Internal Domains Entrepreneurial Heartset, Mindset, and Handset

Abstract

On the assumption that raising levels of self-confidence and value expectations for individuals, as definers of the microsystem, constitutes a fundamental starting point for extended development at higher systemic levels; value-centred development of individuals will, in turn, require from them deeper levels of knowledge both about themselves and about the larger system, with the ability to relate on a multi-dimensional level with everything around them. Therefore, a change in an individual’s attitude towards transforming different systemic levels might lead to bridging the decay within systemic development. The SHAPE ecosystem strategy for youth entrepreneurs introduces youths’ internal domains as the cornerstone and starting point of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem, referred to as the SHAPE YES Network (youth entrepreneur support network). It starts by maturing a relationship with oneself through fostering an entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset. In other words, the entrepreneurial heart, head, and hand—the Triple H of Entrepreneurship.

1 Introduction

On the assumption that raising levels of self-confidence and value expectations for individuals, as definers of the microsystem, constitutes a fundamental starting point for extended development at higher systemic levels; value-centred development of individuals will, in turn, require from them deeper levels of knowledge both about themselves and about the larger system, with the ability to relate on a multi-dimensional level with everything around them. Therefore, a change in an individual’s attitude towards transforming different systemic levels might lead to bridging the decay within systemic development. No matter if these individuals are from developed or developing countries, collective transformation is needed.¹

The SHAPE ecosystem strategy for youth entrepreneurs introduces youths’ internal domains as the cornerstone and starting point of creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem, referred to as the SHAPE YES Network (youth entrepreneur support network). It starts by maturing a relationship with oneself through fostering an entrepreneurial heartset, mindset and handset. In other words, the entrepreneurial heart, head, and hand—the Triple H of Entrepreneurship.

A youth entrepreneur’s personality traits are both enablers and personal barriers for themselves. It can also enable or obstruct crucial relationships with other role-players in the ecosystem. Core personality traits needed by youth entrepreneurs to execute entrepreneurial tasks effectively can be listed as vision, resilience, teamwork, innovation, passion, leadership, integrity, customer focus, and flexibility. These personality traits can also be seen as being a nonconformist at the same time as being a team player; being motivated, driven, focused, and persistent; being ‘an architect of one’s personal view’; being able to build an ecosystem or community of people able to achieve an outcome; being able to find opportunities and niches in the market, and living following one’s belief system, therefore aligning values.² An internal locus of control is positively linked with youth entrepreneurship through a desire to solve problems and a willingness to seek out niches in the market. It also assists youth entrepreneurs because of the social benefits derived through networking within the ecosystem (Fig. 2.1).³

Fig. 2.1

(Source Van der Westhuizen, 2022)

Internal domains of youth entrepreneurs

The way forward to transform (change) global systems and steer collective creativity for responsible and sustainable business practice starts with individual human beings. Unless people change their attitudes or perspectives towards collective transformation, the desired change will not kick in. A change in people’s levels of self-confidence (self-efficacy), as well as their individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO), might lead to a transformation in their attitudes and perspective towards systemic change, therefore, increasing entrepreneurial intent (EI) and action (EA).

2 The Entrepreneurial Heartset and Mindset

The mind is the biggest part of a human being and includes thinking, feeling, and choosing. The mind is not the brain; it is produced by the brain. The mind and brain are separate. Brain activity rather reflects mind activity. The mind uses the brain when thinking, feeling, and choosing in response to life experiences. This pushes energy through the brain, and the brain responds to the energy electromagnetically, chemically, and genetically and builds the mind-energy into physical protein thought-trees within the brain. Thoughts are the end product of the mind which is thinking, feeling, and choosing. Thoughts also propel us into action. Therefore, looking at behaviours, one can deduce one’s thoughts, and by looking into thoughts, one can deduce mindset.⁴

This study uses the terms ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ as a concept relating to the end product of thought, ‘entrepreneurial heartset’ as the neurological process of creating a mindset, and ‘entrepreneurial handset’ as behavioural action. In other words, the entrepreneurial heart, head, and hand—the Triple H of Entrepreneurship (Fig. 2.2).

