TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ................................................................................................................................. i 1.0 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.0 Overview ............................................................................................................ 1 Current Situation on Entrepreneurship .............................................................. 3 General Public Opinion ...................................................................................... 6

Literature Review on the Importance of Education vs. Experience in Successful Entrepreneurship ...................................................................................................... 8 2.1 2.2 Findings from Articles ....................................................................................... 8 Reality of Successful Entrepreneurship ........................................................... 14

3.0 4.0

Personal Opinions.................................................................................................... 19 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 22

References .......................................................................................................................... 24

Abstract

Malaysia is in the process of developing a vibrant entrepreneurial environment in Malaysia to support the small and medium industries. In order to achieve this aim, promotion of entrepreneurship activities has been plenty and varied. Entrepreneurial skills are developed among those who are already in business, about to retire and still undergoing secondary and tertiary education. Growth in new business formation has been significant over the years but failure of these business ventures has also been remarkably high. There has been issues that stressed the important of entrepreneurship education to those embarking in this sector yet there has been a lot of successful entrepreneurial activities among those who have no academic qualification and relying on guts and instincts alone. This paper presents an argument on which is more important: education or experience, to become a successful entrepreneur. The current situation and what people think about this issue are presented, supported by facts from previous researches.

1.0

Introduction

1.1

Overview

Entrepreneurship has been recognized as being a fundamental importance for the economy (Bruyat and Julien, 2000) due to its considerable macroand micro-level effects (Henry et al, 2003). Entrepreneurship gives rise to new ideas, creating new enterprises and jobs, and nurturing the economy as a whole (Hisrich and OCinneide, 1985). However, the concept of entrepreneurship is wide.

Shane and Venkataraman (2000) argued that entrepreneurship and opportunity exploitation do not necessarily imply the creation of new firms but can also take place in existing organizations. In the organization, entrepreneurship is known as intrapreneurship, which emphasizes on the entrepreneurial process (carrying out new combinations) and

innovativeness (Guth and Ginsberg, 1990). Intrapreneurship is defined as entrepreneurship within an existing organization, referring to emergent intentions and behaviours that deviate from customary way of doing business, which leads to not only new business venture but also other innovative activities (Antoncic and Hisrich, 2004).

The term entrepreneurship becomes more complicated when it is related to other terms such as enterprising behaviour and small business management. Gibb and Nelson (1996) proposed the definitions of the three by saying that entrepreneurship is the functional management skills and abilities required to start, manage and develop a small business while small business management was concerned with the personal capability of the individual or individuals at the helm of the business. Enterprising behaviour refers to the development of learning skills to enable learning to be 1

personalized, applied to the workplace and continued beyond the education or training programme, with the participant firmly in control of the process.

The argument of this paper: which is more important, education or experience, in making a successful entrepreneur? This argument is based on the definition or interpretation of what an entrepreneur is. Thus, an entrepreneur in the context of this paper is an individual who perform entrepreneurship, has entrepreneurial behaviors and a small business manager as defined by Gibb and Nelson (1998) but not specifically relating to intrapreneurship as defined by Antoncic and Hisrich (2004).

There are still considerable uncertainties that entrepreneurs are born or made. This leads to comments whether or not entrepreneurship can be taught (Fiet, 2000 in Henry et al. 2005). It also leads to comments whether education is important in determining the success of entrepreneurs or not.

The focus of this paper is to present the current situation ion entrepreneurship, to show whether entrepreneurs are running business based on experience or by education. This can be done by looking at the profiles of some successful entrepreneurs in this country. Some general public opinion was gathered through an unstructured interview with 15 Malaysians from all walks of life.

Facts from literatures were also gathered to support the argument of element more important to make a successful entrepreneur. These literatures were collected from journals that presented findings from their studies. Lastly, my personal opinion on this matter is also included in this paper.

1.2

Current Situation on Entrepreneurship

The argument of which one is the determining factor of a successful entrepreneur, whether education or experience, is a hard one to answer because the current situation on entrepreneurship shows that there are successful entrepreneurs who made it based on experience alone, without high education and there are others who ace entrepreneurship ventures due to education.

