A Liberal Education Fosters a True Enterprise Culture
Finbarr Bradley & James Kennelly
The recently published Report of the Enterprise Strategy Group asserts that the quality of education will determine Ireland’s success in advancing its enterprise policy. Yet the Report’s recommendations concerning education are noteworthy for their narrowness. In a section entitled “Skills, Education and Training” (the order of words is surely intended), the Group articulates a view of the higher-education sector that is “adaptive and responsive” to ensure that skills are “developed in time, in sufficient quantity and to the required quality.” This seems like an efficient production process, but does not sound like education, particularly the education required for Ireland’s knowledge economy. It is also likely to be counterproductive.
It is clear to us, as educators linked to enterprise on both sides of the Atlantic, that the integration of transaction-based global markets with commercial relationships founded on integrity and trust is leading increasingly to the need for individuals equipped with different competencies and skills. Intangible assets such as ideas, emotions, a sense of place and community will determine successful ventures. Emphasis will shift from the purchase of goods to the delivery of services, stressing the continuous receipt of quality and performance. Executives of the future must learn to discern patterns, understand relationships among complex phenomena, recognize connections and, above all, think in multidimensional terms.
We suggest a radical approach to nurture Irish enterprise: increased emphasis on the old-fashioned model of a liberal education! What are the hallmarks of a liberal education? They include analytical thinking, comprehending and embracing complexity, effective communication skills, cross-cultural sensitivity and room for the imaginative play of one’s intellectual faculties. A liberal education is consummately interdisciplinary, problems are approached in new and exciting ways, and solutions are creative, innovative, and unexpected. To develop an enterprise spirit, students should be exposed to innovative artists such as poets and musicians as much as to scientists and engineers.
The Enterprise Strategy Group is correct: education is the key. But it is education in the broad sense, not a narrow view of specialised training in a functional field that will create the entrepreneurial, imaginative and risk-taking global managers that Irish enterprise sorely needs.
The most successful organizations in the future will be those that can balance financial goals with social and environmental responsibilities. The absence from the Report of the enormous potential of environmental-driven ventures is not surprising. It indicates a mindset that sees expenditure on the environment, be it pollution abatement, waste reduction or habitat protection, as a cost rather than an investment. It is little wonder the Report fails to see any commercial opportunities within the area of sustainable development, now widely recognised as the single largest commercial opportunity the world will ever know.
This comes to the heart of the true role of education in enterprise creation. A key recommendation in the Report is that “the enterprise sector should play an increased role in the governing bodies of higher education institutions.” The inference is that the presence of business professionals, and indeed the imperatives of business, will mete out to the stuffy world of higher education a well-needed kick that will encourage it to ‘train’ more, better and more ‘useful’ graduates. The Report, however, fails to recognize where the real challenge in enterprise education lies. This is to insure that the soul of an educational institution is founded on values and value creation in the broadest meaning of these terms. Nurturing the spirit of social entrepreneurship, in this respect, will make as powerful and effective a contribution to Irish society as its commercially driven counterpart. Institutions that clearly articulate a socially desirable mission and deliver this through appropriate structures will supply graduates with the requisite enterprise education and skills.
Over a century ago, the Irish Renaissance bred a new pride in national heritage, literature and language. It is no surprise that it also possessed an alternative vision of Irish development. A core element of this vision, articulated by Horace Plunkett in the co-operative movement and Douglas Hyde in the Gaelic League, was that the Irish nation, through a determined policy of self-help and a regeneration of the national character, needed to take primary responsibility for its own economic performance. This stood in stark contrast to the more orthodox idea that Ireland need only fit itself into the commercial empire of Great Britain. Today, in the midst of a commercially driven Irish Renaissance, one might legitimately ask if it is possible to foster a place in the global economy in a manner most appropriate for Irish society.
Prof. Finbarr Bradley is a faculty member of the Economics Department at NUI Maynooth and Prof. James Kennelly is Chairman of the Management & Business Department at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.