Entrepreneurial skills in a post-modern society (G. Z.)

Overview and Aims

Post-modern systemic change evolves mainly through the following two strands: (i) a re-boosting of economic internationalization – driven by R&D, especially towards product and service differentiation, outsourcing (material and immaterial), internationalization of financial markets and of sales; (ii) the enhancement of Creative Industry and Cooperative – Social Economy.

The re-intensification of the globalisation of economic affairs – in the sense that spatial mobilization of production factors (mainly of capital), goods and services is accelerating – has been commonly assigned to various trends that appeared or strengthened considerably after the Second World War: the development of technology, resulting on the one hand in the diminishing of costs for overcoming spatial boundaries, in terms both of communication and transportation costs, contributing on the other to the deepening of differentiation of goods and services; the autonomization of financial capital and the intensification of its velocity of circulation cross-
nationally; the institutional and organizational development with respect to the regulatory and legal integration.

On the other hand, cooperative initiatives in the social and /or creative economy are becoming increasingly important, given the structural changes in modern bourgeoisie. Along them, entrepreneurial skills are being modified, both in terms of their content and of their nature. The present module reveals these modifications and highlights the specific skills of the participants that will be especially needed for having efficiency and viability in this type of initiatives.

The new generation has to be aware of the specific systemic changes, as these result in specially required skills and abilities for this evolving socioeconomic environment. Therefore the scope of the present course refers to the following learning outcomes:

• The (theoretical) clarification of the underlying systemic changes;
• Understanding of the necessity of entrepreneurial skills for activities in the fields of Social – Cooperative Production and / or in that of Creative Industries.
• Understanding the necessity for entrepreneurial skills with respect to the special features of acting in a highly globalized environment.
• Finally, provide a clear definition of the above categories of skills, in order to easy and make more efficient the search for relevant material and courses.