KEY ENTREPRENEURIAL COMPETENCES IN ALGERIA, EGYPT AND JORDAN

. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the importance of entrepreneurship education at universities in the MENA region using Lehner’s “success factor analysis”. Likewise, the degree of implementation will be investigated. This method is used to investigate the so-called entrepreneurship education topics. 14 international participants from Algeria, Egypt and Jordan were surveyed on the relevance of entrepreneurial skills. The participants are partners of the STREAM project. Lehner’s “success factor analysis” shows that the relevance of entrepreneurial competencies varies by country. This results in a matrix of more successful and less successful competencies. On the one hand, the results show that “self-reliance” is considered very important or at least somewhat important. On the other hand, “communi-cation and interpersonal skills” were ranked as extremely important by all participants. To find out if there is a country specific influence in this study, we will dive deeper into the method described by Lehner to find further explanations.

candidate is nowadays the one who excels among other candidates, since an academic degree is no longer outstanding as it used to be in previous generations (Nica, 2020). In this research we have analysed which competencies are the most sought to justify the preferences of some candidates over others for recruitment.
It is of great importance to write about this subject matter because if the entrepreneurial competencies sought after by employers can be identified, then this study may have an influence at an educational level facilitating universities and other higher educational institutions (HEI) preparing their graduates more optimal for the labour market and its expectations.
These concerns are in line with the STREAM project, in which the University of Applied Sciences in Dresden has been participating for the last 1.5 years. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the unemployment rate among higher education graduates is one of the highest in the world. This is a direct result of the mismatch between education outcomes and labour market expectations. As a result of revolutionary technologies such as Industry 4.0 including AI, robotics and machine

Introduction
The education system is constantly adapting in order to empower school children from primary school to higher education. Over the course of time, we have evolved as a society and so have the curricular goals. While the employment opportunities are varying strongly depending on the academic degree we are going to concentrate on former university graduates. Predictably, alongside a student's degree comes the job seeking process.
The employment rate, as well as the unemployment rate in a country's economy, is not only a comparative index on a regional level, but also on a global level. What is the difference between graduates finding employment and graduates on same academic level not finding employment in their country? Obviously, there are many factors that play a role in the analysis of this reality. We will focus on the labour competences that may be considered as extra-curricular, since they do not have to do with the academic competence or knowledge but rather with what employers consider necessary, in order to find the most suitable candidate for their company. The best learning, the pattern of market needs evolving rapidly, and a new shift in the map of human resource needs is occurring. HEIs are thereby left with the inevitable challenge of adjusting learning processes to produce competencies that expand beyond the technical skills which have been focused for many decades. Therefore, the following chapter will be dedicated to provide an exhaustive explanation of what this project is all about. Moving forward in the method, we surveyed the universities and institutions involved in this project to identify the importance and implementation of these competences in Algeria, Egypt and Jordan.
It is possible to comprehend that the surveyed group members are the most representative. It is exactly this area that we want to study more closely. What competences do young graduates need in order to be able to enter the labour market? If we can answer these central questions, it is very likely that we will be able to fill this gap, which does to a certain extent not close itself. Through the results we were able to visualise their answers and subsequently analyse them. The participants had the option to answer one question at the end of the survey: "What are the biggest obstacles for the inclusion of these subjects in the curricular program?", which led to a discussion at the end of this paper.

About the STREAM project
The aim of this project is to develop a generation of globally exposed high education (HE) graduates, combining character, social and cognitive skills who can integrate effectively in a multicultural and diverse ecosystem to reach a higher degree of preparedness for the rapidly evolving community and labour market, Therefore, we introduce a competence-adapted student journey map that combines academic and complementary competences throughout the student's life. A pilot set of 35 short-term and 10 longterm competency-tailored extra-curricular activities and "quests" are designed and scheduled in the LMS and SIS of the partner High Education Institutions (HEIs). In order to align with the SDGs in competency-based format, we are aiming to obtain the full envisaged picture of the future "global citizen" who possess the competences that were clearly identified through a comprehensive gap analysis developed at the beginning of the project. A target of at least 60 students is envisaged in each of the 7 partner HEIs in Egypt, Jordan and Algeria. The student engagement portal, where employers and students share their profiles and have an open space to participate in internships, summer jobs and capacity building programmes, is central to the proposed integrative (academic/extracurricular/industry engagement) approach (Egypt-Japan University of Science et al., 2021).