An article from College Startup (www.college-startup.com) argued that college education is definitely important but there are people out there who became successful entrepreneurs without having any college degree. There people are described in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Successful Entrepreneurs without any college degrees

No 1 Name Mary Kay Ash Description Founder of Mary Kay Inc, a cosmetic business which is a global brand, with half a million people selling her cosmetics. She didnt have a college education A school dropout at 16 and started his first successful business venture, Student Magazine. He is the owner of the Virgin Brand and its 360 companies An orphan and trained as a seamstress. Her perfume, Chanel No. 5 made her famous Started in a mailroom for a music publishing company. Now, he is an artist and repertoire (A&R), executive for Sony BMG in UK, a television producer and judge for major television talent, including American Idol Dropped out of college at age 19, started his PCs Limited which later was renamed Dell Inc., now the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation offered a $50 million grant to the University of Texas, Austin to be used for childrens health and education Dropped out of high school at 16. He is the most influential animator, Disney. The Walt Disney Company has an annual revenue of $30 billion At 16, Ford left home to apprentice as a machinist. He started Ford Motor Company to manufacture automobiles. Ranked as the richest man from 1995-2006. He is a college dropout but the initiator of Microsoft Corporation

Richard Branson

3 4

Gabriel Coco Chanel Simon Cowell

Michael Dell

Walt Disney

Henry Ford

Bill Gates

Another website (http://skorcareer.com.my) presented 10 great Malaysia entrepreneurs as shown in Table 2. These people are a mix of educated entrepreneurs and uneducated entrepreneurs, all successful in their endeavors.

Table 2: 10 Great Malaysian Entrepreneurs

No 1 Name Loh Boon Siew (Boon Siew Honda) Description The late Boon Siew is responsible to start the dealership of Honda motorcycles in Penang. He is often known as Mr. Honda. He had virtually no education. He started as a mechanic and slowly move upwards with determination He is a successful and rich Malaysian tycoon, linked to sugar business as well as other wide industries including hospitality, energy, logistics and manufacturing. He is the product of good education and family wealth. The man behind Air Asia. With RM1, he bought a defunct carrier, along with over RM40 million in debts and created the most successful budget airline company. He is an educated entrepreneur. A humble entrepreneur, the richest Malay and bumiputra in Malaysia. As a kid, he had difficulties doing school revision due to inadequate house facilities and small space A classic rag-to-riches story, a migrant from China and came here as a youth. He did not speak English and can only communicate in Chinese and Malay. She is not highly educated but is the proud owner of Securiforce, one of the formidable security companies in Malaysia. She and her husband started the company from an almost bankrupt company, hold multiple tasks and persevered to her success today An MBA from Harvard University and a Degree from Melbourne University. He is the smartest entrepreneur. He is worth more than $7 billion. He had good academic background in accounting field. He almost died due to a horrible car accident but that did not stop him. He moved his career along the corporate path and responsible to transform Ambank (Arab Malaysian Bank) into one of the largest financial institutions in the country Dato Steven Sim is a modern entrepreneur, who established the popular Secret Recipe Caf, which is one of the most successful homegrown franchises. He did not have any professional training in baking. The co-founder of MK Land (an associate company of Emkay Group), which started small and eventually became one of the property icons in Malaysia.

Robert Kuok (Kuok Group)

Tony Fernandes (Air Asia)

Syed Mokhtar alBukhary (MMC)

Lim Goh Tong (Genting) Maznah Hamid (Securiforce)

Ananda Krishnan (Astro) Azman Hashim (Ambank)

Steven Sim (Secret Recipe)

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Mustapha Kamal (MK Land)

These scenarios among the successful entrepreneurs of the world and Malaysia cannot decide which aspect - education or experience is more important in making a successful entrepreneur. These evidences showed that both education and experience have a significant contribution to making the person as a successful entrepreneur.

1.3

General Public Opinion

The general public opinions about the argument of this paper were also sought from 15 Malaysians from all walks of life. The question was posed to them: Which is more important to make a successful entrepreneur education or experience? This interview was carried out in Kota Kinabalu and the responses were mixed.

