Interdisciplinary and systems thinking solutions for complex challenges: a paradigm shift in undergraduate entrepreneurship education

Entrepreneurship is a key driver of economic growth, innovation, and societal change. Yet, encouraging entrepreneurial engagement among undergraduates is challenging. Despite numerous initiatives, few students translate their education into ventures, revealing shortcomings in traditional teaching. Moreover, a focus on disciplinary specialization hampers the development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, which are essential for navigating complex ecosystems. Focusing on profit-driven models often neglects social and environmental considerations, failing to reflect the priorities of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study advocates for an innovative, systems-thinking approach to undergraduate entrepreneurship education. The aim is to help students manage complexity, boost confidence, and create value beyond economic profit. Drawing from extensive teaching experience at Spanish universities, it became evident that students often perceive entrepreneurship as risky and solitary, leading to a preference for traditional employment. To address this, a pedagogical experiential learning framework focused on experiential collaborative systems thinking is proposed. It seeks to shift perceptions from linear to holistic thinking, leverage diverse perspectives, promote inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, and engage students with real-world problems addressing community and global challenges. Furthermore, this work, based on ongoing pedagogical efforts—using informal, reflective observations rather than formal data—aims to share practical insights with educators, providing an approach that can be applied in similar contexts. We propose future research to validate and refine this framework, to establish its effectiveness in aligning entrepreneurship education with current societal needs.