Fig. 2.2

(Source Van der Westhuizen, 2022)

The Triple H of entrepreneurship: heart, head, and hand

Various definitions have been proposed for ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ and what it encompasses, especially from a psychological perspective. However, for the purpose of this discussion, the following definition will be adopted:

The entrepreneurial mindset refers to a specific state of mind which orientates human conduct towards entrepreneurial activities and outcomes. Individuals with entrepreneurial mindsets are often drawn to opportunities, innovation, and new value creation.⁵

The SHAPE ecosystem strategy focuses on developing youths’ personality traits through concepts empirically associated with an entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset. These concepts comprise entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), IEO, EI and entrepreneurial actions (EA) (Fig. 2.3).⁶

Fig. 2.3

(Source Van der Westhuizen, 2022)

Elements of entrepreneurial heartset and mindset that lead to entrepreneurial action (handset)

The entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset and their relationship to the entire ecosystem needs to be interpreted as nondual. The notion of nonduality is a philosophical perspective of non-separation, which implies that impulses of the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset, as noted above, emerge from the overall being of the individual as a whole, rather than as linear or fragmented sequential processes. Nonduality can be defined as ‘not two’ or ‘non-separation’.⁷ It is the sense that all things are interconnected and not separate, while at the same time, all things retain their individuality. An awareness of nonduality gives individuals a bigger perspective on life, a greater sense of freedom, and brings them more stable happiness.⁸ Building on the philosophy of nondualism, the environment external to the individual cannot be divorced from the internal state of an individual.⁹ How the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset develop, thus is a combination of an internal orientation in relation to the external whole, forming an individual’s perceived reality.

[The] world is not just a system of interconnected objects and processes – a concept that has been pioneered by systems thinking for more than six decades – but that there is no separate, solid, physical world existing independently of consciousness.¹⁰

Therefore, the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset (heart, head, and hand apply to both individuals and collectives: thinking and acting entrepreneurially (having an entrepreneurial mindset) is as significant for managers or employees in an established company as it is for the individual entrepreneur.¹¹

Illustrating how processes within the entrepreneurial internal domains should be seen from a nondual perspective, Fig. 2.4 sets out the interrelationship between these various aspects in the context of this research.

Fig. 2.4

(Source Van der Westhuizen, 2022)

Elements of the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset

3 Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE)

ESE is described as a construct that measures a person’s belief in their ability to successfully launch an entrepreneurial venture. Belief in oneself is necessary for the development of entrepreneurship. Individuals with a higher degree of self-confidence are more likely to become successful entrepreneurs and sustain EA.

ESE includes levels of self-confidence for achieving success and meeting difficult objectives in business start-ups and can be broken down into four task-specific types:

• Self-efficacy in identifying opportunities and developing new market offerings

• Relationship self-efficacy: being able to build investor relationships

• Managerial self-efficacy: perception of economics and financial management capabilities; and

• Tolerance self-efficacy: perception of the ability to cope with stress and change.

These self-efficacy dimensions reinforce the importance of personality traits and the ability to interact with the forces at play within the environment.

Existing validated empirical research on ESE proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework of ESE factors determining the success of an entrepreneur, which extends to ten task-specific entrepreneurial skills in four venture creation phases, as illustrated in Fig. 2.5.

Fig. 2.5

(Source Cox et al., 2002)

Relationship of self-efficacy to tasks and roles in the entrepreneurial life cycle

ESE and its associates’ skills sets, in relation to the venture creation process, was tested and validated to have a significant and positive relationship to IEO, EI and EA. ESE is an important factor in shaping youths’ reactions to the environment, and low ESE will reduce youths’ intention to start a business and youths’ confidence in embracing opportunities. ESE is therefore positively correlated with youths’ intention to start a business in the belief that it can be achieved. Youths’ level of ESE in relation to a given task can affect their willingness to undertake the task.

A possible way to raise ESE towards skill sets is to enhance the individual in question through training or coaching. The SHAPE ecosystem strategy proposes that an ecosystem is necessary to support youth entrepreneurs’ ESE development and strengthen crucial relationships with networks. Therefore, the development of ESE levels can take place as intrapersonal development processes where the individual enhances his or her own ESE through exposure to a variety of external processes and support networks.

