Merging Systems Thinking with Entrepreneurship: Shifting Students’ Mindsets towards Crafting a More Sustainable Future

Matthew Lynch, Gunnar Andersson and Frode Ramstad Johansen
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Matthew Lynch: Department of Engineering, Østfold University College, 1613 Fredrikstad, Norway
Gunnar Andersson: Department of Engineering, Østfold University College, 1613 Fredrikstad, Norway
Frode Ramstad Johansen: Department of Engineering, Østfold University College, 1613 Fredrikstad, Norway

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: The major challenges confronting humanity are systemic in nature: climate change, pollution, poverty, and inequality. Entrepreneurship fails to tackle these challenges, and ‘creative destruction’ is mostly just leading to the destruction of the natural world that we inhabit. The present economic, financial, and productive systems can and should be transformed to lead and power a shift towards sustainability. If we are to reverse the course of destruction that current capitalist systems are creating, we need to introduce more of a systems perspective into entrepreneurial education. This article addresses how merging systems thinking and entrepreneurship can be used to nudge students towards sustainability. Through a single case study, we argue that a practice-based pedagogy that combines perspectives from entrepreneurship and systems thinking can be used as a catalyst to bring about local changes in business models by making the business case go beyond the individual organization and seeing entrepreneurship as being about creating more sustainable business systems.

Keywords: systems thinking; entrepreneurship; sustainability; experiential learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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