26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

For nations’ economic development and fortune creation, entrepreneurship has an important role. Under this situation, the government introduces regulatory reform and open more entrepreneurial courses to boost entrepreneurship. Recently, an event called “startup weekend” is popular in the global entrepreneurial area. The government divisions, private organizations and universities recently hold many startup weekend events in order to promote entrepreneurship under the government’s policies supporting and encouraging. But, this type of entrepreneurial education is really effective in practice? Therefore, this study explores the two research questions. First, comparing the academic entrepreneurial education in the universities, the action-based training and experiential education is a better way to promote entrepreneurial performance? Second, why and how an action-based entrepreneurship and experiential education has a positive effect on entrepreneurial performance? This study uses the perspective of experiential learning theory and practical intelligence to investigate the answers of above research questions. It postulates and examines the startup weekend event training has an effect on entrepreneurial opportunity identification and entrepreneurial performance through experiential learning and practical intelligence. Theoretically, this study shows another theoretical perspective, experiential learning theory and practical intelligence, to explain the effects on why and how startup weekend event training works, in spite of action theory, action regulation theories, and perceived behavior control theory. In practically, this study evaluates the training of startup weekend event after the training is finished and investigates the training having influence on promoting entrepreneurship. It my offer to the government, universities, and entrepreneurial incubators another alternative in entrepreneurship training designing.