Teaching of entrepreneurship programs to Confucian heritage cultural background students

The significant growth in one knowledge-driven service industry, ie tertiary education, has resulted in Universities seeking international students not only for financial awards but also to bring in a diversity of norms and cultures to enrich the learning experience. The increase in migration from Asian countries as per Legat (1996) in the mid-nineties, has resulted in non- English speaking background (NESB) students entering Tertiary Institutes in large numbers, more so in the Australian and New Zealand market. This trend continues with more international fee paying students (Sarkodie-Mensah, 1998). More than 75,000 foreign students studied in New Zealand last year, earning the country $2.5 billion and making education the fourth-largest export earner. Nearly 80% of all foreign fee paying students are from Asia and as described by Biggs (1996) of Confucian Heritage Culture (CHC). At Unitec in Auckland, more than 60% of the students enrolled in the Business Faculty are international students. With this dramatic increase in our classrooms of international students, the challenge for educational institutions and teachers is to be able to adopt innovative teaching strategies that meets the legitimate needs and expectations of this group of international CHC students. This is even more so pronounced in the entrepreneurial programs at Unitec like the Bachelors (BBIE) and Master of Business in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MBIE), because as social scientists have postulated (Weber, 1964), Confucianism is hostile to entrepreneurship. Schaper and Volery (2004) highlight factors that are most commonly cited for entrepreneurship to occur, being an individual, an act, an organization and innovation. International students with a CHC background belong to collectivist societies (Hofstede, 1991) where personal relationships and contacts, the much cherishe