Success factor analysis
The MENA region is where the participants are located. This region is highly representative for the research purposes of this survey since it is aiming at very similar purposes like the STREAM project, which is described in more detail in a previous chapter. Due to the high unemployment rate in the region of Egypt, Algeria and Jordan, there are concerns about the deficiencies why graduates from this region do not find a job like graduates from Germany. Because of the lower unemployment rate in Germany, the aim of this project is to benefit this region as well as to find out which factors can enhance the potential of the MENA region.
Through the method we are going to describe below, we will go deeper into how to assess skills in a quantitative way. The skills will be the key elements to be able to deal with the mismatch between education outcomes and expectations of the labour market. Now we will proceed with the foundation of the success factor analysis.

Success/performance measurement
Process-oriented performance measurement was developed to measure the economic contribution of knowledge management, because as the usual accounting and performance measurement instruments are only partially suitable for this purpose (Lehner et al., 2008). Performance measurement consists of a set of business evaluation methods that combine objectives and indicators and can be used for goal-oriented management. It combines a specific approach to performance measurement with a process-oriented system analysis. Process-oriented performance measurement aims to model the benefits of knowledge-intensive work and knowledge management measures. Based on a system analysis, the key figures of knowledge management are extracted and systematically integrated into the key figure system.
The Critical Success Factor (CSF) and the Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) is based on an approach in which knowledge management is evaluated by means of critical success factors. It is structured as follows in 5 steps: (1) Determination of the critical success factors; (2) Development of an assessment framework; (3) Determination of the indicators and (4) Determination of the achievement of the results by means of a multi-Criteria Analysis (Lehner et al., 2008).

How to analyse success factors and adapt them for knowledge management
The success factor analysis itself is a formalised, systematic procedure. It's principle can be found in practice in customer satisfaction analyses, among others, and is based on a comparison of self-image and external image or a transversal analysis. The idea of the method is to visualize the essential guidelines on which managers base their decisions. Based on the analysis and identification of the most critical success factors, we set respective and determine the relevant information needs. This further facilitates setting priorities in application for survey and final evaluation of the study's results which are the basis for setting priorities in application development etc. Basically, the method can be summarized in: -"Phase 1: Analysis of the most important strategic and operational goals of the company and the management; -Phase 2: Identification and analysis of critical success factors; -Phase 3: Development of indicators and measurement criteria for each identified success factor, and determine the relevant information needs for the indicators; -Phase 4: Determination of survey participants, evaluation and analysis of data; -Phase 5: Presentation, conception of measures, implementation" (Lehner et al., 2008). Entrepreneurial skills are increasingly becoming more specific when companies are publishing for example a job advertisement (Lipovac & Bagić Babac, 2021). According to phase one we analysed which skills are the most requested in the current market. Subsequently, during phase two, we were able to identify the key competences. Afterwards, for the purpose of the next phase, the skills had to be measured in a quantitative way, which we achieved by performing a survey. Thereby, the determination of indicators becomes more difficult the more the critical success factors take a qualitative character and thus evade operationalisation. Evidently, the best ranked skills represented key success competences. It was fundamental that the participants in this survey were representative members. As before mentioned, the members of the STREAM project fitted very well into the research interests of this paper. A total of fourteen universities/ institutions responded the survey and enabled proceeding into the last phase, in which the findings and their conceptualisation are shown hereafter.

