Keywords

1 Introduction

While online learning is generally widely supported, there are many people, including both students and tutors, who prefer to teach and learn in a face-to-face environment (McDougall et al., 1994). This level of interaction is considered to be a crucial element of successful education in general—following a social constructivist approach – and particularly for less independent learners (Balan et al., 2017). We might assume that those who voluntarily opt into the online educational experience have the personal skills to perform well here (Wach & Wehrmann, 2014)—they may be, for example, solitary, intrapersonal learners. Those who have not chosen to operate in an online mode, on the other hand, such as those forced into this education model as a consequence of Covid-19, may find the experience particularly challenging and not get the most out of the opportunities available (Wach, 2015). This consideration can be correlated with the teaching of international entrepreneurship (IE), where technology may be one of the only ways to facilitate realistic learning experiences. The use of technology will create situations where students have to operate online for exposure to the valuable learning opportunities. This can be challenging when students and tutors have limited technical abilities to participate in such experiences and where hardware and software resources are limited. Nonetheless, we argue that this may be the most scalable and sustainable way to facilitate realistic and valuable IE learning experiences.

In this chapter, we present an understanding of the challenges with teaching and learning (T&L) in the online mode, the desires of students in their IE T&L experiences and potential ways in which this process can be facilitated using modern technologies for the benefit of all.

2 What Is International Entrepreneurship?

International entrepreneurship involves the formation and exploitation of profit-earning opportunities that require venturers to be proactive and innovative while understanding and considering the cross-border differences in entrepreneurs and their organisation based on cultural beliefs and attitudes towards entrepreneurship (Wang et al., 2018). Barriers to international entrepreneurship include language, cultural differences and difficulties of understanding the foreign market. These barriers are additional to the general barriers to entrepreneurship, which include gender, age, disposable resources, risk-taking and personal commitments, to name a few. The authors of (Cumming & Zhan, 2018) discuss recent trends in IE, which take into account the new ventures made possible through new internationalisation efforts, and consider the impact of modern technologies in supporting IE learning.

3 Theories of International Entrepreneurship

Some researchers believe that IE is a culmination of international business and entrepreneurship, such as in (Cumming & Zhan, 2018), while others insist that it also involves strategic management, such as in (Zahra, 2021) and (Bell & Kozlowski, 2008). International business differs from international entrepreneurship—the former bases its roots more thoroughly in internationalisation theory, and transaction cost theory and is influenced by economic factors resulting in internationalisation (Keis et al., 2017). These fields are similar in the sense that try to understand which countries possess competitive advantages over other countries (Crick et al., 2020) and which countries will consume more products from developed countries (Morgan, 2014); they are focussed on the theories of product cycles (Durand, 2018), bargaining theory (Higgins & Savoie, 2017) and global strategic rivalry (Allen, 2016). For a business, strategic management involves the implementation and execution of certain performance-enhancing initiatives by management on behalf of the owners (Pradita et al., 2019), while international entrepreneurship involves entrepreneurs handling the responsibility of strategic management. Most importantly, international entrepreneurship sees the entrepreneur as an economic agent who identifies and makes the most out of opportunities on an international basis (Keis et al., 2017).

International entrepreneurship can be considered to be based on the following concepts:

  1. 1.

    New international ventures: In this sense, a ‘business organisation that, from inception, seeks to derive significant competitive advantage from the use of resources and the sale of outputs in multiple countries’ (Smith et al., 1997).

  2. 2.

    Born globals: Enterprises that enter at least three foreign countries or have exported to at least two foreign countries (Mukesh et al., 2020); thus these firms are, in the first place, explicitly global (Etemad & Lee, 2003).

  3. 3.

    Rapid internationalisation/accelerated internationalisation: Involves firms exploring opportunities frequently to rapidly expand internationally (Porter, 1990).

  4. 4.

    General models of international entrepreneurship: These models can be either a stimulus-response model, multi-stimuli model or a matrix model (Etemad & Lee, 2003). (Bell & Kozlowski, 2008) gives a comprehensive perspective of the broad concepts of international entrepreneurship, classifying the concepts based on the pace of internationalisation and the initial geographic market orientation.

