The Competencies of an Entrepreneurial Mindset
("MecFrame")
Below you can scroll through the 15 principal competencies that make up and entrepreneurial mindset. Below each principal competency is a button that opens up the sub-competencies pertaining to that principal competency.
For those who would like to see everything on one page and have a copy to hand, use the download full framework button to receive your own pdf version.
Identify opportunities
Venture ideation
Creativity
Customer focus
Problem solving mindset
Being ethical and sustainable
Motivation & perseverance
Manage uncertainty & risk
Learns from others
Networking
Venture communication
Financial capability
Self efficacy / self-mastery
Action orientation
Resource optimisation
Rather than writing pages about entrepreneurial competencies, we have decided to make our friendly assistant available to you.
Why not ask MashBot about entrepreneurial competencies? You could start with: “What is the most important entrepreneurial competency according to the experts?”
As mentioned, much research was analysed in reaching this set of competencies, but three sources must be given significant acknowledgement as important contributors to our thinking:
- EntreComp: the European entrepreneurship competence framework
- NTFE Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
- Conversations with Allan Gray Orbis Foundation
The primary designers and authors of this work are:
Simon Gifford and Clint Davies
Uzoma Agba provided important research support.
Part of the work was supported by the Higher Education Initiative of EIT Food within the headlines Project
Mashauri Entrepreneurial Competencies Framework by Mashauri, Simon Gifford, Clint Davies is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Introduction to the MecFrame
An entrepreneurial mindset encompasses a range of competencies and characteristics essential for individuals building new ventures either outside or inside an organisation. There has been significant research into this and a multitude of papers written. With a focus on cataloguing these competencies as a basis for training and education, we have reviewed much of this documentation (the key ones acknowledged and referenced below) and brought our own experience in entrepreneurial education to bear.
To use this taxonomy to understand how to develop these competencies through education, training and hands-on activity-based learning, we have developed a set of 15 principal competencies, each with several sub-competencies below them.
We have further classified them into capabilities (cognitive skills) that can be developed through education and characteristics (non-cognitive skills) developed through practice and experiential learning. This allows us to figure out the best way of helping students acquire these skills.
We have called this framework: MecFrame (Mashauri Entrepreneurial Competency Framework)
These may then be used to both design entrepreneurial programs with a clear intention as to which competencies are being developed, and to measure the effectiveness of such.