Explanation of entrepreneurial skills
In the following section we will emphasize on the skills that have been mentioned most often in the past few years and have become a requirement for job applicants to enter the labour market.
Considering a job advertisement, regardless of the time and industry, it is usually asked for someone responsible, perseverative and who also possess a high team spirit (Bühring & Best-Werbunat, 2018). Being creative, having the ability to make decisions, is also highly valued. It is very important to clarify that possessing these skills just helps to improve to have a better impression in a job interview (Myers, 2009). But it is not a guarantee for getting the job (Fullwiler, 2017).
Since the industrial revolution, society began to divide itself into groups to optimise work. The value of teamwork has not ceased to be a priority; on the contrary, it has only increased in importance (Wang et al., 2022). It is one of the most essential qualifications expected by employers. The ability to work as part of an interdisciplinary team leads to more efficient results, lower costs and probably better profitability (BrightHR, 2022). Each generation is more volatile than the previous one and for this reason companies in all industries have realised that leadership and organizational capabilities are urgently needed to make decisions in times of uncertainty (Brooks, 2022). The enormous amount of leadership courses nowadays is a demonstration of the high demand and need for this competence. In other words, the ability to deal with uncertainties and risks has never been so urgent (Moldoveanu & Narayandas, 2019). Another relevant skill which is complementary to leadership is assertiveness, which is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as "the quality of being confident and not frightened to say what you want or believe" (Dictionary, 2022). How do they complement each other? There are different levels of assertiveness, depending on the scenario. For example, if a leader must guide a group through a virtual way, then a high level of assertiveness will be needed for transmitting the roles, responsibilities and lines of action to the staff. In the case of a multicultural team, the leader ought to adjust his level of assertiveness towards a more sensitive one, due to the different aspirations, perspectives or know-how of the team. Lack of assertiveness and leadership could lead a team to complete failure, with more misunderstandings, frustration and demotivation (Bacci, 2013). In an increasingly multicultural team environment, knowing English is no longer an advantage over others and instead has become a standardized requirement. A group of Indian recruitment companies surveyed a panel of engineers in 2009, which was intended to answer which qualities would be considered as most important by them. The participants answered the capacity to communicate in English, self-discipline, selfmotivation. teamwork, and entrepreneurship (Almeida et al., 2012). Skills have changed over time; some have remained just as important, and others have become essential. Naturally many employers, academics or journalists are interested in anticipating what skills our future society will need. According to an article published by the World Economic Forum in 2020, it is estimated that by the year 2025 there will be an increasing demand for competences related to Innovation and Creativity. Exemplifying the two competences just mentioned, they stand for analytical thinking to solve complex problems, as well as critical thinking that promotes creativity, originality and initiative (Skillcorn, 2022).
It is a plausible scenario to wonder if, due to digitalisation, the competences of the labour market are going to change. The question to this uncertainty would be the following: Will the competences become obsolete in the medium term, due to the ongoing digitisation of systems, and thereby eliminating the current need for a high-skilled workforce? In response to this question 1770 managers from 14 countries conducted a survey, in which 37 of them are exclusively members of organizations in charge of digital transformation. They concluded that empathy, creative thinking, improvisation, social skill, networking and coaching are the competencies that managers must master perfectly because, so far, they are irreplaceable by a machine (Cantoni & Mangia, 2018). Networking is one of the skills that can occur anywhere, either in person at a trade fair, birthday party, college or via online like a networking platform, meetings or conference. It is a fact that approximately one third of job seekers find a job through professional connexions, especially recommendations (Schiller, 2022). It is a way of creating bonds and opportunities that might not be possible in any other way (Eatough, 2021). Although interpersonal connections are fundamental to open doors. Later, in the workplace, it is crucial to embrace resilience. Given the speed at which technology is advancing, it is an aspect in which resilience has a fundamental role to play in overcoming difficulties and adapting (Azhar & Droog, 2020). For example, the whole structure of management practice, and the long-term approach to performance management on which the core business was based, was extremely affected by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (Reeves & Whitaker, 2020). Resilience is one of the most important skills that contemporary leaders are developing, in order to keep their business stable in the harshest of adversities and eventually overcome the fragility of the system (Hellyer, 2022). As mentioned before, resilience is fundamental in times of change, while the system in which we live is extremely vulnerable, and we are constantly facing new challenges, discipline is considered a complementary and fundamental skill to carry out decisions or plans in the long-term, i.e., in a sustainable way. The co-founder and CEO of Front explains how discipline, which also has something to do with resilience, can be a highly profitable factor within the competences. Her name is Mathilde Collin, she started Front as a Start-up and to date there are 2000 employees, acquiring more than 4000 customers and approximately $80 million in funding. Ms. Collin is convinced that she owes her success to discipline. In an interview she talked about how discipline is in fact more important than vision. In a company's ecosystem, while many skills are considered necessary by many important figures in the labour market, the perception of priorities can vary slightly, being subjective and having some differences. Mathilde Collin shares for example her perception of discipline and vision. She said: "you can have a very ambitious, tight plan of exactly where you want go, but chances are that you'll drop some balls or focus on the wrong things," says Collin. "Working on your company's vision is necessary, but it's something many early teams spend too much time on; there's a sort of navel-gazing element to the exercise. The bottom line is more simple: are you disciplined enough to make it happen or not? " (Collin & Smith, 2022). Discipline is also a very important competence within the foundation that will later lead to action. Entrepreneurship is a niche within the business community, that is much admired for the privileges it entails, but on the other hand it carries high failure rates, given the difficulty of starting a business and keeping motivated along the way (Skala, 2019). According to an article published by Forbes, passion is a determining factor for success, entrepreneurs who start with their business idea and are completely passionate about their project, the additional hours are not necessarily felt as extra work but as necessary to reach their objective and the "journey" is from that moment onwards completely different (Gold, 2019).

