CET Internal report nr 20140326.

PRELIMINARY VERSION (to be used for collecting comments and remarks). Limited circulation.

Introducing Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship

- a game-based teaching approach
Ikhlaq Sidhu*, Ken Singer**, Mari Suoranta***, Charlotta Johnsson****

*,** Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (CET), University of California Berkeley, CA, USA
(email: [email protected] , email: ken.singer@berkeley )
*** University of Jyväskylä, Finland and Visiting scholar at UC Berkeley
(e-mail: [email protected] , [email protected] )
**** Lund University, Sweden and Visiting scholar at UC Berkeley
(e-mail: edu [email protected] , [email protected])}

Abstract: Entrepreneurship is often thought of as the act of commercializing on an innovation. In modern

open economies, entrepreneurship is one of the key aspects for economic growth. Teaching and learning
entrepreneurship is therefore of importance and schools, colleges and universities can play an important
role by including entrepreneurship and innovation in their curricula. The Berkeley Method of
Entrepreneurship (BMoE) is a holistic teaching and learning approach that enables engineers to be more
entrepreneurial. It encompasses three main elements; infrastructure, mindset and tactics. Infrastructure and
tactics are covered in most entrepreneurial curricula, whereas only few curricula explicitly include the
mindset perspective. The Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship (BMoE) is based on the hypothesis that
the mindset of an entrepreneur can be characterized by a set of behavioral patterns and that an inductive
game-based teaching approach is a successful vehicle for introducing and re-enforcing these. The game-
based teaching approach lets the students explore his/her current mindset and compare it with that of
entrepreneurs. The paper presents the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship, the set of behavioral patterns
used and the game based teaching approach.

