Enterprising behaviour

Summary
This page provides information about 'Enterprising behaviour and Personal Profiling', topics that arise as policy themes from the Fontys ICT Ambition Plan.

Click on the image to watch a short video introduction.

The specific attention for Enterprising behaviour was derived from the Fontys ICT Ambition Plan 2013-2017 and was one of the 8 themes in it. In the Ambition Plan, this theme was originally called Enterprising. In the spring of 2016 this was adjusted to Enterprising behaviour and in the summer of 2017 a new component Personal Profiling was added.

The Enterprising behaviour Thematic Team was established after the Work field Advisory Committee and our Partners in Education in a survey had indicated that they would like to attract more enterprising students and graduates. Based on this need, a project plan was formulated and a project structure realised with a project leader, a management representative and a thematic team. With the help of the thematic team, a great deal has been achieved during the project period of the ambition plan, and a great deal has been delivered:

• Self-scan enterprising behaviour lecturers
• Self-scan enterprising behaviour students
• Workshop enterprising behaviour lecturers
• Workshop Personal Profiling (students)
• Reports and policy documents including inclusion in the Rubrics
• Promotional materials (videos, vlogs and posters)
• Updated Policy Wiki
• Article about Personal Profiling (Surf Magazine)

ICT and media technology are playing an increasingly important role in all facets of our society. Even in professions where this is not so evident at the moment. After the automation of physical labour, the robotisation of intellectual work is also imminent. This means, among other things, that work is offered and distributed in a different way, and that you as an employee must constantly show Enterprising behaviour, in other words: see opportunities, create opportunities and seize opportunities.
If value is also created, we speak of enterprising. Enterprising behaviour is a prerequisite for this.

Instrumental here is Personal Profiling, the process of personal brand development around your name and your career. You use this profiling to express your skills, personality and values. You underline your unique character as expressed in your product, your services and what drives you (vision and mission). Your personal profile describes who you are, what you do, how you do it and what you have to offer. Personal profiling is not only important for entrepreneurs because you can assume that not everyone will become an entrepreneur. If you don't develop your profile yourself, others will fill it in for you. By continuing to develop your own “brand”, you are proactively regulating your career and keeping control of how you come across.

For the student this means Enterprising learning; showing initiative and responsibility, being able to deal with feedback, being able to function in groups, being able to connect oneself with reality.

The following competencies are important for Enterprising behaviour and Personal Profiling:

1. Creative
2. Change-minded
3. Result-oriented
4. Independent
5. Relation-oriented
6. Perseverance
7. Reflect

The performance indicators related to enterprising behaviour and personal profiling are part of the new set of performance indicators for professional development.

In the context of enterprising behaviour, Fontys ICT distinguishes itself emphatically from other universities of applied sciences and educational institutes through its intensive cooperation with the business community under the name Partners in Education. Cooperation with the business community is not a side issue or a non-committal enterprise. It is precisely by involving companies intensively in education (consultative meetings, specialist courses, projects, internships, assessments, presentations, company markets, etc.) that the curriculum becomes more meaningful for both the student and the lecturer. Through this good cooperation with companies, students receive up-to-date and challenging education and companies can introduce them to the latest technologies, approaches and working methods. Fontys ICT would like students to be well prepared after their study programme and be able to apply the theory in practice. Experience shows that no one can help better in this than the business community itself.

In 2012, the Kenniscentrum Handel carried out a second study into the extent to which the work field considers these competencies to be important in its Trainee companies survey. Some results from this research:

• 60 to 90% of the companies surveyed consider competencies in enterprising behaviour important. The number of companies that indicated that they were interested in creating and innovating has increased compared to a previous survey in 2010.
• 85 to 90% of the companies surveyed feel that enterprising behaviour makes companies more productive and successful.
• 50 to 60% of the companies surveyed have a preference for enterprising behaviour when recruiting new staff
• Some 35% of the surveyed companies even require enterprising behaviour and 90% of the companies select on this basis.
• 90% of the companies surveyed believe that enterprising behaviour can be taught. Some of it must already be in your personality, so not all students will be able to grow in the same way.

From our own research (autumn 2013) within Fontys ICT shows that all competencies offer room for improvement. Lecturers and students are largely on the same wavelength. A focus on results gives a different picture: students and lecturers have a more positive image of this than the business community. Figure 1 shows an appropriate picture.

Figure 1
Imaging about enterprising behaviour among recently graduated Fontys ICT students of Students and Lecturers Fontys ICT and the Industry.

More information about the theme of enterprising behaviour can be found on the Fontys ICT portal