Entrepreneurship Education: Correspondence Between Practices of Nascent Entrepreneurs and Textbook Prescriptions for Success

Entrepreneurship courses are vital components of a business school curriculum. Although existing studies examine teaching pedagogy, very few explore the content of entrepreneurship courses. We compare start-up activities of nascent entrepreneurs in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) dataset to data collected from a sample of entrepreneurship textbooks. Our findings indicate that while there is some overlap in start-up activities practiced by nascent entrepreneurs and those covered in textbooks, there are several differences as well. Implications for teaching are discussed.