4 How Is International Entrepreneurship Taught in Practice?

Some argue that it is difficult to teach entrepreneurship in any sense, with the perception that this is a skill naturally embodied, or not (Vissak & Masso, 2017). IE is therefore a subject with opportunities to examine the teaching approach for particular effectiveness. Researchers continue to examine the most effective approaches to teach in general, with the evolution of learning styles as one example of how this can be facilitated. Human needs, as participants in the educational experience, continue to evolve in different directions. With greater proportions of society generally moving into online learning experiences, advancements in technology and students increasingly managing competing life pressures in parallel with study, teaching mechanisms are similarly evolving in response.

One approach to teaching international entrepreneurship is to visit countries with contrasting living circumstances and to examine the entrepreneurial activities in place there (Gudoniene & Rutkauskiene, 2019). This approach may be considered to be one of the most valuable; however, it brings challenges with expense and subsequent sustainability and scalability. Furthermore, with students being educated in online avenues in parallel with competing life pressures such as employment and/or family, being present in an alternative economy may simply be an opportunity they do not wish to explore.

Technology, on the other hand, can bring alternative cultures closer. However, while rapid technological change has been attributed as being one of the contributors supporting the internationalisation of entrepreneurship (Ocvirk, 2017), there is an irony in that technology has not played a similar critical role in teaching international entrepreneurship. Modern technologies are still relatively underutilised in the teaching role for a variety of reasons which include the availability of technology and technical expertise with using it. This can be considered to be true from both the teaching and student perspective.

Given the opportunities for using technology to support remote learning in the IE experience, it is relevant to correlate this with the general concept of online education due to the obvious parallels. There is a wide body of research which examines the technical options to supporting online learning, including the ways in which technology can be applied, which can otherwise be referred to the pedagogy, or andragogy when applied to adults, of teaching.

5 Pedagogical Frameworks

Pedagogy describes the approach taken to teaching. It works on the way in which humans learn and seeks to exploit this through the teaching approach for maximum learning benefit. Pedagogical approaches have evolved over the years, to respond to new research findings, changing learner needs and modern tools which support T&L experiences. Specific to our chapter, the pedagogy influences the reasons why technology can be incorporated into the educational experience. If there is a target group of students who are not experienced with technology, then advocating technology use may not be the most appropriate approach to ensure that an optimum T&L experience is facilitated. It may be that, however, if there is a drive to add technology into the pedagogical experience due to the unique benefits which it introduces, that additional technical support is provided, and increased monitoring of student satisfaction of their educational experience takes place throughout the teaching to ensure that technical challenges are not limiting their education. We therefore review relevant pedagogical frameworks with a view to appreciating the opportunities for integrating technologies into the educational experience.

Underpinning all pedagogies, nonetheless, involves one or more of a constructivist, inquiry-based, reflective, collaborative and integrative technique. With constructivism, learners are assumed to construct knowledge rather than passively absorb information. With constructivism, learning is considered to be an active process in which learners guide the way that they learn; they must be self-motivated to do so. In an inquiry-based approach, the student’s inquiring skills, as with constructivism, are again the focus, and encouragement is placed on students to ask questions and be active in their learning. Reflective learning is based on the notion that we learn from our experiences and through reflecting on them. It is possible that this can lead to integrative learning, during which connections are made between concepts. This can involve making connections between past experiences and new learning to derive new knowledge and understanding. In more social approaches to teaching and learning, we find collaborative learning, during which peer-to-peer learning takes place, and social-cognitive learning, which involves modelling the behaviours of others to support learning and behaviour changes. In modern teaching and learning, differentiated learning strategies are popular, in recognition of the differences in individuals across a cohort and the notion of embracing each through offering a personalised approach to teaching and learning (Smith et al., 1997).

Specific to the concept of entrepreneurship, the authors of (Figueiredo et al., 2014) define a framework to compare different teaching methodologies of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) interventions. Its dimensions include the following:

  1. (a)

    Level of process orientation: This involves considering entrepreneurship as consisting of different phases or processes that build on one another to produce the result of a well-functioning enterprise. Interventions with a high level of process orientation focus on multiple phases of entrepreneurship, whereas those with a low level of process orientation choose to focus on either one, two or a handful of specific phases of entrepreneurship. The authors believe that interventions with a high level of process orientation are more effective.

