Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences among students – the case of business, IT, and services disciplines

Ljubljana School of Business, Tržaška cesta 42, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

^* Corresponding author: katarina.askerc@vspv.si

Abstract

Developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences provides future graduates with several benefits, wherein they are equipped for the globalized, intercultural world imbued with all of its uncertainties, diversities, and opportunities, both at the workplace and in everyday life. Entrepreneurial higher education institutions are characterized by an international and intercultural perspective – however, an institution cannot be entrepreneurial without being international, yet it can be international without being entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial university provides a good environment, culture, and practices that enhance student entrepreneurship. Internationalisation, entrepreneurship, and in this context international entrepreneurship education are important topics to which academics and higher education institutions have increasingly devoted attention in recent years. This article discusses various aspects of developing intercultural and entrepreneurship competences, which are affected by different approaches to intercultural learning and teaching in the context of entrepreneurship education. In the last part of the paper, results are presented of quantitative research among Slovenian academics who teach business, IT, and services disciplines. Findings have shown that independent variables like teaching international students, providing distance learning with foreign institutions, inclusion of academics in training courses, and academics’ international mobility all influence the frequency of using intercultural and entrepreneurial aspects in higher education learning and teaching practices.