Assessment of transversal competencies in entrepreneurial education: a literature review and a pilot study

The concept of entrepreneurial competencies is complex, comprising components that can be acquired and changed through experience, training and education (Man, Lau & Chan, 2002). The relevance of such competencies for education calls for a better understanding of two issues: (i) what such competencies are, and (ii) how they can be assessed. In fact, given the inherent complexity in defining entrepreneurial competencies as an umbrella term for different elements, there is a certain risk of ambiguous and non-unique conceptualizations of them (Chell, 2013; Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2010). In this paper we first carry out a literature review regarding the conceptualization and measurement of entrepreneurial competencies. In the second stage, we develop a set of tools to assess the competencies identified and carry out a pilot study on a sample of 60 students attending entrepreneurship education courses in five European countries.