak at non-academic
conferences, (d) universities and business schools do not
reimburse researchers the fees and expenses for
non-academic conferences. So why would a researcher with
limited time and resources who has the tenure sword hanging
over his or her head, attend a practitioner conference? The
irony is that practitioner conferences are attended by large
numbers of entrepreneurs and has the potential to be rich
sources of collection of raw data and can serve as excellent
testing labs for theory.
There is very little by way of strategic
dialogue and sustainable partnerships
between academic and practitioner
organizations that tie in practice,
research, education, advocacy and
policy in meaningful ways.
6. 6
Some Suggestions for
Bridging the Gaps
Based on my personal experiences, I propose a few
recommendations for bridging the gaps between academics
and practice in the field of entrepreneurship: (a) practitioner
conferences should take the lead in shifting the paradigm of
conference agendas to incorporate cutting edge research and
by inviting academic experts and organizations, (b) academic
conferences should have more workshops devoted to
practitioner oriented research that emphasizes field studies
and case studies of entrepreneurs and their ventures, (c)
given the applied nature of entrepreneurship a strong case
can be made for the presentation of a workshop or research
paper at a practitioner conference counting towards tenure
credit. I cannot think of anything more important that a
researcher can do than informing and improving practice and
in fact, given the opportunity, many researchers I have met
really want to. This of course is easier said than done as it will
necessitate getting various accreditation intuitions onboard
so that the proposed changes are credible, systemic, and
sustainable, (d) reserving few seats at national conferences
and other events at discounted fees on a reciprocal basis
so as to encourage participation from both sides, (e)
practitioner and academic institutions can work together to
co-develop specially tailored experiential learning programs
for entrepreneurs and educators, that incorporates critical
contextual factors like human capital, nascency, ethnicity,
minority/immigrant status, industry expertise, culture,
and social/professional networks, and (f) more applied
approaches to developing research-based knowledge that
team researchers with entrepreneurs with the objective of
making research questions and methods grounded in reality
and therefore more relevant to policy and practice.
Entrepreneurship Education:
Challenges and Solutions
A related area of concern is about how entrepreneurship is
being taught at schools and universities to students who have
an interest in the topic, some of who would eventually end
up as practitioners or educators or policy makers. Several
experts have raised questions about the effectiveness of
teaching methodologies currently used in the classroom.
Carl Schramm, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Kauffman
Foundation, one of the foremost thinkers on entrepreneurship
and economic policy, has questioned the usefulness of
business plans and case studies as teaching tools and has
contended that what is being taught at our schools and
universities has very little relevance to the real world in which
entrepreneurs work. Schramm (2011) has called for a “New
Learning in Entrepreneurship” that will entail re-thinking what
is taught, how it is taught, and to whom, when, and where.
The widespread use of education models that are based
on entrepreneurship as a linear process has been called
to question by Norris Krueger, Ph.D., of Entrepreneurship
Northwest, one the pioneers of research into entrepreneurial
cognition. According to Krueger (2007) education should
focus on constructivistic methods such as field studies and
teaming with real entrepreneurs.
The applied nature and the social impact of entrepreneurship
education demand a close collaboration between educators,
researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Acknowledging
the limited utility of current approaches to entrepreneurship
education in an unpredictable world, Heidi Neck and Patricia
Greene (2011) of Babson Collage has recommended new
approaches that emphasize methods that involve applying,
using, and acting. According to Per Davidsson (2002),
entrepreneurship professor at Queensland University of
Technology, Australia, putting research-based knowledge in
business to better use requires academics who care about
practice in the ways they source their research questions and
disseminate their results.
My research on high-growth Asian American immigrant
high-tech entrepreneurs (Kumar, 2011) indicated that
successful entrepreneurs have an intuitive way of learning
from prior experiences and gaining entrepreneurial expertise
quickly. Entrepreneurs, especially those with high human
capital, if equipped with the proper theoretical foundation
using online and just-in-time learning programs (Schramm,
2011) made available by business schools and centers for
entrepreneurship, working in collaboration with researchers,
could play an important role in finding solutions to some of
the challenges discussed in this section.
What is being taught at our schools
and universities has very little
relevance to the real world in which
entrepreneurs work.