process of learning itself (Shepherd, 2004). Research

1. INTRODUCTION
investigating suitable pedagogical methods to attain
Entrepreneurship matters. In modern open economies it is requisite skills among engineering students is lacking.
more important for economic growth than it has ever been. Equally, accounts of the use and potential of games as a
The reason is that globalization and the revolution in pedagogical tool are largely absent from mainstream
information technology imply a need for structural change, journals (Verzat et al., 2009).
requiring a substantial reallocation of resources. This
The Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship (BMoE) is a
induces an intense demand for entrepreneurship (Thurik
holistic teaching and learning approach that enables
and Audretsch, 1998; Casson 1995). In understanding
engineers to be more entrepreneurial. It encompasses three
entrepreneurship, schools, colleges and universities play an
main elements; infrastructure, mindset, and tactics.
important role and should therefore implement programs
Infrastructure and tactics are elements found in many
and courses that improve the education and training in the
entrepreneurial courses and provide the students with
area of technology management and entrepreneurship
knowledge and facts associated to entrepreneurship.
(Siegel, 2009; Fleming, Yang & Golden, 2010).
Mindset is an element often neglected in traditional courses
Governments and universities worldwide are pushing for
and concerns the student’s behavior and attitude to
education programs that produce more “entrepreneurial
entrepreneurship.
engineers” who are “bilingual” in the sense that they
possess dual managerial and technical competencies The Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship is based on the
(Verzat, Byrne & Fayolle, 2009). hypothesis that the mindset of an entrepreneur can be
characterized by a set of behavioral patterns and that an
Some of the most crucial elements of entrepreneurship at
inductive game-based teaching approach is a successful
the level of individuals are; attitudes, skills and actions
vehicle for introducing and re-enforcing these. The game-
(Wennekers, Van Wennekers, Thurike & Reynolds, 2009),
based teaching approach let the students explore his/her
i.e. elements that are partly not taught in traditional classes
current mindset and compare it with that of entrepreneurs.
at schools, colleges and universities. Creating
The BMoE further stresses the relationship between the
entrepreneurial mind-sets in students also calls for the use
student and the subject, i.e. how information, experiences
of innovative models and contents in teaching and may
and knowledge provided in the course is perceived by the
involve changing the content of courses as well as the
student. The BMoE is therefore inductive rather than
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PRELIMINARY VERSION (to be used for collecting comments and remarks). Limited circulation.
deductive, and thereby organized around “learning” rather 3. TEACHING AND LEARNING
than “teaching”. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
This paper starts with a definition and description of As an answer to the need of increasing entrepreneurship in
entrepreneurship and why it is of importance for society society, citizens should be trained to start companies. One
(Section 2). It describes current trends in teaching and opportunity to create new companies is in areas of
learning as well as the special aspects of teaching and innovation and new inventions. In most countries,
learning entrepreneurship (Section 3). The paper further universities generate lots of new innovations. Thus, the
contains a description of the BMoE (Section 4) and the universities that not only innovate (through research) but
hypotheses on which it is based. The paper presents a set of also train entrepreneurs will be at the forefront of growing
behavioral patterns that characterize an entrepreneur their countries' economies (Bramwell & Wolfe, 2008).
(Section 5) and it discusses how these can be invoked by Today many universities have extended their traditional
introducing games in the teaching and learning setting goal (education, research and outreach) to also include
(Section 6). The paper presents some ideas for further innovation and entrepreneurship. The newer goal is often
research related to entrepreneurship and management expressed as; education, research, and outreach-and-
education in general and to the BMoE in particular innovations. Entrepreneurship and innovation are being
(Section 7). At last, the conclusions are drawn (Section 8). included in curricula at adaptive universities. In addition,
discussions about teaching and learning in general, has
received increased attention at universities lately.
2. ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Generally speaking, teaching is interpreted as the act of
Entrepreneur, originally being a French word, is commonly helping someone to learn. In recent years, the discussions
defined as an individual who organizes or operates a about teaching has shifted from “how to present and
business or businesses. The first usage of the word transfer knowledge from a teacher to someone else” to
“entrepreneur” dates back to the Irish-French economist “how information and knowledge provided is perceived by
Richard Cantillon who, in 1734, defined it as the receiver”, i.e. from a teacher-student-transfer focus in
“Entrepreneurs are non-fixed income earners who pay which the subject is only the transported goods, to the
known costs of production but earn uncertain incomes” student-subject-relation focus in which the teacher is only
(Tarascio, 1985). Newer definition comes from Ronald the medium used. The task for the teachers is to help the
May, who states that “An Entrepreneur is someone who students to learn. This shift is illustrated in the didactic
commercializes his or her innovation”, and Howard triangle in Figure 1 (Johnsson (2014)).
Stevenson (Gartner & Baker, 2010) who states that
“Entrepreneurship is the process by which individuals
pursue opportunities without regard to the resources they
currently control”. Entrepreneurship is the art of being an
entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship is an essential ingredient for creative
destruction, a phenomenon described by the Austrian
economist Joseph Schumpeter (Schumpeter, 1934).
According to Schumpeter creative destruction is “the
essential fact about capitalism” where new combinations of Figure 1: An interpretation of the Didactic Triangle
resources (e.g., human talent, physical resources and showing a shift from the teacher-student-transfer focus
financial resources) give rise to new industries and wealth (left) to the student-subject-relation focus (right).
(MacCraw, 2009). According to Schumpeter, creative
destruction is the primary mechanism for economic