  2. (b)

    Level of contact: This is the extent to which EET participants are in contact with entrepreneurial experts. Low levels of contact involve teaching by university professors without practical experience in entrepreneurship, while a high level of contact, by way of contrast, involves mentoring by seasoned entrepreneurs. The authors of (Figueiredo et al., 2014) believe that the level of contact has no consistent positive or negative effects on learning by entrepreneurs.

  3. (c)

    Level of action-learning orientation: This involves learners being proactive and executing a plan of action instead of being passive recipients of knowledge and only hypothesising how events will take place in a practical scenario. Action-learning approaches (Dey et al., 2020) involve the learner taking responsibility for their own actions and to develop and explore their own tasks by experimentation (Neck et al., 2014).

  4. (d)

    Level of fidelity: This involves learners applying their entrepreneurial knowledge in an environment that is either real or hypothetical. Low levels of fidelity involve students to come up with a business plan and to describe and explain how the plan is expected to work in the given setting. On the contrary, high levels of fidelity involve learners in conducting and leading an enterprise in a real setting with actual customers and real sales. The authors of (Figueiredo et al., 2014) believe that interventions with high levels of fidelity are more effective.

This framework advocates an EET methodology with a detailed process, higher contact with experts, more action-oriented and higher fidelity being considered to be more effective and, hence, better at imparting knowledge of international entrepreneurship. The extent to which each of these situations may be achieved is dependent on the opportunities which one has for immersion in the local entrepreneurial activity which, in the case of IE, can be difficult to achieve. Through this chapter, we seek to reinforce the opportunities that can be introduced through technology in improving, at a minimum, the level of contact, level of active-learning orientation and level of fidelity.

In terms of entrepreneurship teaching models, teaching can take place according to an action-based model or a more classroom-based approach. The classroom-based approach to IE education raises concerns, however, in that they are not enough to teach successful entrepreneurship due to the lack of practical experience (Neck et al., 2014). An action-based pedagogy, on the other hand, can work to overcome some of these limitations (Mukesh et al., 2020); however, it introduces the challenges of travelling to the remote location and immersion in the local culture, which can be particularly difficult when we are considering the tuition of younger students and their general safety and typical risks of becoming involved in such endeavours.

In another example of IE pedagogy, (Ananga & Biney, 2017) examines the effectiveness of a particular pedagogy in the face-to-face teaching and learning scenario to maximise student engagement with their international entrepreneurship education. Influencing their approaches to lessons, the authors survey students on their believed effectiveness of particular pedagogical approaches, with a view to adapting the running of the class in response. Students are asked their reasons for why they enrolled on a module and what they hope to get out of their learning experience. Interestingly, students in the class were particularly interested in learning about entrepreneurship, with only a minority in the class interested in starting their own business. After engaging with a pedagogy for a short time, students were then asked to score the pedagogical approach. The information collected using this approach was then analysed using concept mapping. The pedagogical approaches considered range from ‘supporting and encouraging learning’, ‘encouraging discussion’, ‘fun and interactive’ and ‘encouraging contribution’, among others. It might be argued that there is little content here which relates specifically to the teaching of international entrepreneurship.

When we consider what students need in their IE educational experience, a student shadowing a person with entrepreneurial qualities in a social-cognitive approach may therefore be one mechanism to gain an impression of the knowledge, personality and traits of a successful entrepreneur. This approach may be difficult to sustain, however, and certainly becomes more difficult when working on an international basis and when there are a range of competing factors to consider, including home life.

