Understanding entrepreneurial thinking for designers: Perspectives from entrepreneurs, academicians, product designers, and students

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is increasingly vital across disciplines to equip students with the skills to address complex global challenges. However, a clear and unified understanding of entrepreneurial thinking, particularly within engineering education, remains lacking. This study aims to develop a comprehensive definition of entrepreneurial thinking suitable for integration into engineering curricula. We conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven participants, including entrepreneurs, academicians, and product designers from diverse fields, such as product design, textile, ergonomics, finance, biomedical engineering, computer science, and mechanical engineering. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, specifically keyword extraction and topic modeling with Latent Semantic Indexing, we analyzed the interview transcripts to identify key terms and themes. From this analysis, we extracted the top 50 words and identified the top 20 topics related to entrepreneurial thinking. Brainstorming sessions with product designers were then held to construct definitions based on these findings. Through majority and relationship analysis, we derived a unified definition of entrepreneurial thinking. The final definition was compared with variations of definitions prepared by undergraduate design students, revealing that students had a vague understanding of the concept. To address this gap, we proposed a framework that integrates the developed definition with engineering course elements using the Lean Canvas Model. This framework aligns engineering education with entrepreneurial skills without adding a significant workload, serving as a practical tool for educators. This study provides a unified definition of entrepreneurial thinking and offers a practical framework for its integration into engineering education, thereby fostering an entrepreneurial mindset among future engineers.