Practitioners' corner: the appropriateness of curriculum content in promoting small business development

Abstract

This study examines the appropriateness of the curriculum content of Small Business Management instructional offerings at Higher Education Institutions. Increased calls for quality and applicability of such offerings stem from the need to develop skills and promote new business creation. Higher Education Institutions cannot assume that small business owners and students know what they would need to learn in order to be successful. Higher Education Institutions need to determine which critical skills prospective small business owners need to possess. Following a quantitative approach, a survey was conducted amongst 249 small business owners in the Johannesburg Metropolitan area. Collected data were subjected to ANOVA and Factor analysis. Most pertinently, the study found that if instructional offerings in the field of small business management are aligned with the requirements of the economy, education could play a more important role in building the skills needed for economic development. The study also showed the topics that small business owners ranked as most important to have knowledge about when starting up their businesses and so makes a number of recommendations with regard to course content in this area.