6 Using Technology to Teach International Entrepreneurship

Recent advances in supporting remote education include the use of holograms. A hologram allows a shape to be transmitted and displayed in a location which is remote to its source. Holograms are not an entirely new technology; however, 3D holograms in a classroom are novel and are certainly less explored (most likely due to the costly barriers to their use). The authors of (Wu & Martin, 2018) report on a 3D holographic floating heart to support practical teaching in nursing education. This approach was found to enhance the teaching convenience, in the sense of not needing a physical heart to achieve the teaching and learning objectives, in addition to generating interest and motivation between students through this novel approach to teaching. In another example, the authors of (Ike, 2017) describe their use of holograms to visualise mechanical engineering parts. This approach was taken to respond to first year students having difficulty in translating 2D shapes into 3D versions, but found that this was effectively supported using holograms. In recognition of the fact that many students now use tablets, they were able to use these to generate 3D holograms of the equipment, helping to support their understanding of the model as they were learning to draw it. To the best of our knowledge, there are no equivalent studies on the use of holograms to support the teaching of IE. We consider this to be a significant gap in the ways in which the technology is being used, given the particular importance of awareness of the characteristics of remote cultures and its significance on the success of an IE opportunity and the ability for this otherwise to be conveyed using holographic technology without the need to travel to the remote location.

Augmented reality and virtual reality are other techniques to support teaching and learning. With AR, scenes accessible to a user through a digital device are supported using other sensory information, such as further digital information or sound. With Ikea’s mobile app, for example, it is possible to visualise a product in your home through your mobile device. Virtual reality, by way of contrast, provides a simulation type of environment and changes what a user is able to see.

It can be appreciated how each of these technologies can influence the effectiveness of T&L. The authors of Grosse & Behrman (1992) describe how VR prompts students in analysing problems such that they are driven to investigate approaches to resolving them. This could be thought to have particular benefits when exploring real-life scenarios involving people and exchanges. The reactions of others can be unexpected, and the gaming quality of VR can support the creation of such scenarios and the evaluation of student reactions.

When we consider the speed with which educational experiences have had to migrate to the online environment during the period of Covid-19, it has been possible to observe the particular challenges that have been experienced. It is relevant to draw learning from this – these educational experiences have not been entered into voluntarily, but rather have been forced as a consequence of need. It is therefore possible to correlate these experiences with the challenges that can be experienced if IE students are increasingly taught using online technologies. Challenges include the limited technical abilities of all participating online—the subjects which moved most easily to online education during Covid-19 included those studying computing subjects (Porter, 1990). In cases not directly related to Covid-19 but instead considered more generally, those without specific technical capabilities, on the other hand, can experience challenges, both in the student (Chang & Lai, 2018) and teaching roles (Weers & Gielnik, 2020). Where teachers are limited in their technical abilities, this limits the prowess of the teaching approach, when standard Microsoft PowerPoint slides may be used instead of real-time polls of experience, for example; this in itself impacts student satisfaction and potentially their learning. Therefore, while we promote the technical tools available to support online learning, we similarly do not underestimate the challenges of this as an approach.

7 Conclusions and Future Research Directions

Examining the teaching of IE from the perspective of exploiting technology becomes increasingly relevant in the world today, given the impacts observed recently from Covid-19 and the implications that this has had on educational experiences in general (Wang et al., 2017). An increasing move to the online educational world has become more common practice and has not been without its challenges when considered from the perspective of students who have not voluntarily moved online. Supporting these students requires more careful crafting in comparison to those who have chosen to study through online means (and even then, there is scope for improvement). At the beginning of the chapter, we reviewed the teaching methodologies of EET, which exist in the extent to process orientation, contact, action-learning orientation and fidelity. Where immersion in the local entrepreneurial activity is limited due to the costs present or ability to travel, as two possible restrictions, technology can bring that remote opportunity closer. Indeed, the most modern state-of-the-art technologies, such as holographic use, can allow unique opportunities of being exposed to the local culture and the important role it plays in enabling a successful entrepreneurial activity. To date, however, technology is relatively underutilised in this regard and there are therefore many opportunities to exploit in supporting IE education from the technical perspective.

We recognise a significant limiter of technology use in IE education as being through the lack of specific technical expertise to realise the opportunities. In our future investigation, we therefore seek to consider the opportunities for interdisciplinary study between IE educationalists and technical specialists, such that these gaps in the educational experience can be overcome. We are also interested in the extent to which IE tutors and students are technically aware and enabled, such that the suggestions of integrating more technology to support IE pedagogy is a realistic endeavour.