development for societies and businesses. In his view, The teacher-student-transfer focus (left in Figure 1) is also
entrepreneurs are the dynamic figures who combine, or referred to as deductive teaching, whereas the student-
recombine, vital resources to serve emerging customer subject-relation focus (right in Figure 1) is referred to as
needs, thereby “creatively” destroying the pre-existing inductive learning (Prince and Felder (2006)).
economic order (Deligiannidis & Noyes, 2010).
• Deductive: In a deductive classroom, the teacher
Entrepreneurship in a society can exist at three distinct
conducts lessons by introducing and explaining
levels; individual, firm and macro level. The three levels
concepts to students, and then expecting students
operate under different conditions, have its own crucial
to complete tasks to practice the concepts. The
elements and their respective success has different
students should demonstrate that the have
implications (Wennekers et al., 2009). It is the success of
understood the concepts by repeating what the
entrepreneurship at the macro level that implies economic
teacher just told or did.
growth. However, a success at the macro level cannot be
achieved without successful entrepreneurship at the firm • Inductive: In an inductive classroom, the teacher
level and at the individual level since the macroclimate is presents or exposes the students to examples that
grown out of these (van Stel, Carree & Thurik, 2010). shows how the concept is used. The intent is for
students to “notice”, by reflecting around the
CET Internal report nr 20140326.
PRELIMINARY VERSION (to be used for collecting comments and remarks). Limited circulation.
examples, how the concept works. The students • Instructors host the environment for students to
should demonstrate that they have understood by interact directly with the problem. Students make
re-inventing the concepts based on their own their own decisions and learn inductively.
experience.
• Behavior training – through games and exercises
Deductive teaching methods are suitable to use in subjects
where facts and raw knowledge is of most importance, • De-emphasis of “grades” and refocus on “goals”
whereas an inductive teaching approach is suitable to use • Leverage real-world competition
when skills and attitudes are in focus. When it comes to
teaching and learning entrepreneurship there are several The method has already been used in practice at different
aspects, apart from facts and raw knowledge that are of occasions; boot camps and courses for undergraduate and
importance. Political economist Robert Reich considers graduate students, Global Venture Lab Conferences for
leadership, management ability, and team-building to be academia and industry, and research activities. The 3-
essential qualities of an entrepreneur (Muljadi, 2011). layered model describing the BMoE is depicted in Figure
Other researchers state that common skills and attitudes of 2.
entrepreneurs are; ability to bear risk (Knight, 2002;
Drucker, 1999), coping with true uncertainty, and
possessing an extrovert behavior, i.e. an outgoing,
talkative, energetic behavior (Knight, 2002). Since skills
and attitudes of entrepreneurs are equally important as facts
and raw knowledge, and since skills and attitudes are
“owned” by the students, the relation between the student
and the entrepreneurship-subject becomes essential, the
school and teachers are only a mean for the student to
reflect upon his or her skills and attitudes (compare Figure
1, right side) and an inductive learning approach is
therefore most suitable.
An example of an inductive learning approach is game-
based learning, something that has received increased
attention lately (Verzat et al., 2009). It has been driven by
clear successes in military and industrial training as well as
by emerging research into the cognitive benefits of game
plays. Developers and researchers are working in various
Figure 2: The three layers in BMoE.
areas of game-based learning, including games that are
goal-oriented; social game environments; non-digital
games that are easy to construct and play; games developed
expressly for education; and commercial games that lend The three layers are defined as:
themselves to refining team and group skills. More • Layer 1 Tactics: Teaching effectiveness of
complex approaches like role-playing, collaborative strategy, tactics and execution e.g. opportunity
problem solving, and other forms of simulated experiences recognition, pivots, MVP, raising funds, tools,
have broad applicability across a wide range of disciplines, frameworks, etc.
and are beginning to be explored in more classrooms
(Games-in-Education, 2013). • Layer 2 Mindset: Exposure to issues related to
culture, social psychology, and mindset. The
psychology of being an entrepreneur e.g. trusting,
4. BERKELEY METHOD OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP risk assessment, communication, overcoming
(BMoE) social barriers, rejection therapy, fail training, is
covered.
At University of California Berkeley a new method for
teaching and learning entrepreneurship is under • Layer 3 Infrastructure: Assuring infrastructure and
development (Sidhu, 2013a; GVL Report, 2013). The supporting, safe and effective environment e.g.
pedagogy is focused around learning rather than teaching diverse networks, ability to connect, facilities,
(compare figure 1) and the students are pushed to services, clarity of rules of engagement, and
proactively develop their own understanding rather than mentors.
waiting for someone to teach them what they need to Layer 1 and 3 are covered in most traditional courses,
know. The students are trained to frame problems and find entrepreneurship as well as other courses, whereas Layer 2
ways to solve them and then reflect on what they've is often not explicitly included in courses today. In
learned from the process. The pedagogy of BMoE is based traditional courses the students are given access to good
on the following five (5) assumptions: infrastructure and supporting environment (Layer 3). The
• You can learn it only while you are trying to do it. aim is to facilitate the students to study, search for
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PRELIMINARY VERSION (to be used for collecting comments and remarks). Limited circulation.
information, share documents etc. The infrastructure also
Nb Behavior
contains clarity of rules; the students should know what is
expected from them in the learning situation. In traditional
courses the students are also taught about the tactics 1 Pay It Forward
associated to the subject (Layer 1). In entrepreneurship “Agree that you will get help from others, and pay
courses, the tactics could be knowledge about e.g. it forward.”
opportunity recognition, how to raise funds or how to use
certain tools and frameworks. 2 Story Telling

