Entrepreneurial Thinking in Interdisciplinary Student Teams

Our work investigates students' perception of collaborative expertise and the role of inquiry-based learning in the context of team-based entrepreneurship education. Specifically, we examine students' perception of communication, division of work, shared goals, team conflicts and leadership in their respective teams. In addition, we look at the role that experts play in constructing students' understanding and learning when engaging in entrepreneurial ventures. To that purpose we extracted the types of sources that teams used to validate their hypotheses about revenue streams, customer relationships, or value propositions. We are using a mixed-method approach to data collection through peer-reviews, business model canvases, and status reports. This paper reports results from a study implemented in a graduate-level entrepreneurship course with a focus on sustainability and energy. Results of the peer-reviews indicate that composite scores increased between the midpoint and the end of the course. Although, female students received higher evaluations than male students, these differences were not statistically significant. The status reports and business model canvases revealed that teams utilize a range of first-hand and public sources such as expert interviews, publications and self-generated calculations to construct their business models. Finally, we found that teams engaged with experts from a variety of fields and job functions, ranging from fellow students to managers.