A possible technique that pivots ESE development, either as an inter-personal or intra-persona process, is called co-inspiring. In the psychological and neurological literature on the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset, the term ‘co-inspiring’ is proposed as a technique to enable innovative thought to occur as an internal pre-cognitive process within the individual. This technique was proved to transform (grow developmental maturity) an individual’s ability to innovate by moving from reacting to cognitions to generative new innovative cognitions. Co-inspiring signifies the birth of a creative and novel idea that can lead to innovation or an ‘aha moment’. The part of the brain identified as reflecting the ‘aha moment’ is the anterior portion of the superior temporal gyrus of the non-dominant hemisphere and is associated with a short burst of Gamma EEG activity of 40 Hz. The profoundness of the innovation might relate to an individual’s psychoneuroendocrinological (PNE) engagement with their source of inspiration and will. PNE is terminology from neurological sciences, which implies that mind, body, and soul are an interactive whole with no separation between these functions. Therefore, the integrativeness and interrelations of the entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset. PNE relates directly to the paradigm of nondualism which was introduced at the beginning of this chapter. As a result, low or high levels of ESE directly influence low or high levels of IEO when co-initiating and taking risks in the entrepreneurship process.

ESE development towards the new venture creation process and perceptions of own skills cannot be measured in a quantitative manner because this approach leaves no scope for incorporating individuals’ PNE levels, feelings and emotions. Therefore, a qualitative or mixed-method approach is a better fit to measure ESE and its relation to entrepreneurial skills.

Entrepreneurship education often and commonly focus on entrepreneurial management and planning skills but often without addressing the deep fundamental underpinnings of ESE. More specifically, youth entrepreneurship development courses in entrepreneurship tend to teach technical skills with little or no focus in their planning of cognitive or belief systems on the part of the youths, which might underpin entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions. Another way for youths to develop ESE, IEO and EI might be to observe youth entrepreneurs and actual settings where entrepreneurship takes place. Therefore, creating the SHAPE ecosystem for youth entrepreneurship development has value in enabling shared learning experiences within a wide-reaching support network—learning from each other’s experiences and co-inspiring one another.

4 Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO)

IEO signifies the processes, practices, and decision-making activities of an individual that lead to entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial decision-making process is influenced by external and internal domains. Internal domains include factors of risk-taking, proactivity, and innovation, and external domains include aspects of the economy, society, technology, competition, and politics. IEO is considered to have a direct impact on the entrepreneurial performance and EA of youths.

A country’s socio-economic development relates directly to individuals who make up the microsystemic attitudes, activities, and aspirations. For socio-economic development to occur through acts of entrepreneurialism (and intrapreneurialism), it is necessary to develop individuals’ ability to take risks, proactivity, and degree of innovativeness. These propensities of development will require individuals to connect with a much deeper level of knowledge.

Deep action learning, especially to spark innovative thought in the field of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, might be necessary for successful socio-economic development. A possible strategy is SHAPE, of which the theoretical model and its application are introduced in this book.

4.1 Individual Risk-Taking

The risk-taking propensity is described as the perceived probability of receiving the rewards associated with the success of a proposed situation, which is required by an individual before subjecting to the consequences associated with failure. The alternative situation provides less reward as well as less severe consequences than the proposed situation. Important predictors in risk-taking are how the risk problem is framed, the results of past risk-taking, and the ability to perform under risky conditions.

Risk-taking propensity is a behavioural dimension of IEO that helps to trigger the pursuit of an opportunity. It involves major decisions individuals need to take, which might bring high rewards. The process includes an element of uncertainty and self-management of ESE task-related skills necessary to enable individual risk-taking qualities and reduce the fear associated with possible future barriers. This can also be regarded as a cognitive orientation directed towards EA since, from an IEO perspective, the youth entrepreneur acts in an individual capacity. Youth entrepreneurs, therefore, bear the personal risk intrinsic to the occupational choice being made.

Two different aspects of entrepreneurial risk are distinguished: the general risk-taking propensity of a potential entrepreneur and the perceived probability of failure. General risk-taking propensity is described as accessibility to research across role-players within the entrepreneurial ecosystem due to differences in individual venture probabilities for success and failure. By choosing to take EA, the youth entrepreneur becomes a risk-bearer and is liable for personal choices associated with taking business risks.

Youth entrepreneurs operate within their entrepreneurial ecosystem. Therefore, economic failure and barriers do not solely fall on the youth entrepreneur; it is the responsibility of the ecosystemic role-players to help bear risk factors and mitigate barriers in the process of enabling socio-economic development from a bigger-picture systems perspective.

4.2 Individual Innovation

Innovation, as in the creation and development of new products and processes, lies at the heart of youth entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general. The generation of new business ideas and innovation is positively linked to the success of effective youth entrepreneur business development. Entrepreneurial innovation is described as the willingness to support creativity and experimentation in introducing new products/services, novelty, technological leadership, and research and development in developing new processes. As an IEO propensity, innovation is an important means of pursuing opportunities.