However, what is often omitted in traditional courses or “Realize a something new by induction, and then
entrepreneurship courses as well, is an explicit work with learn to communicate the story with a new
mindset (Level 2). The BMoE aims at training students to language.”
become entrepreneurs and therefore exposes the students to
the entrepreneurial mindset. This is done by using an 3 Friend or Foe
inductive game-based teaching approach. “If you can’t tell: Learn to trust others without
expecting anything in return.”
The BMoE is based on a two-folded hypothesis:
1. the mindset of an entrepreneur can be described as a 4 Seek Fairness
list of behavioral patterns, and
“Make deals that seek fairness (in positive sum
2. an inductive game based teaching approach is a transactions), not advantage (in zero sum
successful vehicle to introduce and re-enforce transactions.”
behavioral patterns to students.
A list of ten (10) behavioral patterns has been formulated, 5 Plan to Fail
and current research aims at confirming or rejecting each of “It is necessary to be Wrong sometimes. Plan to
the behavioral patterns. The inductive game-based teaching Experiment. Plan to Fail. (Fail Fast) Analyze,
approach has started to be used at University of California Adapt and repeat. The smarter you think you are,
Berkeley within courses given by the Center for the harder this is going to be.”
Entrepreneurship and Technology. Current research aims at
tuning existing games and/or finding additional games
6 Diversify
reinforcing the behavioral patterns. Research concerning
how to measure the success of using a game-based teaching “Diversify your networks. Connect to people you
approach in entrepreneurial curricula is also in its initial would not normally, then go and listen. Open Up.
stages. The following two chapters describe the ten And connect them to others.”
behavioral patterns characterizing entrepreneurs and the
game-based teaching approach. 7 Role Model
“Be a role model for other entrepreneurs and
5. TEN BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS innovators.”
CHARACTERIZING ENTREPRENEURS
8 Believe
The mindset of successful entrepreneurs has been studied
by various researchers (e.g. (Hwang & Horowitt (2012)) “Believe that you can change the world.”
and a proposal describing their most dominant
characteristics is given through ten (10) behavioral 9 Good Enough
patterns, which are listed in the Table 1. It is important to
note that this is an ongoing research, which implies that the “Perfection is no good but good enough is perfect.”
ten (10) behavioral patterns should be interpreted as best
current status. It cannot be excluded that more patterns will 10 Collaboration
be added, or current patterns modified/removed. “Individual vs team and competitors vs partners”
The ten behavioral patterns describe the typical mindset of
successful entrepreneurs. If everyone in a community acts Table 1: Ten (10) behavioral patterns characterizing and
like this, there will be a vibrant entrepreneurial culture, as entrepreneur.
described by Hwang & Horowitt (Hwang & Horowitt
(2012). 5.1 Pay it Forward

