In their focal article, Beier et al. (Reference Beier, Saxena, Kraiger, Constanza, Rudolph, Cadiz, Petery and Fisher2025) argue for a person-centric perspective on workplace learning and argue that dealing with dynamism and uncertainty in our world today requires self-directed lifelong learning and adaptation to a variety of challenges including new technologies and global issues like migration and climate change. We build on the ideas of Beier et al., by providing a promising roadmap for what such learning and adaptation might look like from the entrepreneurship literature. These authors hint at such a roadmap when they highlight that “globally, micro-entrepreneurs… often learn and develop skills through informal learning and training [but] these workers and forms of learning have historically not been a part of our research” (p. 28). We observe that forms of non-organizational-centric education and training for entrepreneurs (see the review by Weers & Gielnik, Reference Weers, Gielnik, Gielnik, Cardon and Frese2021), including in the informal economy, have been a considerable part of the body of research on training—and there have been repeated calls for the integration of these insights more fully into organizational psychology (Frese & Gielnik, Reference Frese and Gielnik2014, Reference Frese and Gielnik2023). In this commentary, we illustrate a roadmap by stipulating what concepts effective self-directed lifelong learning might focus on, how individual-centric interventions (including training, coaching, and mentoring) to benefit such learning might be crafted, and what outcomes such interventions might produce—not just for small/new business owners but for all workers in an uncertain and dynamic world.

At the core of our argument for the relevance of research on entrepreneurship education and training (EET) to the present discussion is the reality that individuals, regardless of whether they start or own a business, are increasingly likely to become entrepreneurs. For our purposes here, we define entrepreneurs as those individuals who identify, evaluate, and pursue opportunities for their own personal and career development, with these opportunities frequently lying beyond resources currently controlled. This definition combines the classic definition of entrepreneurship from Shane and Venkataraman (Reference Shane and Venkataraman2000) as involving identifying, evaluating, and pursuing profitable opportunities but diverges from it slightly in that not all opportunities are necessarily focused exclusively on earning profit in a purely economic sense; instead, in a world of work beset by rapid technological advance, climate change, and mass migration, ensuring career advancement and decent work (including fair treatment, job stability, and safe working conditions) is often an “entrepreneurial” aim. This definition also combines Stevenson’s (2000) famous definition of entrepreneurship as involving the pursuit of opportunity “beyond resources currently controlled”; in our case, these resources include not only money and physical resources but information and social capital. Especially for entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds and those in the informal economy, many opportunities—even career opportunities—lie well beyond individuals’ resources. Altogether, our definition of an entrepreneur involves just the sort of persons envisaged by Beier et al.: people who are in greatest need of self-directed and continuous learning due to a lack of key resources and forms of institutional support, including those operating in the informal economy, those looking for decent work, and those individuals struggling to build their careers despite technological change/disruption, the need to migrate, and the effects of climate change.

The body of research on entrepreneurship training mentioned above has evolved, in part, in response to the need to assist entrepreneurs (as traditionally understood as new or aspiring business owners) in emerging-country contexts. A cornerstone of such research has been a focus on helping to facilitate key entrepreneurial action and associated behavioral competences through what is known as personal initiative training (Frese et al., Reference Frese, Gielnik and Mensmann2016). These actions/behaviors are known as being self-starting, future thinking, and overcoming barriers (see Mensmann & Frese, Reference Mensmann, Frese, Parker and Bindl2017). These behaviors, and the concept of personal initiative itself, can be understood as involving the intersection of two or more of three concepts: proactivity, innovation, and resilience (see Figure 1). The relevance of these concepts to others besides traditional entrepreneurs can be seen in the definition of these concepts: proactivity is early action and acting in anticipation of future changes; innovation is the development of new, or the creative recombination of existing, ideas, or processes; and resilience is finding a way to pursue one’s goals despite obstacles and setbacks—and while limiting one’s exposure to likely problems or unforeseen circumstances. Thus, self-starting can be understood as being proactive while allowing for innovation—often from one’s own unique values or preferences; future thinking is the proactive consideration of potential opportunities, problems, and risks; and overcoming barriers is the use of innovative approaches to mitigating risk and addressing problems. Furthermore, personal initiative is being simultaneously resilient, innovative, and proactive. We argue that personal initiative is at the heart of being able to sustain lifelong learning and adaptation in an uncertain and dynamic world: Self-starting is critical for beginning and pursuing lifelong learning (e.g., identifying areas to learn and thinking innovatively about how to learn); future thinking helps an entrepreneur to identify and evaluate emerging opportunities and avoid problems before they become too great (e.g., technological obsolescence of a sector/industry); resilience allows people caught in unpredictable situations (e.g., displacement from warfare) to continue to pursue their longer term goals through creativity.

Figure 1.