Individual innovation is exemplified as the youth entrepreneur who most strictly confines him or herself to the characteristic entrepreneurial function: carrying out new combinations. It is also interpreted as the purest type of entrepreneur genus. Individual innovation is a process of creative destruction by which wealth is created when existing market structures are disrupted by the introduction of new goods or services. Innovation by youth entrepreneurs is linked to learned behaviours reflected in the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities.

In society, emphasis is placed by SMEs and large corporations on research and development that might lead to the innovation of new products and services. This occurs on a business, enterprise, or organisational level. On the contrary, there is a disconnect and gap in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to provide all-round support to youth entrepreneurs, including the provision of transformative entrepreneurial education (growth in developmental maturity to produce generative thought). The importance for youth entrepreneurs and their ecosystem to apply co-inspiring strategies to reach individual innovation is crucial for effective youth entrepreneurship development and sustainability.

For national socio-economic development, especially in developing countries, more is needed than just improving entrepreneurial ability and reducing the pressure for necessity entrepreneurship. It also implies that governments must focus on a deeper and more people-centred level to enhance individual youth entrepreneurs’ innovative abilities and their levels of education and skills. Given the important role that entrepreneurial attitude, aspirations, and actions play in socio-economic development, it is recommended that: governments should have an innovation policy in place for the promotion of youth entrepreneurship; youth entrepreneurs in developing countries such as South Africa have a considerable propensity for innovation, and these personality traits are not given sufficient recognition in literature or by policymakers.

In South Africa, as a developing country, stimulation of innovation has not on the whole been a key focus area for youth entrepreneurial ecosystem role-players such as development agencies, private-sector development programmes, or national programmes in support of entrepreneurship. In governmental youth entrepreneurship support programmes, the main concern needs to be people-centred approaches to advance innovation which could engender the kind of dynamic efficiency that would drive job creation, transformation (growth in developmental maturity) and entrepreneurial ecosystemic growth.

Where innovation policy is apparent in government programmes, it often has a dualistic character, combining structuralist approaches with laissez-faire, non-interventionist approaches derived from the neo-liberal school of thought. A possible reason why structuralist approaches are used might be that the leaders who facilitate these types of government programmes see policy-making for innovation from the stereotypical perspective of the national economy as a set of separate structures and processes rather than as an integrative whole—a nondual paradigm. Both approaches see innovation policy as an infrastructural development factor in government strategies for hard and soft-system development. However, innovation policy alone most certainly cannot inspire youths’ EA towards innovation. Therefore, the emphasis on moving towards individual innovation by youth entrepreneurs is placed on connecting the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Within the youth entrepreneurship ecosystem, enabling mechanising is created in a process to co-initiate, co-sense, co-inspire, co-create, and co-evolve. The process of ‘co’ is proven to facilitate entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset to lever from reactive to generative responses, therefore, birthing individual innovation.

Adopting a national government approach towards including policies to enable individual innovation and facilitate innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems are fairly new on all systemic levels. Measuring instruments for government innovation policy to enable individual innovation for entrepreneurial ecosystems is difficult to create because of the fast and continuous pace of youth entrepreneurship development initiatives.

Successful innovative socio-economic development requires governments to increase the development impact of entrepreneurship by readjusting their policy frameworks and focus. The key for governments in addressing the developmental impact of socio-economic challenges might be to focus on creating deeper level youth entrepreneurial ecosystems where the emphasis is on entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset. Without a deep transformation and innovation of individual introspective processes of total ecosystems, a broader level of national socio-economic development will remain in a crisis as youth unemployment and sustainability issues continue to soar.

In summary, individual innovation’s ‘aha moment’ is linked to increased levels of ESE and IEO. Individual Innovation is further liked to transformation (growth in development maturity). Youth entrepreneurs, especially in developing countries, reach an ‘aha moment’ with great difficulty because they are entrapped within barriers of disconnected entrepreneurial ecosystems. It might be helpful if there are innovation policies from the national government. However, commitment from all role-players is needed for efficient implementation and sustainability, which is vastly and all-round complex.

