ABSTRACT
The increasing importance of small and mediumsized enterprises and entrepreneurs in business and society has intensified the interest and need for research within the field. In small business the entrepreneurs play important roles as the founders of the business idea, feeling ownership of the idea, and also as the business managers of the new companies. Since entrepreneurship and small business research is a young paradigm, the theoretical basis so far has been on elements from other sciences. The climate of the local environment surrounding the entrepreneurs affects the processes of establishing new companies. The entrepreneurs have different goals for their businesses caused by several background variables. A consequence of this is that the educational needs of the entrepreneurs are different, and a standardised training course offered may fail in meeting the different demands. The entrepreneurs usually have technical-oriented educational background and thus are more product than market oriented.
