Abstract

Entrepreneurial perspective emphasizes on idea generation and putting them into action or creation of business. Learning methods used by entrepreneurs have a crucial impact on their capabilities. Entrepreneurs use various sources and methods of learning to achieve the expected capabilities. The main question of this article is: Which sources and methods of learning are mostly used by famous entrepreneurs? Do entrepreneurs who live in different countries use similar learning sources and methods? This research is aimed to examine Kuratko’s framework and has added a source and some methods. This framework contains four main sources of learning: “Publications”, “Observation”, “Speeches and Presentation” and “doing business activities”. Content Analysis of documents is used as the research method, which is done by reviewing reliable documents on the three famous entrepreneurs. Amir Kabir, Matsushita and Welch respectively from Iran, Japan and America are selected as research sample. The logic and the reason of our selection are based on their influence in business. Results show that top entrepreneurs learn mostly from informal learning methods including: doing activities, duties, observations and conversations or dialogues, although there are differences for each of the chosen entrepreneurs dependent on his environment. It seems that entrepreneurs select their own sources and learning methods based on contingency approach. Authors suggest that the sources and methods of learning used by top entrepreneurs should be identified and used at universities as formal educational sources. In other words, informal learning sources and methods are recommended for simulation in schools of entrepreneurship.

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