“Agree that you will get help from others, and pay it
forward”
Pay-It-Forward is a term used to describe the concept of
“asking the beneficiary of a good deed to repay it to others
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instead of the original benefactor” (Pay-It-Forward, 2013). 5.3 Friend or Foe
The first known use of the term dates back to 1916 when it
was used in the phrase “You don’t pay love back; you pay “If you can’t tell: learn to trust others without expecting
it forward” (Hammond, 1916). anything in return”
In areas strong in entrepreneurship, such as Silicon Valley Trust, generalized trust and particularized trust, are
in California, US, a Pay-It-Forward culture has been important concepts strongly related to a person’s judgment
identified (Blank, 2011). Entrepreneurs in these areas build of friend or foe. Trust means to believe in someone’s word,
support networks outside of existing companies. These it is often towards a known person. Research has validated
networks can be around any area of interest. The networks the importance of social cohesion based on trust, support,
are mutually beneficial, i.e. as a participant you both learn and altruism in driving behavioral outcomes. It has been
from others and contribute to help others. Over time shown that trust is mainly created through real-life
experienced executives “pay back” the help they got by collaborations, working together, and/or sharing
mentoring others. A Pay-It-Forward culture makes an information (Bieling, McCabe & Anthony, 2013; Hwang
entrepreneurship ecosystem smarter. (Blank, 2011). and Horowitt, 2012). In social networks trust can be
multiplied.
The Pay-It-Forward concept is the motivation behind
seasoned managers or entrepreneurs getting involved in Generalized trust is trust towards strangers arising when “a
coaching and/or mentoring (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz & community shares a set of moral values in such a way as to
Lima, 2004). Mentoring has been identified as an exchange create regular expectations of regular and honest behavior”
relationship whereby both the mentor and the protégé gain (Fukuyama, 1995). Generalized trust differs fundamentally
several benefits from each other. For example, compared from particularized trust by being extended to people on
with non-mentored individuals, mentored employees whom the trusting part has no direct information
demonstrate higher levels of objective and subjective (Bjornskov, 2007).
positive outcomes such as career development, job
satisfaction, socialization, organizational commitment, and 5.4 Seek Fairness
career advancements (Richard, Ismail, Bhuian & Taylor,
2009). “Make deals that seek fairness (in positive sum
transactions), not advantage (in zero sum transactions)”
5.2 Story Telling Covey (1989) coined the idea of abundance mentality or
abundance mindset, a concept in which a person believes
“Realize something new by induction, and then learn to there are enough resources and successes to share with
communicate the story with a new language” others. It can be contrasted with the scarcity mindset (i.e.,
This behavioral pattern refers to Christensen’s influential destructive and unnecessary competition), which is
work on the innovator’s dilemma (Christensen, 1997) and founded on the idea that, if someone else wins or is
Moore’s work on crossing the chasm (Moore, 2006). successful in a situation, that means you lose; not
Especially in high-tech markets, an entrepreneur’s product considering the possibility of all parties winning (in some
idea or business model can be radically new, or disruptive, way or another) in a given situation. Individuals with an
it can be a “new to the world” type of innovation. Often abundance mentality reject the notion of zero sum
even the terminology used to describe the concept might be transactions and instead believe in positive sum
missing. Exploring a new, possibly disruptive, market thus transactions. They are able to celebrate the success of
requires major changes in patterns of behavior related to others rather than feel threatened by it. Genuine strive for
how entrepreneurs communicate. The entrepreneurs need mutually beneficial solutions or agreements, as supported
to learn how to “cross the communication chasm” so that by a positive sum transactions attitude, is the key in
potential investors, and later on customers, understand the (entrepreneurial) relationships. A "win" for all is ultimately
added value in the new offering. The entrepreneurs need to a better long-term solution than if only one person in the
learn to communicate their story with a new language; they situation had got his way.
need to be storytellers and to do story telling.
5.5 Plan to Fail
To be able to adopt new innovations, consumers need to be
aware of an innovation and understand the additional value “It is necessary to be wrong sometimes. Plan to
provided by the innovation (Rogers, 1996). Narrative, or experiment. Plan to fail (and fail fast). Analyze, adapt and
story telling, is central tool in addressing many of today's repeat. The smarter you think you are, the harder this is
key leadership challenges, for example, articulating the going to be.“
risks and opportunities identified by strategic management
tools like strategic plans, scenario analysis, and dilemma Important concepts related to this rule are effectual logic,
resolution (Denning, 2006). Story telling can be one way to failure acceptance and pivoting. Research on successful
overcome the communication chasm. It can be used entrepreneurs revealed that they used non-predictive or
effectively for several purposes of communication; effectual logic. This means that you begin with who you
sparking action, transmitting values, explore alternative are, what you know, whom you know and begin doing the
future scenarios or sharing knowledge. doable with as few resources invested as possible
(Sarasvathy, 2001; Read, Saraswathy, Song & Wiltbank,
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2009). Research also concludes that an entrepreneur An important concept related to belief is self-efficacy. The
should “repeat, continue after failure and pivot until the construct of self-efficacy was introduced by Bandura
chain of stakeholders and commitments converge to a (1977) and represents one core aspect of his social-
viable new venture” (Ries, 2011). In particular, begin cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001). Perceived self-efficacy
interacting with a wide variety of potential stakeholders is concerned with people's beliefs in their ability to
and negotiating actual commitments. Let the actual influence events that affect their lives. This core belief is
commitments reshape the specific goals of the venture. An the foundation of human motivation, performance
entrepreneur has to accept that the reshaping is an accomplishments, and emotional well-being. A meta-
important part, aiming to improve; it is not to be thought of analysis concerning the relationship between self-efficacy
as a defeat. and work-related performance indicates that there is a
