Resumo

Many individual entrepreneurs start their business informally, especially in developing countries, facing difficulties to deal with technical issues and financial management, feeling marginalized in the economic system (International Labour Organization, 2017). Frequently, these entrepreneurs lack important elements of entrepreneurial competencies, such as management, planning or analytical skills (Bonnstetter, 2013).

Wu et al. (2012) made an extensive review of the literature showing that the majority of the studies on m-learning present positive outcomes (86% of 164 studies). However, there is a lack of research on m-learning practices in adult education and in organizations (Fulantelli et al., 2015). Most of the studies on this subject are concentrated in higher education and in elementary education, respectively (Wu et al., 2012). Considering this gap, this paper focuses on the following research question: how individual entrepreneurs can develop their entrepreneurial competencies via mobile learning?

Mitchelmore and Rowley (2010:102) made a comprehensive review and synthesis of the literature on this subject identifying a specific group of relevant competencies for the exercise of successful entrepreneurship that affects the business performance. They involve management skills, including the ability to develop management systems and organization and coordination skills; conceptual and analytical competencies and idea generation, customer management skills; delegation and motivation skills; the ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunities.

The Design Science Research (DSR) method is used to create and evaluate artifacts intended to solve organizational problems (Hevner et al. 2004). The DSR comprises several phases: problem awareness, suggestion, development, evaluation, and conclusion (Peffers et al., 2008). The way we conducted each one of these phases is detailed next.

The research results indicate that m-learning is a viable educational modality for individual entrepreneurs because most of them work alone; the nonattendance of the participants in the face-to-face meeting scheduled reinforces the difficulties they have to attend face to face educational activities. However, they carry out their mobile phones wherever they are. The context of work of the individual entrepreneurs is where they can put into action their knowledge, skills, and reflect on their attitudes, solving real business problems and then effectively developing their competencies.

This research contributes to literature and practice by showing m-learning affordances perceived by individual entrepreneurs that can support them in developing some of their entrepreneurial competencies (in this research, management skills). Educational approaches such as those considered in this study – the situated learning perspective and the pedagogy of autonomy – are essential for developing educational methods specifically designed to m-learning, in order to take advantages of the affordances of this modality.

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