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The concept of competence, as it is brought into play in current research, is a potentially powerful construct for entrepreneurship education and training research and practice. Although the concept has been the subject of strong debate in educational research in general, critical analysis of how it has been used, applied and experienced in entrepreneurship education practice is scarce. This article contributes specifically to the discussion of entrepreneurial competence by theoretically unfolding and discussing the concept. Subsequently, the implications of applying a competence-based approach in entrepreneurship education are illustrated and discussed based on analysis of two cases that were aimed at identifying, diagnosing and eventually developing entrepreneurial competence in small businesses in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium). The cases show that the added value of focussing on competence in entrepreneurship education and training lies in making the (potential) small business owner aware of the importance of certain entrepreneurial competencies and in providing direction for competence development. In this process it is fundamental that competence is treated as an item for discussion and interpretation, rather than as a fixed template of boxes to be ticked. Furthermore the cases highlight that a competence-based approach does not completely determine the type of educational and instructional strategies to be used. Its consequential power in that respect is limited.

In this article, we show that, in high-tech industries, there are significant differences in the Habitual Domains (HD) of technologists/researchers (T/R) and managers/leaders (M/L). The differences are measured specifically in the following: characteristics, attitudes toward career and life, perception of business problems, business competences and resources. We then describe how a T/R can effectively transform himself/herself into a successful M/L, by transforming his/her HD closer to that of a successful M/L.

The constant generation of innovation is a major factor in explaining a firm’s long-term success. Accordingly, previous literatures have identified several organisational, processual, and cultural factors that enable firms to promote successful innovation. Although these success factors appear to be rather different, most of them revolve around continuity, competence, or cooperation. As little prior research has focused on the complexity and interdependence of these various interlinked theoretical concepts, we adopt a configurational and longitudinal approach to analyse the effect of continuity, competence, and cooperation on the innovation performance of a firm on short-, mid-, and long-term bases. Based on a longitudinal data set that captures the innovation behaviour of 220 firms from 2009 to 2015, we find that continuity is the basic requirement for constant innovation performance. In addition, cooperation is likely to be supportive of innovation performance in the short term, while competence supports innovation performance in the long term.

Background: Acquiring competence in microsurgical suturing is a basic requirement for any trainee aspiring to perform clinical microsurgery. New methods and simulation platform continue to evolve, but the assessment of the quality of microsurgical suturing is largely subjective. We present the concept of computer aided assessment of standardised microsurgical task, using a novel training platform. The platform comprises of a simulator (hardware) that provides the trainee standardised microsurgical tasks, which are then evaluated using a customised software.

Methods: A cohort of trainees attending a five day microsurgery training course was selected. The trainees performed three standardised exercises on the platform, on the first third and the fifth day of the course. All the exercises were subjected to computer aided assessment.

Results: Trainees demonstrated a learning curve over the five day period through the evaluation system, with initial increase in performance followed by a plateau. Eighty four percent of the trainees were able to achieve acceptable scores. Sixteen percent of the trainees were unable to perform a suturing of acceptable quality at the end of the training (fifth day).

Conclusions: The mean scores correlated with the level of difficulty of the exercise. We conclude that computer aided assessment can provide an objective view of the quality of suturing as well as skill maintenance in for trainees.

Human Behavior and Social Environment is the compulsory course of social work department. The goal of the course is to build the students’ knowledge for professional workers in the future. One of the focuses of this course is to understand the developmental significance of the physiological, psychological and social dimensions and the key influencing factors in each stage of human life cycle.

Hence, the teaching design concept of this course, in addition to let students acquire relevant theoretical views and learn the basic concepts of helping people from life experience and situational cognition, also it abandons the original dull teaching methods.

The core competencies of this course are mainly set in understanding the ability of theoretical knowledge of social work, cultivating social work professional practice ability and multi-thinking and humanistic care ability. It can be provided the improvement direction of the teaching in the future through self-designed teaching materials, teaching methods and learning assessment methods, and also from the results of the students’ assessment and the feedback from the three focus groups.

According to this, it proposes five teaching effectiveness and conclusion that the course linking the curriculum with practice, analysis of Multiple Arguments, interactive application of theory and cases, multicultural learning, as well as effectiveness of proficient learning. In the interactive process of “teaching” and “learning”, it has indeed effectively improved the professional ability of students and also improved the teaching quality of this course.

Universities across the world are adopting entrepreneurial programs to meet the needs and challenges of the global economy. However, by accident or design, the entrepreneurial programs tend to focus almost exclusively on start-ups and do not necessarily encourage or enable corporate entrepreneurship (CE). Therefore, much of the content is not applicable in a corporate scenario, yet business students typically start working for established companies for initial positions or as continuation of graduate training. With the lack of corporate entrepreneurship modules in the entrepreneurial curriculum, business students are less prepared to enter the job market and incumbent organizations and miss out on opportunities to recruits with corporate entrepreneurship knowledge, skills, and abilities. This is unfortunate, as companies are also affected by the absence of next-generation leaders oriented to CE, which may contribute to the vulnerability of existing organizations facing increasingly dynamic environments. To address this knowledge deficiency and encourage future research on this important topic, we conducted 20 in-depth interviews with CE scholars, educators, and administrators. In this chapter, we synthesize a Corporate Entrepreneurship Education Framework and propose high-potential directions for future research.

This contribution analyzes the origin of the competence construct, its evolution and how it is conceptualized by different authors in different fields. The objective is to reveal the complexity of the idea that the construct is meant to capture; in fact, only by bringing out this complexity can we hope to make the construct truly operational and useful for practice and educational research. In particular, I discuss the multidimensional artefact-like character of the construct of competence trying to reveal the several distinct related dimensions which contribute to form this single theoretical concept.