Five of the respondents stated that experience is more important and proceeded to give some examples such as Bill Gates, Lim Boon Siew and their personal friends who are uneducated successful entrepreneurs. They commented on the enterprising spirits of the migrants (Filipino, Bengals, Pakistanis, etc) here in Sabah who showed their success in business although their education level is low or mediocre.

Three respondents emphasized the importance of education, especially entrepreneurial training to ensure success in their endeavors. They reasoned that the government is spending millions of ringgit in entrepreneurial training at all levels because of the realization that education is an important ingredient of entrepreneurship.

The other seven respondents gave a mixed response. They stated that both education and experience are important to become a successful entrepreneur. They stressed that entrepreneurs need experience to ensure he has resilience and know-how to do business whereas education gives them the expertise to carry out business tasks. Among these seven respondents, they stated that experience is a must whereas education is an important addition, which can be done later.

These public opinions still cannot come to a definite conclusion on which is more important.

2.0

Literature Review on the Importance of Education vs. Experience in Successful Entrepreneurship

2.1

Findings from Articles

Entrepreneurs are people who have entrepreneurial traits, not just business acumens (Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006). The importance of education in making a successful entrepreneur can be determined through evidences from past researches that show the transference of entrepreneurship knowledge and skills to learners. Thus, the first part of this literature deals with evidences from researches indicating the possibility of education in training people to become entrepreneurs.

Gorman et al (1997) stated that there is an increasing number of empirical research conducted and reporting findings that there

entrepreneurship can be taught, or if not taught, at least developed by entrepreneurship education. This implies that the making of a successful entrepreneur is possible through education but not a definite possibility.

However, the teaching of entrepreneurship is an enigma as Jack and Anderson (1998) stated that actual entrepreneurial process involves both arts and science. The science part involves the business and management functional skills, which appears to be teachable using a conventional pedagogical approach. However, the art part which relates to the creative and innovative attributes of entrepreneurship does not appear to be teachable in the same way. Saee (1996) commented that some individuals are naturally talented, whilst others must work hard to achieve similar ends. He suggests that a curriculum cannot create an entrepreneur, rather it can only demonstrate the process involved in being successful. The individual will always be responsible for their own success.

Figure 1 below shows the entrepreneurial process encompassing behaviours, skills and attitudes (Shook et al, 2003). The elements in the entrepreneurial process indicate the validity of Jack and Anderson (1998), Saee (1996), Shepherd and Douglas (1996), Miller (1987) and Boussoura and Deakins (1998) arguments that some elements are indeed teachable while others are inherent to the person, which may be or may not be transferable. The possibility of these elements being taught and assimilated as learned behaviours of the individual lies with the individual itself. It also implies that not all educated individuals will end up being a successful entrepreneur.

Figure 1: The entrepreneurial process: behaviours, skills and attributes 9

Gibb (1993) describes an enterprising person as being pioneering, adventurous, daring, go ahead, progressive, opportunist and ambitious. Figure 2 below illustrates a person displaying a set of behaviours, associated skills and personal attributes. Hartshorn and Hannon (2005) suggest that students must have to some extent, a degree of enterprise that can be developed through learning. The challenge for educators is how to do so.

Figure 2: Outcomes of enterprise education creating enterprise environment context (Hartshorn and Hannon, 2005)

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Behaviours acting independently, actively seeking to achieve goals, flexibly responding to challenges, coping with and enjoying uncertainty, taking risky actions in uncertain environments, persuading others, commitments to make things happen, opportunity seeking, solving problems/conflicts Skills problem solving, creativity, persuasiveness, planning, negotiating, decision taking Attributes self-confident, autonomous, achievement orientated, versatile, dynamic, resourceful (adapted from Gibb, 1993).

If these behaviours, skills and attributes can be taught, then education has a greater importance in creating successful entrepreneurship.

Shepherd and Douglas (1996) suggest that it is important to teach entrepreneurship as a science and an art. They conceded that the spirit of entrepreneurship is not endemic in every person or may require awakening and enhancing. Therefore, business education should teach not only the various business disciplines but also the essence of entrepreneurship. They commented that a lot of education and training initiatives to create entrepreneurs have focused mainly on the science part of entrepreneurship, which is selective, analytical, sequential and fixed but there has been large neglect on delivering the art side of entrepreneurship.

