Entrepreneurial Learning: A Conceptual Framework

This paper investigates and offers tentative explanations of the processes which enable practicing entrepreneurs to learn, as they manage their growing businesses. Specifically, it provides a conceptual framework for acquiring an understanding of the learning processes which entrepreneurs use to grow their businesses. The research suggests that entrepreneurs learn processively, and it also identifies their motives for learning. This paper focuses on the learning activities entrepreneurs choose and the cognitive processes which characterize the acquisition, retention, and use of entrepreneurial knowledge. Principles from several studies within the disciplines of the cognitive sciences are used to help explain entrepreneurial learning processes. Problem-solving categories for learning are delineated; effective entrepreneurial learning is defined; and, ways for facilitating the entrepreneur's learning processes are suggested.