4.3 Individual Proactiveness

Individual proactiveness is related to initiative and first-mover advantages through the pursuit of new opportunities and acting in anticipation of future problems. The importance of proactiveness is its ‘forward-looking perspective’ for entrepreneurial activity and innovation. Proactiveness is a behavioural trait where youth entrepreneurs and role-players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem are constantly seeking opportunities and having a forward-looking perspective. Young entrepreneurs or individuals entering the market for the first time need to be proactive in looking for new opportunities since they do not have a high profile in the market. These opportunities might include access to finance, partnerships, or skills development. Proactivity also links to the ESE skill set of management (Fig. 2.3) since proactive individuals adopt an active management style.

Although youths displaying proactive propensities are more likely to display leadership traits, being proactive and having leadership qualities does not guarantee that they will have a competitive pioneer advantage or be able to sustain EA; likewise, increased earnings might not necessarily be predictably associated with higher levels of proactiveness. This would depend on the specific context and dimension of IEO.

Proactiveness stands at one end of a continuum with passiveness as its opposite end. Proactiveness can therefore be seen as a form of reactiveness or a reactive response. The IEO proactivity propensity is closely associated with the ESE skill set of opportunity identification. High levels of IEO support opportunity recognition and opportunity creation. While individuals may change their goals and aspirations to match the requirements of changing environments around them because they see new opportunities to raise their level of performance, these proactive steps may not necessarily be efficient or bring increased earnings unless the individual reconfigures his or her own resources and adapts to the changing environment in a renewed manner.

Proactiveness may thus lead youths to perform differently, but not necessarily more effectively, should the efficiency of the individual not be improved. Proactiveness will not contribute to increased performance or successful attainment of personal goals and aspirations. Not all contexts will necessarily offer the opportunity for the individual to increase efficiency through proactive behaviour.

If proactiveness is associated with seizing the initiative and acting opportunistically in order to shape the environment and increase demand, then the intent of proactiveness is growing willingness. Willingness can be described as a measure of the degree to which the intention to increase demand exists, and growth willingness is therefore taken to represent a measure of proactiveness. In addition, education is likely to have a strong influence on growth willingness, both in encouraging an entrepreneur to aim higher and in boosting overall ESE.

4.4 The Illusion of External Opportunity Identification as an Act of Individual Proactivity

In cognitive sciences, the concepts of individual proactivity and opportunity identification are often seen as synonymous. Within this context, the entrepreneurial opportunity is central to the scholarship of entrepreneurship since entrepreneurs are individuals who pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, therefore, acting proactively. Conceptually speaking, without entrepreneurial opportunities, there could be no entrepreneurship. It could, however, be argued that the idea of ‘entrepreneurial opportunity’ is a misconception. Could it then be described that those entrepreneurial opportunities are external factors existing in the entrepreneurship ecosystem or nexus, independent from an individual’s personality traits and the core of our being (an individual’s entrepreneurial heartset and mindset)?

Entrepreneurial opportunities can be regarded as situations where products and services can be sold at a price greater than the cost of production. From this, it can be argued that to make a profit, action needs to be taken by the youth entrepreneur pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity. Business situations—situations that are profit-driven—do exist, and there are many businesses making money and exploiting niche markets or gaps in the market.

However, a dichotomy lies within the concept of entrepreneurial opportunity. It is a future-orientated action: How does one know that a profitable opportunity did exist before the youth entrepreneur tried it out? The dichotomy is this: Before youth entrepreneurs pilot the opportunity and try to sell the products or services, they do not have a confirmation or a certainty that selling these products or services will be profitable. If the youth entrepreneurs make money, then an entrepreneurial opportunity must have existed because the EA resulted in a profit. But, if a loss was made, or the venture failed in some other way, was it because not enough market research was put into ideating or prototyping the product or service, or was the opportunity not even there in the first place?

If people are not able to establish beforehand whether an entrepreneurial opportunity exists, then the concept of risk-taking towards an entrepreneurial opportunity advises youth entrepreneurs to act in post facto risk calculation.

A future opportunity can be said to exist as an abstract phenomenon; it becomes tangible only when combined with the personality traits and actions of the entrepreneur. It can, therefore, be said that the entrepreneurial heartset + the entrepreneurial mindset + EA = pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunity. This can further be deconstructed into ‘opportunities for someone’ and ‘opportunities for me’. A potential business opportunity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem may be a real opportunity for ‘me’ only if ‘I’ possess the right qualities to make a profit in pursuing it. A further dichotomy is created within this argument because, without involving clinical experts, it is difficult to determine what qualities are needed to pursue a specific entrepreneurial opportunity and whether the youth entrepreneur does have such traits. Even if the youth entrepreneur knows that he or she has the right qualities in relation to a specific opportunity, they will still need to act to determine—after the event—the success, or otherwise, of the action they have taken.