Miller (1987) argued that not all aspects of entrepreneurship can be taught and that educators cannot create entrepreneurs or produce foolproof, step-by-step recipes for entrepreneurial success. What educators can do, according to Miller (1987) are to provide an understanding of the rigorous analytical techniques required to set-up a new business and an appreciation of the limitation of those techniques. He claims that many of the

11

entrepreneurial characteristics, such as self-confidence, persistence and high energy levels, cannot be wholly acquired in the classroom.

Boussoura and Deakins (1998) presented their studies on the development of high technology small firms and suggested that entrepreneurs learn, not through structured teaching, but through experience and trial and error. They studied 23 technology-based entrepreneurs who had started out in non-technical ventures and demonstrated that this type of start-up can in fact act as a nursery for these individuals in the development of their technology based businesses. These preparation and nursery stage were deemed important for the entrepreneurial creative process. Another aspect of the argument of which has more importance education or experience leads to findings about the importance of previous experience to build entrepreneurial behaviours.

Rae (2005) explored the concept of mid-career entrepreneurship and the learning needs and characteristics of mid-career entrepreneurs. The need to train mid-career people aging 35 and above was necessary as the lifespan increases and people are now working after the age of retirement. Therefore, a transition of career to entrepreneurship-based career became a potential choice among these people. The study showed that most people by mid-career, have acquired extensive skills, knowledge and experience through immersion within their industry. Rae (2005) presented the argument that these provide a rich resource of capabilities and expertise on which to draw it, but it may also restrict their entrepreneurial outlook unless they are able to reframe or unlearn less useful aspects of their prior learning for entrepreneurship.

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Gibb (1991) explained that people from career backgrounds in large and complex industrial, public sector and uniformed services often have highly developed skills, yet find transferring these to the life world of the small firm, which requires flexible, opportunistic and innovative rather than systematic behaviour, to be a difficult transition. However, Rae (2005) stressed that people in mid-career are in the optimum position to identify and develop opportunity by using their experience, skills, networks and energy to create and build business ventures. The ability to identify or create and use opportunity from contextual experience can be learned from entrepreneurial learning.

Rae (2005) suggests that entrepreneurial learning should include a balance of practical theories with techniques and methods which can be readily applied. The practical theories include practical investigation of opportunities by using the tools provided and by market research, social inquiry and interaction, innovation and planning (Rae, 2005).

Reviews from these literatures cannot definitely determine which element is more important in creating a successful entrepreneur. However, these findings suggest some key points which are presented below. (1) Education can make successful entrepreneurs but not all as there are aspects of entrepreneurs that are teachable and others that are endemic to the individual. The chance of creating successful entrepreneurs from education and training lies with the individual himself. (2) Experience can boost a persons potential as entrepreneur but how the person reframes or unlearn his experience to suit the entrepreneurial requirement is depending on the person. An individual who can unlearn and utilizes his experiences has a high chance of becoming a successful entrepreneur.

13

These findings imply that entrepreneurship success is not determined by education or experience although these aspects are important determinants of success. The deciding factor is the individual himself.

2.2

Reality of Successful Entrepreneurship

Morrison (2000) proposed that the process of entrepreneurship initiation has its foundations in person and intuition, and society and culture. It is not a simple economic function but represents a composite of material and immaterial, pragmatism and idealism. Morrison (2000) stresses that the key to initiating the process of entrepreneurship lies within the individual members of society and the degree to which a spirit of enterprise exists, or can be initiated.

Vernon-Wortzel and Wortzel (1997) stated that the initiation of entrepreneurship must consider culture because it determines the attitudes of individuals towards entrepreneurial endeavors. Timmons (1994) elaborated the importance of an entrepreneurial culture. He said, a culture that prizes entrepreneurship, an imperative to educate our population so that our entrepreneurial potential is second to none, and a government that generously supports pure and applied science, fosters entrepreneurship with enlightened policies, and enables schools to produce the best educated students in the world.

