Competence Frameworks of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The importance of the transformation to a sustainable economy for the protection from global crises such as climate change is widely recognized. Sustainable entrepreneurs are considered to play a key role in this transformation process as they create innovative market solutions with ecological, social, and economic value. So far, there is no consensus on competences students need to solve sustainability challenges as sustainable entrepreneurs. The aim of this article is to identify competence frameworks that enable competence-oriented education of future sustainable entrepreneurs. An academic search engine and a bibliographic database were screened for documents written in English and published between January 2010 and November 2020 to identify the existing competence frameworks discussed in the current literature in the field of Sustainable Entrepreneurial Education (SEE). The review process led to a set of 65 empirical and nonempirical works on SEE. A computer-assisted qualitative data analysis was used for this review. The data analysis showed an increasing number of SEE articles published over the last decade mostly in scientific journals (69.2%). Fifty-six (86.2%) of publications related to tertiary education. The data analysis revealed three stand-alone competence frameworks for Sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE). The frameworks show an overlap in content but differences in terms of construction, validation, complexity. All competence frameworks were developed for use in higher education institutions, which necessitates adaptation for use in other educational institutions. The analysis of 28 SEE interventions identified in the literature provides information on the reception of the frameworks for competence-based teaching and assessment.