significant weighted average correlation (Stajkovic and
5.6 Diversify Luthans, 1988), i.e. persons with high belief in their ability
to influence events demonstrates higher work-performance
“Diversify your networks. Connect to people you would than those that had a low belief.
not normally, then go and listen. Open Up. And connect
them to others.” It has also been found that a strong sense of personal
efficacy is related to better health, higher achievement, and
According to Dubini and Aldrich (1991) the diversity of more social integration. If people believe that they can take
entrepreneurs’ networks is crucial to the scope of action to solve a problem instrumentally they become more
opportunities open to them. Information about new inclined to do so and feel more committed to this decision
business locations, potential markets for goods and (Schwartzer et al., 1997).
services, sources of capital or potential investors, and
innovations, is likely to be spread widely among 5.9 Perfection vs Good Enough
individuals. This implies that, someone with a small set of
overlapping relationships is at a disadvantage when “Perfection is not good but good enough is perfect.”
competing for information with someone with a large set of
As an entrepreneur it is important to understand that
divergent ties. However, it is not easy to diversify, there
perfection can be harmful, not because of the perfect result
are social barriers to stifle human connections. Although
but because perfection usually requires time, and timing
the geographical distances, due to the technology, are
can be more important than a perfect result. An idea can
shrinking the social distances caused by culture, language
always be changed or altered to make improvements. In the
and distrust are still there (Hwang & Horowitt, 2012).
book “The art of the start”, author Kawasaki (2004)
5.7 Role model explains that entrepreneurs should “fix, ship, fix, ship”
rather than “fix, fix, fix, ship”. The idea will constantly be
“Be a role model for other entrepreneurs and innovators.” improved. Bird Dunn states “Perfection is the enemy of
completion”. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn says:
It has been demonstrated that a first step in approaching a “One of the metaphors that I use for startups is you throw
new role or a new behavior is to be able to associate yourself off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way
oneself with a role model possessing this behavior. Culture down”. This implies that you cannot wait for the plane to
can be learned by imitating people similar to us or be perfect; it has to be assembled quick and with an aim to
imitating people that are admired as socially dominant be good enough for flying.
(Hwang & Horowitt, 2012; Freeman, 2009). Role models
are therefore powerful tools for learning new behaviors and 5.10 Collaboration
one of the most powerful ways to change the behavior of
someone is to have them spend time and listen to someone “Individual vs team and competitors vs partners”
else whom they want to emulate (Hwang and Horowitt,
Collaboration can be performed in different flavors; there
2012).
can be collaborations between individuals, who build the
In a good mentoring relationship, the mentor can be a role teams in businesses. Financial and human resources often
model through both words and actions. Assuming the seem to be the most critical for a successful launch of the
mentor is an entrepreneur with experience and the mentee venture and these resources tend to be closely interrelated.
is a newer entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is constantly When new ventures apply for early stage venture capital
breaking rules and making mistakes in an effort to drive its funds, the question of a well-balanced team with sufficient
businesses forward. As a new entrepreneur, this is a business experience is often raised by the potential
challenging part, having a mentor in this process can be investors to evaluate a project (Vanaelst, Clarysse, Wright,
invaluable. Entrepreneurs are a role model for how other Lockett, Moray & S'Jegers, 2006).
entrepreneurs should see, and deal with, ethics in
And there can be collaborations between competing
entrepreneurship.
companies, so called co-opetition which is defined as a
5.8 Believe strategy embodying simultaneous cooperation and
competition between firms (Gnyawali, He & Madhavan,
“Believe that you can change the world” 2008). Collaboration in business today is more of a
survival trait than a buzzword. Because competing firms
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possess relevant resources and face similar pressures, were given a problem to solve related to marketing
collaboration with competitors enables firms to acquire and communications and PR of a local technology SME. The
create new technological knowledge and use the students teams competed against each other and in the end
knowledge in pursuit of innovations (Gnyawali & Park, best solution would win. The collaboration between
2011). Increased popularity of co-opetition is evident by students and the firm was initiated by a faculty member but
the fact that over 50% of collaborative relations (strategic after the first introduction students were on their own to
alliances) are between firms within the same industry, that build a relationship to the firm representatives. Students
is, among competitors (Harbison and Pekar, 1998). first task was to negotiate the team building, how to select
Recently, scholars have suggested that especially small members to a team. Ideally teams should have been truly
businesses in an industry need to collaborate with multidisciplinary, so that the members bring to a team a
competitors so that they can create economies of scale, wide variety of experiences and expertise. Next step was to
mitigate risk, and leverage resources together (Morris, identify further what was the exact problem with firm’s
Kocak & Özer 2007). marketing communication. Altogether 5 teams each having
4-5 students team continued to work for three weeks and in
a final seminar presented their solutions to the panel of
6. BMoE’s GAME-BASED TEACHING APPROACH judges consisting of the founder/CEO and marketing
manager of the firm and faculty members. The first prize
The BMoE includes behavioral training and reflections
was actually given to two teams which had also
around mindset. An inductive game-based teaching
collaborated between themselves, co-opetited, e.g. they had
approach is used. Various games, referred to as the BMoE
shared their memos from initial meetings with the CEO
games, have been develop. A game can be defined as a
which made them able to identify the problem faster, and
structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and
then proceed to analyze the alternative courses of actions,
sometimes used as an educational tool (Game, 2014). Or a formulate strategy and implement.
game may be described as an “artificial situation” in which
players engage in an artificial conflict against one another BMoE behavior-1 “Pay-It-Forward”: The behavior of