Morrison (2000) further commented that the role of family, immediate and extended, is recognized as having the potential to make a positive contribution towards entrepreneurial behaviour through the provision of inter-generational role models and as tangible and intangible support providers.

14

Morrison (2000) also describe the profile of a successful entrepreneur one who is intelligent and analytical, is an effective risk manager and networker, possesses a strong set of moral, social and business ethics, exhibits a basic traders instinct and is dedicated to life-long learning in its many forms.

Berglund

and

Johansson

(2007)

explained

that

effective

entrepreneurs are more likely than others to systematically plan and monitor network activities as well as to undertake actions towards increasing their network density and diversity. Entrepreneurs are involved in planning or starting firms and must engage in a continuous process of appraising prospects for success. Entrepreneurs are extremely efficient and flexible at delivering a product or service.

Gurol and Atsan (2006) stated that there are five characteristics describing a successful entrepreneur and these are: (a) Risk taking propensity (b) Tolerance for ambiguity (c) Locus of control (d) Need for achievement (e) Innovativeness (f) Self-confidence

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Chen at al (2005) suggests that entrepreneurs should have the following traits: (a) Self-efficacy an individuals cognitive estimates of his or her own (Wood and Bandura, 1989). (b) Independence needed to bring in new ideas and undertake risks (c) Achievement motivation individuals with the strong need to achieve often find their way to entrepreneurship and succeed than others (Carsrud and Johnson, 1989; McClelland, 1965) (d) Risk-taking entrepreneurs are undertakers of innovation and venture business and must have the courage to forward venture (Caird, 1988) (e) The capability to endure the uncertain circumstances entrepreneurs should have enough confidence and endurance in the uncertain circumstances (f) The ability to seize business opportunities from the complicated market this differentiate an entrepreneur and common employees (Caird, 1988) (g) Interdisciplinary knowledge and multi-function working background entrepreneurial activities require comprehensive qualities (h) The ability to learn from failures

Although these facts reveal that a successful entrepreneur is the product of the person and his intuition, society and culture also play their importance in creating one. Hynes (1996) stated that there is argument that enterprise culture is developed naturally, but the changing environmental conditions necessitates that we cannot solely rely on this passing on of knowledge, and there is a need to provide intervention to promote the entrepreneurial culture. Education, according to Hynes (1996) can be viewed as an important intervention. This was supported by other researchers (Weber, 1980; Collins and Moore, 1964) who suggested that entrepreneurial role can be culturally and experientially acquired with education and training. 16

The role of education in creating a successful entrepreneur cannot be denied. However, literatures pointed that not all entrepreneurial learning or not all kind of education will lead to the creation of a successful entrepreneur. A study conducted by Kolveried and Moen (1997) indicated that graduates with an entrepreneurship major are more likely to start new businesses and have stronger entrepreneurial intention than other graduates. This means that simply a higher education level does not guarantee entrepreneurial behaviours, much more success in entrepreneurship. Education in this sense means, entrepreneurship education and training, which can significantly provide a better chance of success for potential entrepreneurs.

Hansemark (1998) suggests that there is a specific learning discourse that can effectively produce successful entrepreneurs. He suggests those superior pedagogical models, problem-based learning (PBL) and action learning (AL) should be used in entrepreneurial education. AL (Revans, 1982) means learning by doing and these actions with some risk, to be used on problems with no solutions fixed in advance. PBL (Baud and Feletti, 1991) means that the real world situations are the starting point for problem solving that the individual is responsible for personal own learning and that learning occurs in a group setting.

McMullan and Long (1987) suggest that instructional methodology is not well suited to aspiring entrepreneurs. They argued that in order to provide effective entrepreneurial education, students should deal with ambiguity and complexity. They must learn how to find problems as well as how to design solutions and should have substantial hands-on experience working with small firm sector.

Hansemark (1998) explains that the fundamental purpose of the entrepreneurship program is to develop abilities, knowledge, skills, attitudes and personal attributes important for the entrepreneurial activity. 17

Abilities include a person can see possibilities, create reliable business plans, build personal networks, create financial resources, create an organization to implement the business idea, and implement it on the market, and to make a good choice in startup timing and choice of location.

