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Asma Zarrouk (born in September 20, 1987) is an engaged scholar. In 2015, she started her academic career at the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Sousse (FSEGSO), related to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Tunisia. In 2018, she obtained international awards for investigating Entrepreneurship and Continued Entrepreneurship from a gender perspective. She obtained The International Council of Small Businesses PhD student Award and the Best PhD project award from IPAG business school, Ecole de Management Leonard De Vinci and Grenoble Ecole de Management.
Early Life
editZarrouk was born in Sousse (Tunisia). She is the daughter of Fathia Challouf and Amor Zarrouk. Her father was a academic, business owner and computer science engineer at the national center of computer science of Tunisia (CNI). He has made several contributions to the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies such as the digitization of the first and current national identities cards. Her mother worked as a nurse at a childcare center and she was a talented tailor. Zarrouk grew up in Sousse and attended the best primary and secondary schools. Her records allowed her to join Pioneer high school in Kairouan but she stayed to pursue her education at Lycée des Jeunes filles Sousse. During her education journey, Zarrouk used to go to her father's work place. He was her most influential role model. She decided to enroll at a Business School and embark on an academic career.
Higher Education
editZarrouk studied four years in a row to receive a Bachelor's degree in International Business. Then she went for a Master's degree in Entrepreneurship. Slim Ben Mimoun, professor at Skema Business School supervised her.
Career
editHer current research involves using robust theories such as Icek Ajzen's theory of reasoned action as well as statistically powerful methods such as Mahalanobis Distance Matching to create and compare similar pairs of men and women in Kauffman Dataset. In 2015, Zarrouk started her teaching career as a contract teacher at FSEGSO. She occupied academic positions such as pre-examiner, member of jury and co-supervisor, reviewer as well as other academic merits and positions of trust. In 2018, Zarrouk attended Grenoble Ecole de Management as a Visiting Scholar. She was granted "passeport talent chercheur" from the French Embassy in Tunisia. She achieved an erratic one-shot success while attending the main European and American Entrepreneurship conferences. She built a strong international social and human capital and became a member of the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She obtained awards and has appeared in Grenoble Ecole de Management monthly Newsletter. In 2018, her first paper appeared at the ICSB World Conference Proceedings. In 2019, Zarrouk participated in the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference and published her second peer-reviewed paper which appeared at the Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Journal. Zarrouk actively engages in scholarship, research and publish papers/articles in first-class international journals. For example, she is now collaborating with Babson's College professors where she is invited to teach as visiting scholar.
Gender Equality in Entrepreneurship
editZarrouk's current work is relevant to Entrepreneurship Scholarship. She contributes to explain entrepreneurial phenomenon such as Entrepreneurial Intentions. She contributes to the ongoing conversations in the Entrepreneurship literature and considers wider relevance from the outset. In fact, she contributes to Entrepreneurship literature by theorizing from another literature: gendered theories. For example, in one of her papers, Zarrouk and Colleagues fill the scientific gap about the nature of the entrepreneurial intentions formation process. Is it gendered or gender neutral process? The primary audience of this paper is Entrepreneurship audience. The main contributions are to Entrepreneurship literature while the final contribution is to the second literature: Gender mainstreaming literature.
Research Output and Publications
editZarrouk Asma, Gaies Brahim, Erno Tornikoski, & Maalaoui Adnane (in progress). The non-linear role of R&D investments in different nascent entrepreneurial activities. Academy of Management Journal.
Erno Tornikoski, Maalaoui Adnane, Gaies Brahim, & Zarrouk Asma (2019). How does the gender gap in nascent entrepreneurship and its socio-cultural context impact self-employment in OECD countries? Academy of Management, Diana International Research Conference. Wellesley.
Zarrouk Asma & Buffart Michaël (2019). Growth intentions and realizations among new firms in the US 2004-2011. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research. Wellesley.
Zarrouk Asma, Bouhaouala Malek & Tornikoski Erno (2018). Entrepreneurial Intentions among Higher Education. RENT Conference. Toledo.
Tornikoski Erno, Zarrouk Asma, Buffart Michaël (2018). Intending and Growing New Businesses: Theorizing and Investigating Gendered vs. Gender Neutral Perspectives. ICSB World Conference Proceedings. Washington.
Zarrouk Asma (2018). Entrepreneurship and Continued Entrepreneurship: Gendered vs Gender Neutral Perspective. Cognitive Perspective in Entrepreneurship Research, Paris.
