MBAs get all entrepreneurial

The economic crisis has forever changed how we view the world of work. And now business schools - once the gateway to a high-salaried investment banking or consultancy careers - are breathing new life into MBA students. Largely by inspiring many to launch their own businesses.

With record cut backs and unemployment at unprecedented levels, the economic crisis saw many people taking shelter in graduate programs. Meanwhile, others bailed out of the companies they had been building careers at, ceasing the opportunity to become their own boss and avoid another round of layoffs.

As such, the combination of these two mindsets have led business schools to become a melting pot for entrepreneurial ideas like never before.

Employers, not employees

The boost for entrepreneurship is leading to a new direction for business schools. According to a special report in BusinessWeek, Ted Zoller - associate professor and executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School - says that: "Rather than creating the next generation of employees, we want to create the next generation of employers." In fact, notes Zoller, applications and enrollment in entrepreneurial courses have risen by 25 percent this year.

Old news

What's more, while some experts believe that the interest from aspiring MBAs to start their own business is nothing new, they do agree that the rules have now changed.

Where students would once feel pressured by their masses of student debt into pursuing an attractive career at traditional firms, the economic crisis has meant that - for many - today's market poses a "nothing to lose" lure in pursuing start-up dreams.

Rob Adams, director of the Moot Corp business plan competition and lecturer at the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business, suggests that: "Before students looked at entrepreneurship as job options three, four, and five. Now, it's job option one, two, and three."

What's more, viewing business school and the start-up as a long-term investment  helps get some MBA students through otherwise sleepless nights, largely boosted by a passion for their own ideas. Of course, therein lies the crux to the issue: innovation.

However, "entrepreneur" is not just a job title, some analysts warn. In short, an entrepreneurial idea is a way of thinking big and acting upon it. All people involved are required to be innovative, whether in a start-up or as part of a big company - especially in a recession, where innovation is key.

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