Coaching academic entrepreneurship: How to overcome the knowing-doing-gap?

According to Schumpeter and Kondratieff, society has developed through especially long-term business cycles to a system where information increasingly receives the status of a public good. But seen from an evolutionary standpoint the role of knowledge has to be reconsidered, because a large part of the knowledge that is created in science and business is not fully utilised. This is "dead knowledge" in economic terms. Thus, one main problem that is important for our discussion is the so-called "knowing-doing-gap": Since the knowledge base of a modern economy becomes more and more grounded in science, those firms, regions and nations which take part in the Kondratieff-dynamics will be those who will be successful in reducing this gap. As a consequence entrepreneurial skills of "getting things done" (Schumpeter) are becoming necessary competence requirement for developing and managing academic knowledge in the forthcoming turbulent 6 Kondratieff cycle. This contribution is dedicated to the question how academic entrepreneurship can be interpreted as an important cornerstone of economic development from an evolutionary standpoint. Furthermore, we ask if there is a necessity and possibility of coaching and supporting it effectively by entrepreneurial education in order to overcome the knowing-doing-gap. We cannot change the personality/character of potential entrepreneurs, but we can influence them by teaching, training and coaching them in such a way that they will be able to transform through their own endeavours into successful entrepreneurs. Coaching is meant to raise their entrepreneurial consciousness as well as their evolutionary capabilities of entrepreneurial learning. This implies a Schumpeterian model of entrepreneurial energy that combines three elements of successful entrepreneurial action: rights (law, culture, business charta, etc.), competencies (evolutionary skills, knowledge, "variety") and motivation (intrinsic motivation, internal locus of control, the so-called "need for achievement").