Contextual considerations in entrepreneurial finance education: A systematic analysis of U.S. undergraduate courses

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2016

Abstract

As undergraduate institutions in the United States have expanded their offerings in entrepreneurship education, increasingly distributing them across the curriculum, the number of courses on the subject of Entrepreneurial Finance or Entrepreneurial Financing also has grown. In order to further the field's understanding of the content and pedagogies employed, apart from traditional Corporate Finance courses, this meta-analysis explores the prevalence of Entrepreneurial Finance courses in the curricula of universities offering entrepreneurship majors, analyzes course descriptions and syllabi, and proposes a typology of Entrepreneurial Finance courses including the modified corporate, public/private equity, and life cycle models. This typology is empirically tested and analyzed. Empirical methods, including parsing terminology, factor analysis, and cluster analysis, are used to identify course clusters based upon course names, descriptions and syllabus topics. Differences between courses are calculated by running Multivariate Cluster Analyses using K-Means approaches to generate the optimal Cubic Clustering Criteria (CCC) under various conditions. We also conduct Factor Analysis for Principal Component/Varimax using Rotated Factor Loading.There are two primary clusters which are essentially the high growth venture/public/private equity model (17 courses or 30.9 percent) and all others (38 courses or 69.1 percent). The CCCs for two and three clusters are -3.7546 and -3.7885. Given that the larger number of clusters will routinely generate a somewhat higher CCC value, these are virtually identical. Therefore, we also conduct multivariate cluster analysis on the larger cluster and identify two clusters, falling into the modified corporate and life cycle models. Cluster analysis generates some difference from the initial parsing results. The overall results suggest that course strategy may be a function of the institution type when considered by AACSB accreditation and public/private institution status. The departments in which the courses are situated matter. Examples of the predominant syllabus topics for each model are compiled and presented. Texts and teaching pedagogies are analyzed to provide insights. Opportunities for further investigation are identified. With entrepreneurial finance as an emerging sub-discipline, empirical evidence on entrepreneurs' special needs could be helpful to those structuring courses or writing texts for this area of entrepreneurship education.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS