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STEP (FOPE)

Student Training for Entrepreneurial Promotion

STEP enables students, young people and aspiring entrepreneurs to learn about entrepreneurship by actively building and running a real business during the training programme. STEP combines entrepreneurial know-how with proven psychological success factors to equip participants with the capabilities needed to succeed in dynamic and uncertain environments.

Objective

STEP aims to promote self-employment as a viable and attractive career option, boost business creation and enhance participants’ income and employment generation skills, thereby transforming job seekers into job creators. This has a dual impact on individuals and the labour market.

Target Groups

  • Students and recent graduates
  • Young people interested in starting a business
  • Youth in vocational training, secondary education, or early career stages

Core Focus & Content

STEP integrates three tightly connected domains that jointly drive entrepreneurial success:

  • Psychology: Personal initiative, goal setting, leadership, persistence, and learning from feedback. 
  • Business administration: Basic finance, accounting, cost calculation, and planning.
  • Entrepreneurship: Opportunity identification, business models, marketing, customer orientation, and start-up processes. 

Participants work in teams to set up and run a real business, translating abstract concepts directly into practice and reflecting on their experience.

Methodology & Scientific Foundation

STEP is based on a rigorous, action-oriented training approach rooted in Action Regulation Theory (Frese & Zapf, 1994).

Learning is structured around recurring action cycles:

  1. Setting concrete goals;
  2. Taking action in a real business context;
  3. Receiving structured feedback;
  4. Reflecting on outcomes and mistakes;
  5. Adapting strategies and acting again.

This approach ensures that participants acquire knowledge and develop routines and behaviours that can be transferred beyond the training.

Evidence & Impact

STEP has undergone continuous evaluation in different countries and contexts over more than two decades. The findings consistently show that participants:

  • Identify more entrepreneurial opportunities
  • Develop stronger entrepreneurial self-efficacy
  • Are more likely to start and sustain businesses over time
  • Achieve higher income outcomes in the medium to long term

Evaluation results are systematically used to refine and improve the training design.

Format & Key Facts

  • Typical duration: 12 weeks (approx. 36 hours)
  • Group-based, highly interactive sessions 
  • Strong emphasis on real-world application between sessions 
  • Training of Trainers (ToT) model for scale and sustainability
  • Content, cases, and examples adapted to local economic and cultural contexts

Success Story

By combining traditional Tanzanian fabrics with modern designs, Msafiri established a successful tailoring business and created jobs. Through STEP, he has learned how to address challenges systematically, refine his business strategy and expand beyond the local market.
Msafiri Raphael
STEP Entrepreneur, Customized Fashion, Tanzania

Learn more about STEP

The Student Training for Entrepreneurial Promotion (STEP) was originally developed in 2006 by Prof. Dr. Michael Freese and his research team, which included Prof. Dr. Kim Marie Bischoff, the founder of Move. Since its inception, it has been a joint project of Leuphana University and several other universities and partner institutions worldwide.

Learn more about the theoretical basis and research behind the STEP training programme at the Centre for Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship Development at Leuphana University Lüneburg.

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move gGmbH Entrepreneurship Training Institute
Turn intentions into impactful action with evidence-based interventions

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Liebenwalder Straße 12
13347 Berlin
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T: +49(0)30 243 56 306
E: info@move-eti.com

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