Execution of the success factor analysis
Before proceeding to examine the figures in this section, it is important to know that here is the database matrix used in which the survey is based and our STREAM partners participated (See the appendix at the end of the paper for more details - Table A1 and A2). The survey was answered by 14 institutions, during January of the year 2022, in which four of them are from Algeria, seven from Egypt and three from Jordan. The survey consisted in evaluating competences from 1 to 5 (from less to more).
In total there were twenty skills, which were divided into the ten most relevant and the rest less relevant. For each list of ten competences there were two questions. According to the method we are using, we are looking forward to find the key entrepreneurial competences, for this reason we will concentrate our findings in the ten most important skills. Let us focus on the first question and it said: "How important is the acquisition of the following subjects (for future entrepreneurs) at your university/institution?" Algeria and Jordan had very similar evaluations, their answers differed by only 10% more important or less important. Leadership skills received the highest rating, while Egypt ranked this competence with an average of 4.1 out of 5 (Figure 1), which can also be considered as a similar appreciation in comparison to Algeria and Jordan. The majority considered leadership skills and communication on all levels as the most important skill. Networking and Perseverance were rated with an average of 3.86 between the three surveyed countries and the rest of the skills have a very similar distribution.Identification of these core competences as extremely important in the business field helps us to have a better understanding for what we may suggest to improve as inclusion in HEIs. In order to homogenise the responses of the three countries, we calculated the relative value of implementation.
Fourteen members responded to the survey, of which four responses corresponded to Algeria, seven to Egypt and three to Jordan. A total of four surveys were eliminated due to the poorly representative result. Of the surveys answered by Jordan, only one was included. In the case of Algeria (Figure 2) are the best implemented competences, probably the skills that has had the best chance of being trained and implemented most effectively on a daily basis during the studies. Egypt (Figure 3) has a more homogeneous distribution of its competences rated as most important, but by a difference of decimal digits, it has the same impression than Algeria. Egypt differs from Algeria in its assessment of perseverance. This is where the greatest contrast in values is to be found, with Algeria having an implementation of 1.50 whereas Egypt has an implementation of 2.29.
Jordan's evaluation is considerably different, since persistence and networking are considered to be "extremely implemented" in their university/insitution. Jordan is comparable to Egypt and Algeria on the evaluation of implementation of problem analysis and options thinking. Among their values, the lowest rated in their implementation was the communication and leadership skills. There is no illustration for Jordan, due to the fact that one participant's response is not representative enough to be graphically shown.  The ability to deal with uncertainties and risks The ability to recognize and seize opportunity