Development of knowledge includes the aspects of marketing, business law, business economics and how to create financial resources. Skills development includes creativity, planning, oral presentation and argumentation, decision making, and interpersonal skills. The goal for the programme also includes learning about the cultures, norms, values and attitudes, in which the entrepreneur works, for example positive attitudes for new development and renewal. In addition, entrepreneurship programme should also develop the participants psychological

characteristics, need for achievement and locus of control (Hansemark, 1998).

Jack and Anderson (1999) highlighted another important point on the aspect of education and its contribution to making a successful entrepreneur. They stated that entrepreneurship is both science and art. Some aspects of entrepreneurship cannot be taught and it is fundamentally experiential. Gibb (1993) suggests that this can be overcome by having students work in small business, thus learning by doing. Students who work as entrepreneurs will encounter the risks and ambiguity of the unstructured situation experienced by most entrepreneurs. True entrepreneurial learning should encompass both concept and procedure, so that people are encouraged to use their own initiative to secure their economic future (Bridge et al, 1998).

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3.0

Personal Opinions The question, which is more important education or experience? to become a successful entrepreneur, is a difficult one to answer. In my personal opinion, the making of a successful entrepreneur requires both elements education and experience. However, in determining which comes first, education or experience, I am in favour of experience. However, going though an education program that promotes entrepreneurship is also an experience so in this sense, the experience gathered from the education efforts provides the person with the behaviours, skills, attitudes, and personal attributes to make a successful entrepreneur.

It is my personal belief that entrepreneurial spirit comes from experience which is provided by the culture and world view of the individual. Characteristics that build entrepreneurial spirits such as risk taking, opportunist, fearless, manipulator, daring and so on are developed through life experiences. Specifically, past experience in relation to work plays a significant role to create an interest in entrepreneurship. This was commented by Mohd Salleh (1992) whose study revealed that the influence of different types of work experience on business students entrepreneurial tendency in higher education. His research revealed that majority of students who had not permanent full time job experience after their secondary education were less enterprising compared to those with greater number of permanent full-time job, especially among those having full-time jobs in small business organizations. Thus, this suggests the importance of certain type of work experience in creating an enterprising individual.

This implies that not all experience lead to success in entrepreneurship. A very experience person who has work in conglomerate companies, dealing with complex business dealings or working at executive level for a long time in the public service might fail at entrepreneurship. This means not all experiences lead to successful entrepreneurial endeavors but rather, specific experiences which

19

promote the behaviours, skills, attitudes and personal traits of a successful entrepreneur are what count the most.

It could also come from education as going through the process of education itself presents experience that can mould these characteristics in a person. However, I believe that a person lacking in entrepreneurial spirit might find it hard to survive as an entrepreneur. Nonetheless, education can help strengthen the entrepreneurial elements of a person, which contribute to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Thus, in my opinion, experience is more important in making a successful entrepreneur. This experience however does not refer to the general experience but rather, experience that supports the development of an entrepreneurial person. Thus, a person who is a pensioner, having worked for more than 30 years could be regarded as a highly experienced person but does not guarantee his success as an entrepreneur. However, if his work and personal experience (which is reflected by the culture where he lives) played a significant role in developing his enterprising behaviours, skills, attitude and personal trait, then he will surely be successful. These are portrayed in the successful entrepreneurs of the world and in Malaysia. Their experiences from work or personal background mould them to have certain characteristics needed to succeed in entrepreneurial endeavors.

Nevertheless, I would also say that education is an important learning experience to make a successful entrepreneur. In Malaysia, as in other nations, building and developing an entrepreneurial culture has become inevitable to create more entrepreneurs. Students in primary, secondary and tertiary education are now educated or given the learning experience with intention to assimilate entrepreneurial traits and values. This is education, yet at the same time, it spells out an intentional learning experience.

I also agree with the literatures which highlighted that the content as well as the delivery method of entrepreneurial education and training must be taken into 20

consideration. Experiential learning, action learning and problem-based learning all but integrate education and experience. In other words, experience becomes the teacher. We cannot simply blame entrepreneurship major students who failed as entrepreneurs after their training or reluctance and failure of participants who attended entrepreneurship training because the training itself did not consider the significance of right content and methods of delivery.