or all together against other forces. Games are regulated by “asking the beneficiary of a good deed to repay it to others
rules, which may take the form of procedures, controls, instead of the original benefactor” has been used in an
obstacles, or penalties (Verzat et al., 2009). Furthermore, educational activity at Lund University, Sweden. In the
four key components of games are; goals, rules, challenges, Technology Management program (Johnsson, Nilsson,
and interaction. For the BMoE games this implies: Elingsdottir, Nilsson & Alsen, 2013), the students were
asked to “assemble as much money as possible within 6
• Goals: a preset objective, aligned with the hours, and donate everything to charity”. The students were
teaching objective free to come up with whatever (non-violent, fair, honest)
• Rules: limitations on how to achieve the goals idea of how this should be accomplished, but they only had
6 hours. The students were split into two teams of 20
• Challenge: possibly competition, use of skills, etc students in each, and the two teams were competing against
to reinforce behavior each other. Most money wins. When the activity was over,
• Interaction: a setting for players to interact and the students were asked to reflect about how they felt
communicate and even enjoy the process. before, during and after the activity. This forced them to
think about their attitude to the Pay-It-Forward behavior
The idea is to let the games invoke a certain behavior or and their attitude of doing something that does not
attitude of the student, e.g. Story Telling (BMoE behavior- immediately give them any rewards or pay offs.
2) or Good Enough (BMoE behavior-9). After the game,
the students should reflect about his/her own behavior and BMoE multi-behavior game “Scavenger game”: The
compare it with that of successful entrepreneurs. The result Scavenger game has been used in educational activities
of the reflection can be either an ignition for the student given by UC Berkeley, US (Singer, 2013). In this game,
(confirming that he/she wants to become an entrepreneur), each team had 5 members, two of them were placed in a
an extinguisher (confirming that the student does not want control room and 3 of them were part of the field-group.
to be an entrepreneur) or a wake-up call (ok, I need to learn The field-group and group in the control room could only
more about this attitude). communicate via voice using a simple phone (no sms,
texts, emails, videos etc). The group in the control room
Examples of games that can be used for invoking a specific had no access to Internet. A five-liner instruction was given
behavior, and games invoking a set of behaviors, are given to the group in the control room, these instructions had to
below. be communicated to the field team whose task was to find
BMoE behavior-10 “Collaboration”: Group-dynamics, a location and take a picture of it. The field group that
win-win games emphasize the importance of cooperation, provided the group in the control room with a correct
fun, sharing, caring and over-all group success in contrast picture first, was the winning team. The task seems easy, if
to domination, egoistic behavior and personal gain. A game it was not for the fact that the 5 lines of instructions were
invoking this behavior was used in a marketing course in given in a different language (e.g. Chinese, Russian,
illustrations, Korean and Finnish). In this game an
the Technology Business program at University of
important behavior for the group in the control room was to
Jyvaskyla, Finland (Hytonen and Makinen, 2011). Students
CET Internal report nr 20140326.
PRELIMINARY VERSION (to be used for collecting comments and remarks). Limited circulation.
be a Story Teller (able to communicate the shapes of the an entrepreneur), an extinguisher for the student (no,
letters in the instructions), and for the field group to be able entrepreneurship is not for me) or a wake-up call (ok, I
to demonstrate Collaboration skills, e.g. each student need to learn more about this attitude).
working on the translation of one instruction. Furthermore,
The pedagogy of BMoE is inductive in its nature and
the teams had to appreciate Diversity in the people they
thereby focused around learning rather than teaching. The
encounter in order to have someone to help them with
students are pushed to proactively develop their own
translation. As soon as they thought they knew a location
understanding rather than waiting for someone to teach
that fulfills the instructions, they should go there and take a
them what they need to know. The students are trained to
picture of it. A picture that is Good Enough to present the
frame problems and find ways to solve them and then
location. After completing the game, the students were
reflect on what they've learned from the process, e.g. the
asked to reflect about their own contributions, what
outcome of a game.
behavior they felt comfortable with, and which they needed
to practice more. The students also reflected about the BMoE has already been used successfully in engineering
strategies used by the different teams and their respective entrepreneurship education at Center for Entrepreneurship
advantages and disadvantages. and Technology, Fung Institute for Egineering Leadership,
UC Berkeley, US. Nevertheless, even though the first
results are positive, the underlying hypotheses have to be
7. FUTURE RESEARCH further investigated and validated. Current research
therefore aims at; confirming or rejecting each of the set of
Empirical research is currently ongoing with the aim of
behavioral patterns, tuning existing games and/or finding
confirming or rejecting each of the ten (10) behavioral
additional games that reinforces the behavioral patterns,
patterns characterizing a successful entrepreneur. Research
and finding ways of how to measure the success of using
is also being conducted in the area of tuning existing games
the game-based teaching approach in entrepreneurial
and/or finding additional games reinforcing the behavioral
curricula.
patterns. It is also possible to envision games that stress the
whole process of innovation and entrepreneurship. We are
also pondering how can pedagogical outcomes of using a
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
game-based teaching approach in entrepreneurial curricula
be assessed, that is, whether it produces the desired This work was carried out in cooperation between Center
changes in participants’ knowledge or skills. The research for Entrepreneurship and Technology (CET) at Fung
project is partly performed within the Global Venture Lab Institute, UC Berlekey, USA, Jyväskulä University,
Network at UC Berkeley which has approximately 25 Finland, and Lund University, Sweden. The authors would
universities from all continents (Global Venture Lab, like to thank the Vinnova-funded research environment
2014). LCCC and the SSF-funded project PIC-opic at Lund
University Sweden, as well as Tekes (the Finnish funding
agency for technology and innovation) at Jyväskulä
8. CONCLUSION university, Finland.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ikhlaq Sidhu: Ikhlaq Sidhu is

