“With an appropriate network and environment it is possible to learn how to become an entrepreneur. What is needed in order to assist the budding entrepreneur is an interactive and supportive environment that helps create legitimacy, one where the entrepreneur can spread his or her wings," says Karen Williams Middleton after recently securing her PhD.

Entrepreneurship is often regarded as a characteristic that is more or less inherited. Ms Middleton´s doctoral thesis shows that environments that provide support, invite interaction and encompass generous tolerance for creativity and entrepreneurial thinking promote conditions for budding entrepreneurs to learn how to take decisions and become more self-confident in their development as full-fledged entrepreneurs.

By studying entrepreneurial faculties at universities in Sweden and the USA, Karen Williams Middleton has investigated how best to forge the conditions necessary for nurturing entrepreneurship, examining also what happens during the process when students are faced with a variety of practical challenges.“The university environment is unique in that it often offers a structured environment in which entrepreneurs are nurtured. This makes it possible to study how and what it is that impacts them," she explains.

Karen Williams Middleton is a Doctor of Technology with the Department of Technology Management and Economics at Chalmers University of Technology. With degrees from Tufts University and Babson College, Ms Middleton now serves as project manager and course teacher at the Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship and GIBBS, the Göteborg International Bioscience Business School.

Link to the thesis: Developing Entrepreneurial Behavior: Facilitating Nascent Entrepreneurship at the University

For more information:
Karen Williams Middleton karen.willams@chalmers.se +46 (0)31-772 19 13
Sarah Johansson, public relations officer: sarah.johansson@chalmers.se +46 (0)31-772 52 65

Source: Chalmers press release, January 19, 2011 Man-kan-lära-sig-att-bli-entreprenör