Entrepreneurial thinking is becoming central to the way people innovate, solve problems and lead change inside organisations of every kind. ULACIT in Costa Rica is placing that mindset at the heart of university education, training students to create companies, strengthen institutions and adapt to a world being reshaped by technology, writes Allan Matarrita-Chinchilla

The term entrepreneur is often widely misunderstood.

Most people use the word to describe someone who has founded a business or is trying to build one. That definition is perfectly reasonable, but it leaves out much of what true entrepreneurship really means.

Harvard Business School credits Howard H. Stevenson, an emeritus professor and one of its leading figures in the study of enterprise, with defining entrepreneurship as “the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled”.

I define it as the ability to identify opportunities, take risks, and create value through new ideas.

Stevenson’s definition and my own point to the same conclusion, which is that entrepreneurship is a capability that reaches far beyond company creation. Some people have a natural instinct for it, but it can also be taught, practised, and strengthened over time. At its core, it is a skill that is rooted as much in character as in technical knowledge. Project management, cash flow analysis and commercial planning all have their place, but the entrepreneurial mind depends on something deeper, requiring a willingness to take measured risks, the imagination to connect ideas that once seemed unrelated, the drive to act without waiting for perfect conditions, and the resilience to keep going when an idea meets resistance.

Since the late 1970s, we have also had the concept of the intrapreneur, attributed to the American writers Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot. They described the entrepreneur inside the organisation as an agent of change, capable of doing something that had not been done before.

Today, experience and empirical evidence allow us to make a bold statement: every innovation within an organisation, whether it is the improvement of a service, a process, or a new product, originates from an entrepreneurial mind. It comes from an intrapreneur with the ability to use existing resources – in this case, the organisation’s resources – to pursue an opportunity that is often not evident to others internally.

This is much easier said than done, because resistance to change is an everyday reality in organisations.

Resistance to change is part of human nature. The primary directive of our brain is to keep us alive, and for that, predictability, habit, and the avoidance of surprises are powerful allies. Habit feels comfortable because it makes the world predictable.

In his theory of predictive processing, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark argues that the human brain functions as a device that minimises prediction errors. That is why, when an innovation breaks our expectations, it does not simply change a routine but forces the brain to process uncertainty. In that sense, the human brain is not naturally fond of innovation.

And because we are human beings, we instinctively transfer that search for comfort and routine to the organisations of which we are part. This is where innovation, which by nature questions the way things are currently done, becomes one of the most challenging things to achieve, no matter how attractive it may sound as a concept or institutional value, and regardless of internal campaigns, workshops or corporate slogans.

One uncomfortable conclusion I have reached as a startup founder, consultant, and professor is that everyone wants to see themselves as innovative…until they actually have to innovate. Ouch. A direct hit to the corporate ego.

The scale of the challenge inside organisations makes the case for training more entrepreneurs in university classrooms even stronger. That training can support company creation, strengthen intrapreneurship and develop the mindset needed to challenge habit, identify opportunity and move from idea to execution.

In the modern context, organisations must constantly explore new opportunities simply to survive. This applies to public institutions as much as it does to large companies. Intrapreneurs in government are essential, and I would go further. There is an enormous shortage of entrepreneurial minds in the public sector. That raises difficult questions. How much further could a country advance if it had more entrepreneurs inside the state and in positions of power? How many problems could we solve if we cultivated this capability across the whole education system, from school to university?

The case of the Latin American University of Science and Technology, known as ULACIT, in Costa Rica is especially admirable. Since 2012, the university at which I work has made Business Creation a mandatory course across all its academic programmes, embedding entrepreneurial education across the institution. At the end of 2024, it took a bolder step by updating the course and renaming it Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship, with a focus on startup creation. In other words, we no longer teach students only the basics of entrepreneurship but now train them in the essential capabilities needed to understand one of the most challenging forms of entrepreneurship: designing a company with the potential to scale globally.

At ULACIT, we believe the challenges created by recent technological advances, especially in artificial intelligence, make entrepreneurship a necessary skill for professional survival. It is an absolute differentiator for individuals, and a major contribution to society and to any organisation.
These efforts will be complemented by a university business incubator and a deep-tech centre aimed at transforming science into viable businesses. The results will become visible over time, but we are already leading by example. These actions are possible thanks to a clear vision and to intrapreneurs with the ability to manage this major transformation project with the mindset of a start-up.

The future looks promising.

llan Matarrita-Chinchilla is Director of Entrepreneurship at the Center for Innovation and Technology at ULACIT in Costa Rica. He is an entrepreneur, consultant, startup founder, and university professor with experience in innovation, investment, venture building, sportstech, neurotech, and entrepreneurial education.

Further information
Produced with support from ULACIT. To find out more about its entrepreneurship programmes and innovation initiatives, visit www.ulacit.ac.cr/en

READ MORE: BP appoints Ian Tyler chairman after Albert Manifold ousting. Former Balfour Beatty chief executive takes the top board role after three months as interim chair, completing another stage of BP’s leadership shake-up following the removal of his predecessor over conduct and governance concerns.

Do you have news to share or expertise to contribute? The European welcomes insights from business leaders and sector specialists. Get in touch with our editorial team to find out more.