Another lens on the concept of opportunity identification is to shift focus from ‘opportunity discovery’ to ‘opportunity creation’. This philosophy is aligned with several schools of thought supporting youth entrepreneurs moving from reactive thought to generative thought, which will bring forth innovation in thought and potential prototypes of business models, products, and services. Youth entrepreneurs can discover niches in markets and opportunities that already exist. However, this viewpoint of opportunity creation leads to a tautology inherent in the concept of ‘entrepreneurial opportunity’: What if the youth entrepreneur tries to create an opportunity and fails? Were they not entrepreneurial because an opportunity was created, and because they failed? Using a practical example: Before Instagram, there was PhotoMe; Instagram founders are billionaires; PhotoMe founders are not. The ‘opportunity creation’ school suffers from the same tautology as the ‘opportunity discovery’ school because of its focus on the opportunity: all it does (from an entrepreneurship-scholarly lens) is to spark entrepreneurial momentum for youth entrepreneurs to take calculated risks.

Therefore, if the concept of an entrepreneurial opportunity is dichotomic and its schools of thought are tautological, how should youth entrepreneurs move forward to gain entrepreneurial momentum? Is taking a calculated risk, after performing various paper-based activities such as writing a business plan, budgeting, and market research, only a projection of something that could potentially result in an opportunity? The results of a written business plan are often very different from those envisaged (and often discarded) once the youth entrepreneur’s venture meets the realities and barriers in the ecosystem or nexus.

In summary, the IEO concept with its associated propensities relates to stimuli within an individual as well as external domains. The internal and external domains interact with one another in a nondual manner. Only through diminishing systemic disconnect, socio-economic will gain momentum.

5 Entrepreneurial Intention (EI)

EI is linked to ESE, IEO, and its effects on entrepreneurial personality traits, perception, and actions. EI is related to the likelihood or desirability of becoming an entrepreneur. Further, EI is a determinant for youth entrepreneurs to engage with EA and the sustainability of the actions. Figure 2.2 gives a schematic representation of the way aspects of ESE and IEO contribute to levels of EI. Without relationships to ESE and IEO, EI cannot exist as a single entity.

The outflow of EI leads to taking EA, where the action does not necessarily equate to a start-up. EI involves process building up to a possible business start-up. When youth entrepreneurs are developing EI, the entrepreneurial heartset and mindset actively combine to further develop the entrepreneurial handset (EA). Therefore, an action-orientated and enabling process occurs.

Participation of individuals in a facilitated entrepreneurial ecosystemic intervention might potentially enhance youths’ EI, as well as the role-players in their direct support network. Personal entrepreneurial exposure and support expected for a variety of intermediaries and entrepreneurial disposition all influence the levels of EI that individuals might form through participating in a facilitated intervention or strategy, for example, the SHAPE ecosystem strategy for youth entrepreneurs (Fig. 2.6).

Fig. 2.6

(Source Van der Westhuizen, 2022)

Youth entrepreneurial intentions (EI)

6 Entrepreneurial Action (EA)

Following the schematic indication set out in Fig. 2.2 of EA as a process that results from ESE, IEO and EI. Therefore, EA is conceived as emanating from an inner place of an individual’s being.¹² This inner place from which an individual’s intentions and actions arise are associated with an individual’s being, described as an individual’s values, aspirations, and dreams—the purpose behind entrepreneurial passion.¹³ These elements of heartset and mindset are propelled by various processes that result in an individual’s actions. The combination of the inner sources from which individuals act and the processes that follow eventuate in the results of individual behaviour, which might include EA, not necessarily in the form of a new venture, but with the possibility that youths’ actions become entrepreneurial.

For some youth entrepreneurs, without guidance and developmental support, EA might result in a continuum process of being en route to ‘X’ because of not being purpose-orientated and purpose-driven. It is impossible to apply linear planning to a nondual youth entrepreneurial ecosystem. Instead of trying to pin down what might be merely an illusion, youth entrepreneurs should be experimenting: prototyping and piloting taking EA. The emphasis is on producing generative response fields—innovation—and executing entrepreneurial activities through fresh, innovative lenses. Co-initiating, co-sensing, co-inspiring, co-creating, and co-evolving between youth entrepreneurs and the ecosystem start to occur and propels as new ideas are created as a result of collective interactions. If a prototype does not work, then pivot—change direction. The initial deep development of ESE, IEO and EI will boost youth entrepreneurs who engage with EA to sustain self-confidence and vision when an initial prototype does not work. The combination of enhanced internal and external domains helps youth entrepreneurs to start with an idea and continue to ideate and not give up entrepreneurial hopes and dreams.