Results
For a better understanding of the analysis, we have visualized the importance and implementation of the ten best evaluated skills based on the survey done in these three countries (Algeria, Egypt and Jordan). In this section we will finally consolidate the success factor analysis as well as contextualise the difficulties of this current scenario. The x axis of the Figure 4 shows the performance of the skills in Algeria, Egypt and Jordan. The performance was calculated as the difference between importance and implementation; the "delta" is the potential to improve. If the difference is big, that means there is a lot of potential to improve (blue area). The y axis represents the Importance (average per country), that means if the y-value is high, the competence was rated as very important in this country. For example, the coordinate symbolised by P-AL stands for perseverance in Algeria. Its performance is low, while the blue area of the graph represents that a skill is very important, yet it is very poorly implemented (big "delta" performance). As a result, the blue area is where there is a high potential for improvement. An opposite example is the N-E coordinate, which represents networking in Egypt. In this case the value of x is small, i.e., the performance is fine and very close to the importance that comes out of the average importance of Egypt.
As we discussed in the previous chapter, Jordan has a different perspective towards the other countries and in this section interestingly, by calculating Jordan's coordinates, we got negative values. Jordan is the only country where skills were rated as "Very Important" but were "Extremely Implemented". This generates a negative "delta" result in the performance and for this reason cannot be seen in the graph.
This survey not only revealed tangible ratings of how well or not the implementation of entrepreneurial skills are being performed but also the participants provided further information regarding the difficulty level for the integration of these subjects in the curricular programmes. Egyptian and Algerian members pointed out how difficult and rigid the official curricular programme of their university is as well as the lack of a clear and objective framework with concrete results considering its implementation. Jordan on the other hand brings up the fundings, where there is the potential for investing and overcoming the implementation obstacle. The funding may be directly related to financing of additional or better educators in terms of making the curricular program more engaging and interactive with real life cases for students, according to an Egyptian member's point of view. To restate this statement, the quotation from a member from Egypt summarises this thought very well: "The mentality of academic staff teaching is more specialized in subjects. Training is necessary with an ability to change mindsets". Another member of the same country mentioned that the students should be willing to fully engage in such subjects to acquire professional experience and not just learn to pass subjects, because of the marks/credits. So far, we have views that suggest that the difficulty lies in the rigidity of the curricula, in their academics or students. Are more factors that may impede the integration of competences in the curricular program? What about the extremely high number of students in some course's specifications or not appliable class contents? Maybe due to the lack of time to have more practical experience? Or the mentality of the academic staff and the need of a new training concept to change the teaching mindset or stiffness of the curricular program. Detailed results statistics are included in the appendix (Table A3).

Conclusions
In this study we were able to quantify the importance, implementation and performance of entrepreneurial competencies in the MENA region. In order to justify our approach, we deepened the Lehner's method. After having conducted the survey and fourteen STREAM project members provided their answers and we analysed their perspectives. We can conclude that the concerns or difficulties of Algeria, Egypt and Jordan, despite being different countries, they have very similar perceptions and challenges, Egypt and Algeria in particular. However, in the case of Jordan, it would have been interesting to have more members participating in the same survey to make their profile more evident in this evaluation. Obviously, it is worth evaluating the method used and and are implemented at an average level. These are closer to meeting the expectation of implementation and importance according to the survey. The blue box represents the competencies that have a lot of potential for improvement, as they are very important but not yet that well implemented considering if there is a better approach to enhance these results. After our analysis we have found that there is an acknowledgement of the most important entrepreneurial competences, since they have scored the highest, these turned into key competences or key success factors according to the method used. The practical skills are not well implemented in the curricular program, which was part of our assumption at the beginning of this research. If these were integrated, after overcoming the current obstacles to their implementation, further research could prototype a new method for the integration of key entrepreneurial competences and in a more long-term perspective the effect on the employability rate of the future generations.
This methodological approach provides a solid basis for curriculum development. It puts the later competences in the centre and also focuses on a centring on competences and learning. Table A1. Here is the response of all participants who answered the survey and rated the importance of the competences listed in the table. Importance was rated on a scale of one to five Table A3. The first 10 competencies of this survey are the ones referred to in " Figure 4" in this paper. Here are the results of the average importance in each country and the performance between importance and implementation in each country Table A2. Here is the response of all participants who answered the survey and rated the implementation of the competences listed in the table. Implementation was rated on a scale of one to five