the founding Director of the
Center for Entrepreneurship &
Technology and Chief Scientist
and founder of UC Berkeley's
Fung Institute for Engineering
Leadership. He teaches and
advises projects in graduate, undergraduate, and
professional programs. In 2009, he received the IEOR
Emerging Area Professor Award at UC Berkeley, CA,
USA.

Kenneth Singer: Ken is a serial

entrepreneur, technology executive,
university lecturer, and director and
advisor to numerous startups in the US
and Europe. He currently serves as
manageing director at the Center for
Entrepreneurship & Technology, Fung
Institute, at UC Berkeley, USA. Ken is on the board of
several startups and continues to advise and invest in some
of the most promising mobile companies in the Silicon
Valley, Berlin and Paris.

Mari Suoranta: is a Visiting Scholar

at the Center for Entrepreneurship &
Technology and the Fung Institute for
Engineering Leadership, at UC
Berkeley. She has visited UC
Berkeley also 2008, 2010-2011 as a
Fulbright Senior Fellow. Her current
research includes entrepreneurial and
start-up marketing, venture growth,
and interdisciplinary management education. Mari is an
Assistant Professor of Marketing in the School of Business
and Economics at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She
holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from University of Jyväskylä,
Finland.

Charlotta Johnsson: is a Visiting

Scholar at the Center for
Entrepreneurship & Technology and
the Fung Institute for Engineering
Leadership, at UC Berkeley. Her
research interests include; technology
management and innovations,
automation, operations management,
and pedagogy. She holds a position as
Associate Professor at Lund
University, Sweden where she also serves as the Program
Director for the master program Technology Management.
Charlotta Johnsson has PhD in Automatic Control from
Lund University, Sweden.