As a personal experience, I have attended some entrepreneurial training workshops which seemed to be teaching or imparting skills of entrepreneurs such as development of business plans, revelations of entrepreneurial traits and characteristics, information about entrepreneurship supports in Malaysia, information about potential opportunity and business ventures in Malaysia but delivery? Participants sit down to listen to lecture; they do hypothetical business plans, without actually leaving the training premises; case studies not related to their context and interests were used; among other things. I believe with such approaches, entrepreneurs were not made, simply given the hope that they might survive the demanding world of business and if they do fail, it is understandable.

Therefore, in my opinion, experience is the best teacher that makes a successful entrepreneur but education itself is a learning experience which, when the content and delivery can promote and develop the persons behaviours, skills, attitudes and personal attributes required by enterprising activities, then education is also important.

Which comes first? It depends. If the person is educated in entrepreneurship and this becomes a learning experience for him, then education comes first; on a condition that the education serves as a learning experience. Experience comes first, if it also promotes entrepreneurial acumens. When this did not happen, then experience has to be supported by education and it is up to the individual to reframe and unlearn in order to pick up the right ingredients for successful entrepreneurship.

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4.0

Conclusion The question, which is more important and which comes first experience or education, is crucial to answer because the Malaysia government is currently pursuing a concerted effort to promote entrepreneurship among the population especially the Bumiputeras, which is seen as lagging behind the rest of the population. This is gleaned from the Ninth Malaysia Plan whereby, 80,000 participants will undergo entrepreneurship training and another 102,000 will be given coaching and advice services. Until 30th November 2005, Tabung Ekonomi Kumpulan Usaha Niaga (TEKUN) has provides loans to 104,202 small business enterprises which amounted to RM495,165,500. Most recently, the government through the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Development (MECD) had announced plan to establish the Entrepreneur Development Board (Majlis Pembangunan Usahawan MPU) in all major towns throughout the country. These are governments effort in creating more new entrepreneurs in the country.

The slowdown of economy, the rising of unemployment and the everturbulent job market have all but led to the rationale of creating more entrepreneurs. Lessons learnt from the economic recession in 1996-8 showed that entrepreneurial activities from the small and medium industries enabled the country to withstand pressures from economic recession. Malaysia was not hard hit by recession, as experienced by neighboring countries at that time.

These recent changes necessitated the move toward entrepreneurs or selfemployment, which will have an increasingly important element of economic growth and development (Hynes, 1996). To ensure sustainable increase in selfemployment, it is critical that Malaysia has in place, the correct infrastructure to facilitate this development. One critical aspect of this infrastructure is the creation of an enterprise culture which will encourage and entice individuals to take the risk of starting a business (Haynes, 1996).

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However, the country cannot rely on building the number of entrepreneurs alone. We need successful business ventures with sustainability, resilience and ability to embrace the changes as they come. In short, successful entrepreneurs are called for. Thus, it becomes important to identify which is more important and why. Education, training and development are human capital development activities which have become costlier but crucial to develop quality knowledge workers for the country.

Thus, if experience and education are important to create successful entrepreneurs, then the question now is what kind of experience? What kind of education? This paper has illuminated some clues to these questions. Nevertheless, continuous and further researches are imperative to answer these questions.

In conclusion, there is still a valid argument among scholars, practitioners and the public on which aspect is more important: experience or education. However, this paper has highlighted that both are important. It is not a question of which is more important education or experience. What is more important is whether the experience and/or education were able to mould the person to have entrepreneurship behaviours, skills, attitudes and personal traits. Whichever develops the individuals enterprising acumens is considered as the superior one or the more important one. Nevertheless, both are important to the development of a persons entrepreneurial characteristics.

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References 15 successful entrepreneurs who didnt need college (2007). From Website: http://www.college-startup.com/college/15-successful-entrepreneurs-who-didntneed-college/ 10 Great Malaysian Entrepreneurs (2008). From Website: http://skorcareer.com.my/blog/10-great-malaysian-entrepreneurs/2008/09/23/

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