Do entrepreneurial parents necessarily raise children who will be entrepreneurs? Like father, like son? This is a much-debated topic when it comes to entrepreneurial education: can entrepreneurs be formed or do they inherit this gift naturally from their parents?
There are many people who believe that children follow in their parents' footsteps when it comes to entrepreneurship. This is basically due to observation and knowledge of examples close to home in their own city or community that prove this theory.
However, knowing how much of the finland phone numbers entrepreneurial spirit of parents is actually inherited by their children remains a mystery. This is because there are exceptions that prove the rule, that is, children who do not follow in any way what their parents were or are.
To try to find out whether heredity is more important than the environment in which children are raised and the role models to which they are exposed, three Swedish researchers developed an unusual but extremely informative study.
Matthew J. Lindquist of Stockholm University and two colleagues analyzed records of adopted children to see whether biological parents had a greater or lesser influence on their entrepreneurial potential than adoptive parents.
The results showed that adopted children whose biological parents were entrepreneurs were 20% more likely than the general population to become entrepreneurs. But the conclusion based on this data alone is still not enough.
Complementing the study, they analyzed children adopted shortly after birth and found that the effect of adoptive parents on them was more than double that of biological parents: a child whose adoptive parents include an entrepreneur is 45% more likely than the rest of the population to eventually start their own business.
The findings suggest that entrepreneurial parents serve as role models for their children and that the environment in which they live influences this tendency more than heredity. But both influence it in some way.
When entrepreneurial education is questioned, imagining that it is about teaching how to undertake, a considerable mistake is made, since more than teaching how to undertake, entrepreneurial education's main role is to show what successful entrepreneurs do to obtain results and, also, where most tend to go wrong.
Creating role models and understanding how they think and act are part of any serious entrepreneurial education curriculum. Much can be learned at home, by observing what parents do, but also in the classroom, by learning about other examples.
However, nothing replaces practice, that is, entrepreneurial education shows what others do and how they do it, but it is not enough to say that just by observing and understanding others you will be able to become a successful entrepreneur. You have to get your hands dirty and take the risk of turning your ideas into a business.
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