7. Resolving the Disconnects Resolving the Disconnects Between Academics and Practice in Entrepreneurship 7
Conclusion
Despite the rapid growth experienced by the academic field of
entrepreneurship and the practice of entrepreneurship as two
distinct endeavors, the challenges faced at their intersection
are deep and multifaceted. It can be reasonably argued that
the primary focus of academic and practitioners organizations
is different. My response is that if the end goals of
organizations, regardless of academic or practitioner focused,
are more or less similar, then organizational leaders have the
responsibility to ensure greater collaboration. While there may
not be a one size fits all solution, it is critical for academic and
practitioner organizations and their individual members to
explore avenues for collaboration to find out what works and
what does not. To advance the field of entrepreneurship the
internal disconnects discussed have to be addressed.
The good news is that the solutions to some of the challenges
highlighted in this article are already emerging from
institutions that have leaders who think like entrepreneurs do.
Some examples that I have come across are: (a) Kauffmans
practitioner oriented programs such as Labs and Education
Ventures, where carefully screened entrepreneurs who are
ready to start their ventures are mentored and provided with
the coaching and tools needed to grow rapidly scalable firms;
(b) the Startup Weekend – a 54 hour hands-on iterative
experience that brings together aspiring entrepreneurs with
experienced mentors to share ideas, build teams, and launch
startups; (c) Babsons flagship Symposia for Entrepreneurship
Educators’ (SEE) that pairs educators and entrepreneurs in
cross disciplinary teams that combines entrepreneurship
theory and practice in teaching; (d) the Experiential
Classroom organized by Oklahoma State University which
retools teachers new to entrepreneurship with the best
educational practices; (e) the 3E-Learning exercise run
by the George Washington University that is designed for
educators, practitioners and researchers to collaborate on
new ideas, new knowledge, and new skills. In particular, some
of the initiatives taken by Kauffman and Babson College
to collaborate directly with well-run and highly networked
practitioner organizations such as Inc. and TIE hold great
promise and must not only be enhanced and accelerated, but
also reciprocated.
In order to capture the richness and the subtle intricacies
of a complex, nonlinear, and disjointed social phenomenon
such as entrepreneurship, a broad nationwide policy
framework is needed that promotes collaboration and
information sharing. A need exists for the cross-pollination
of ideas and best practices between the various government
agencies, foundations, universities, chambers of commerce,
media outlets, and other independent organizations that
represent and promote entrepreneurship. I am greatly
encouraged by the creation of such as forum at the Future
of Entrepreneurship Education Summit (feesummit.com)
sponsored by Kauffman Foundation and organized by
Extreme Entrepreneurship Education which is scheduled to
be held at DC in November 2011. For an applied field such
as entrepreneurship that some experts think is still in its
infancy, a need exists for collaborative approaches that will
further the understanding of the antecedents of successful
entrepreneurship and how it is practiced. For the framework
to be relevant to practice, the individual entrepreneur must
have a central role within it.
References
Bygrave, W. D. (2007). The entrepreneurship paradigm (I) revisited.
In H. Neergaard and J. P. Ulhoi (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative
research methods in entrepreneurship (pp. 17-48). Cheltenham,
UK: Edward Elgar.
Davidsson, P. (2011) Putting business research to practice. Brisbane
Business News, 2011 Annual Edition, Brisbane, Australia.
Krueger, N. F. (2007). The microfoundations of entrepreneurial
learning and education. In E. Gatewood & G. P. West (Eds.), The
handbook of university wide entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, UK:
Elgar.
Kumar, S. (2011). Linkages between cognition, behavior, culture,
and opportunity among high-growth Asian American immigrant
entrepreneurs. Accessed online on July 25, 2011, from http://
www.drsureshkumar.net/suresh/DoctoralStudy.aspx
Meyer, G. D. (2011). The reinvention of academic entrepreneurship.
Journal of Small Business Management, 49, 1-8.
Neck, H. M., & Greene, P. G. (2011). Entrepreneurship education:
Known worlds and new frontiers. Journal of Small Business
Management, 49, 55-70.
Schramm, C. J. (2011). The “new learning” in entrepreneurship.
Ninth anniversary address, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,
Kansas City, MO. Accessed online on July 30, 2011, from http://
steveblank.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/kauffman-9th-
anniversary-speech-041511.pdf.
In order to capture the richness
and the subtle intricacies of a
complex, nonlinear, and disjointed
social phenomenon such as
entrepreneurship, a broad nationwide
policy framework is needed that
promotes collaboration and
information sharing.