Further emphasis is on the continuum of cyclical processes for youth entrepreneurs to take action and then collaborate with the ecosystem and potential customers to co-create and co-evolve a value-based outcome for all concerned. Therefore, creating entrepreneurial momentum towards socio-economic development.

Youth entrepreneurs should put less emphasis on long-term and potentially outdated business planning and (within reasonable limits) put more emphasis on action. Youth entrepreneurs need to focus on their entrepreneurial heartset and mindset because, ultimately, these will determine the success of their EA (handset). Their internal qualities are thus not barriers anymore, but rather the vehicle sparking entrepreneurial momentum. Instead of chasing ‘opportunities’ in an abstract ‘market’, it is essential for the youth entrepreneur (as a microsystem) to integrate with other systemic role-players, therefore, taking responsibility for co-creating and co-evolving a potential sustainable support structure. Ideally, those with whom the youth entrepreneurs choose to collaborate are individuals with like-minded, like-hearted and like-willed qualities.

One can argue that ‘entrepreneurial barriers’ can only be experienced by youth entrepreneurs once they have taken ‘entrepreneurial action’. Therefore, acting on a possible opportunity and proactively taking a potential risk without having a guarantee that the opportunity will result in wealth creation. The premise of youth entrepreneurs’ ability to experience barriers in the external environment in relation to their EA implies that they demonstrated initial signs of positive qualities associated with being entrepreneurs. Therefore, they demonstrate qualities of ESE, IEO and EI.

As life continuously moves on for youth entrepreneurs, the future scenario becomes the current one. The current problem-solving situations that EA youth entrepreneurs face are necessary to fulfil their entrepreneurial aspirations. Therefore, they grow to think and act upon new experiences in the process of developing their entrepreneurial heartset, mindset, and handset en route to potential EA. Therefore, their journey through transforming (growing in developmental maturity) might have moved youth entrepreneurs to crystallise their ideas (envisioning the new), prototype them (enacting the new), and perform them (the new in praxis).¹⁴ This implies that they are developing new knowledge—generative thought¹⁵—through embodying new experiences.

Might this imply that the lived-through experiences of youth entrepreneurs might self-teach them to overcome barriers and exposure to entrepreneurial realities within the ecosystem is necessary to sustain EA?

7 Conclusion

In the SHAPE ecosystem strategy for youth entrepreneurs, enabling the development of youths’ personality traits, ESE, IEO, EI, and EA occur through educational institutes playing the facilitating role to co-initiate. Entrepreneurship education, inter and cross-curricula, in both formal academic programmes and informal youth development initiatives is an essential starting point. From a nondual perspective, youth entrepreneurs and role-players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem need to share the vision and purpose for EA. This can be facilitated through education institutes, especially in higher education universities. The role of entrepreneurial orientated universities to facilitate the creation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem for youths and sustain crucial relationships might help bridge the systemic disconnect and unite people through an inspiring vision for wealth creation through socio-economic development.

In summary, transformative academic entrepreneurship education can facilitate ESE, EIO, EI, and EA through learning, teaching and research. It was actioned by youths, education institutes, government agencies, private-sector agencies, communities, SMEs, and corporations/ large businesses. Within the SHAPE youth entrepreneurial ecosystem strategy, an educational institute such as a university can be the facilitating agent to co-initiate the ecosystem creation for youths. However, the SHAPE strategy is flexible to allow movement, generalisation and adaptation of role-players, and location-specific aspects will influence the unique co-creating of a youth entrepreneurial ecosystem to add value in a location-specific context and a broader sense. This is further investigated in the next chapter.

This chapter builds on the SHAPE project-supported research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant Number: 122002-Shape). These works include: Adelakun and Van der Westhuizen (2021), Awotunde and Van der Westhuizen (2021a), Awotunde and Van der Westhuizen (2021b), Nhleko and van der Westhuizen (2022), Ruba et al. (2021), Van der Westhuizen (2017a), Van der Westhuizen (2017b), Van der Westhuizen (2018a), Van der Westhuizen (2018b), Van der Westhuizen (2019), Van der Westhuizen, (2021).