Zarrouk Asma (2012). The factors behind the perception towards female managers. MS Thesis. ISG Sousse.
Zarrouk Asma (2010). The factors behind starting a business. BS Thesis. ISG Sousse.
Pedagogical Traditional and Research-Based Teaching Experience
editZarrouk is a qualified and motivated academic. She had taught at a public school: the Faculty of Management and Economics Sciences of Sousse. She mentored students of different undergraduate levels. She has experience in the following subjects: Entrepreneurial studies, Entrepreneurship, Production Management, and Well-being at work. She had delivered lectures, integrated courses (CI), tutorials (TD) in a professional way and ensured that the students achieved all the learning outcomes and objectives. She had designed, graded and managed exams and course work projects. She is currently providing orientation and counselling to entrepreneurs and school teachers. Zarrouk is also involved in developing curriculum in order to maintain high standard of quality education and update the syllabus to keep up with the latest industry requirement. For example, the main objectives of Entrepreneurship education is to increase knowledge about Entrepreneurship, influence entrepreneurial intentions and encourage job and wealth creation[1]. Karimi et al (2016) describe these three objectives as the "Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship". At public universities, the students take many courses such as accounting, finance, marketing, and management. The aim of the 8-month Entrepreneurship program is to increase self-efficacy, pro-activeness, and risk taking among the students. They learn how to prepare a business plan and how to talk and network with practitioners[2]. According to Sanchez, (2013) this practice is a significant Entrepreneurship education. Zarrouk tried to implement Research based Teaching and Learning tests in Traditional Teaching Method. In Zarrouk's class, students conducted research, discussed the readings, answered practical exercises, created group dynamics and fostered creativity. Zarrouk used emails and social media to provide the students with videos and complementary materials or instructions. Her intervention was flexible and updated thanks to high quality open science. Zarrouk’s intervention had two aspects: in class (face-to-face), and online (via email and social media).
My Hero ESHIP Program
editResponding to Eldman et al. (2008) call to focus on “actions” rather than “research and plan writing” while teaching Entrepreneurship[3], Asma Zarrouk developed the "My Hero" Entrepreneurship program. It is a program based on collaborative research action and more specifically, the collective construction of the problem. In fact, Greenwood and Levin (1998) claim that unlike conventional fields or experimental research, action research is rooted in the desire to solve a concrete and practical problem, to transform a situation experienced as problematic by the actors into a favorable situation[4]. In addition, Landry (1995) defines a problem as the recognition by an individual or a group that an action has failed and the reflection of the reasons for this failure that may be useful in remedying the situation[5]. The "My Hero" program will start by the diagnosis and intervention during Human Entrepreneurship actions that will be evaluated using meta-cognitive thinking self-assessment tools. This triangled program will respond to the constructive alignment (Biggs and Tang, 2011). In fact, according to these authors, “the learner constructs his or her own learning trough relevant learning activities. The teacher’s job is to create a learning environment that supports the learning activities appropriate to achieving the desired learning outcomes. The key is that all components in the teaching system- the curriculum and its intended outcomes, the teaching method used, the assessment tasks- are aligned to each other. All are tuned to learning activities assessed in the desired learning outcomes. The learner finds it difficult to escape without learning appropriately.”[6]
Reference section
edit- ^ Karimi, S. Biemans, H. J. A., Lans, T., Chizari, M., & Mulder, M., (2016). The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education: A Study of Iranian Students' Entrepreneurial Intentions and Opportunity Identification, Journal of Small Business Management, 54:1, 187-209.
- ^ Sanchez, J. C. (2013). The impact of an entrepreneurship education program on entrepreneurial competencies and intention. Journal of Small Business Management, 51, 447–465.
- ^ Edelman, L. F., Manolova, T. S., & Brush, C. G. (2008). Entrepreneurship education: Correspondence between practices of nascent entrepreneurs and textbook prescriptions for success. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7(1), 56-70.
- ^ Greenwood, D. J., & Levin, M. (1998). Action research, science, and the co-optation of social research. Studies in cultures, organizations and societies, 4(2), 237-261.
- ^ Landry, M. (1995). A note on the concept of 'problem'. Organization studies, 16(2), 315-343.
- ^ Biggs, J and Tang, C. (2011): Teaching for Quality Learning at University, (McGraw-Hill and Open University Press, Maidenhead)