Towards the Development of Context-Sensitive Agrifood Entrepreneurial Skills Frameworks

Τhis study aims to set the basis for a context-sensitive methodology on how to negotiate a common entrepreneurial skills language between all stakeholders involved in agrifood ecosystems in Europe and to help the sharing of information and good entrepreneurial practices. A systematic analysis was first conducted on three skills frameworks (ESCO, O*Net, and SCT) to identify entrepreneurship-related concepts among their lists of competencies, skills, abilities, and knowledge. The analysis resulted in the identification of 15 entrepreneurship-related concepts. Then a review was conducted on 21 empirical research papers and project reports in the agrifood sector. The purpose was to identify entrepreneurship-related concepts and map them to the SCT framework. This provided us with insights regarding the relative emphasis that is placed in the agrifood literature on different entrepreneurship competencies/skills, abilities, and knowledge. The analysis revealed that there is a heavy emphasis on topics related to the management of resources, starting up and carrying out projects, and financial planning and much less on other entrepreneurial-related concepts such as leadership, critical mindset, determination, and new learning. On this basis, we propose that a context-sensitive entrepreneurship skills framework that responds to the needs of an agrifood ecosystem has to move away from top–down generic taxonomies and “global” skills descriptions to place-based, bottom–up, and evidence-based understandings of the multiplicity of perspectives, life experiences, and local wisdom on what kind of skill combinations and skills’ mastery are needed to set up and successfully run a business in a specific agrifood ecosystem.