Personal Initiative Training’s Behavioral Principles (in Italics) as Understood in Relation to the Concepts of Proactivity, Innovation, and Risk Mitigation.

Research on personal initiative training benefits from the frequent utilization of rigorous experimental or quasi-experimental methods not always utilized in studies of training effectiveness (Weers & Gielnik, Reference Weers, Gielnik, Gielnik, Cardon and Frese2021); these methods have demonstrated both the efficacy of the training with marginalized populations and its superiority over other approaches that focus on conveying more traditional, often detailed and theory-based, entrepreneurial knowledge (e.g., Campos et al., Reference Campos, Frese, Goldstein, Iacovone, Johnson, McKenzie and Mensmann2017; Glaub et al., Reference Glaub, Frese, Fischer and Hoppe2014; Ubfal et al., Reference Ubfal, Arraiz, Beuermann, Frese, Maffioli and Verch2022). That effective entrepreneurship training does not need to be highly specific or detailed in the content it presents supports the potential of EET to be efficiently deployed (with a minimum amount of time and money) in a variety of contexts (for example, in relation to different industries) and with a variety of populations (not just business owners).

Beyond a focus on key behavioral concepts, personal initiative training is also notable for its reliance on an action-oriented training methodology. This focus on action has a theoretical and empirical rationale. Action regulation theory (Frese & Zapf, Reference Frese and Zapf1994) and research on active learning (e.g., Bell & Kozlowski, Reference Bell and Kozlowski2008, Reference Bell, Kozlowski, Kozlowski and Salas2010) emphasize that learning by doing, guided by simple behavioral heuristics (rules of thumb), appears to help individuals develop complex skills needed to deal with uncertain and changing situations. Beier et al., emphasize the importance for learners to be more engaged with their own development and self-regulation. We pick up on this point and make the claim that there is no better way to promote self-directed lifelong learning than through action-oriented interventions, like personal initiative training, that prioritize a focus on entrepreneurial action. In other words, in a dynamic and uncertain world, the only certainty is the need for identifying, evaluating, and pursuing new opportunities, thus requiring competence in being self-starting, future thinking, and overcoming barriers; furthermore, there is no better way to develop competencies in these behaviors than through action-oriented training that helps trainees transfer their learning to a variety of changing posttraining contexts.

Another insight into a roadmap for enhancing self-directed lifelong learning from scholarship on EET is what the outcomes of action-oriented approaches to EET efforts tend to be. By focusing on action and personal initiative, individuals tend to develop self-regulatory skills and knowledge about how to act, and learn, amid uncertainty and difficulty (see also Gielnik et al., Reference Gielnik, Frese, Kahara-Kawuki, Katono, Kyejjusa, Ngoma, Munene, Namatovu-Dawa, Nansubuga, Orobia, Oyugi, Sejjaaka, Sserwanga, Walter, Bischoff and Dlugosch2015). Thus, they tend to develop a set of mental models about how to act, and how to continue learning, when operating in challenging situations, such as when one is forced to migrate, to earn a living in an informal economy, or when on is disrupted by climate change. Essentially, as argued by Frese (Reference Frese2024), personal initiative training and other action-oriented approaches to entrepreneurial training (e.g., Gielnik et al., Reference Gielnik, Frese, Kahara-Kawuki, Katono, Kyejjusa, Ngoma, Munene, Namatovu-Dawa, Nansubuga, Orobia, Oyugi, Sejjaaka, Sserwanga, Walter, Bischoff and Dlugosch2015) help to promote a psychological preparedness for an individual to deal with challenging environments. Building upon this, as highlighted by Glosenberg (Reference Glosenberg, Blustein and Flores2023), an individual who is psychologically prepared to act entrepreneurially, regulate their actions, and learn how to improve is an individual who is psychologically empowered to deal with a broad range of challenging situations. Psychological empowerment involves self-determination—one’s sense of choice in what actions one pursues, one’s competence or capability beliefs, and one’s sense of impact—that is, one’s belief that one can influence important outcomes (Spreitzer, Reference Spreitzer, Barling and Cooper2008). We argue that only with a sense of psychological empowerment can individuals sustainably engage in self-directed lifelong learning given the daunting obstacles that they will face, especially in the informal economy, from rapid technological change, migration, and climate change.

We now turn to focus on the practicality of action-oriented EET as a method to promote lifelong learning from a non-organizational-centric perspective. It has been observed that a cost-effective intervention for promoting outcomes for entrepreneurs (who operate outside of a traditional organizational context) is entrepreneurship training, especially approaches like personal initiative (see McKenzie, Reference McKenzie2021). However, in addition to this, we note that there is an increasing focus on ways to promote the effectiveness, and efficacy, of training through coaching and/or mentoring. Indeed, once capacitated with a greater sense of psychological empowerment via an action-oriented training, our experience has been that individuals often take it upon themselves to continue learning by forming self-help groups and seeking out coaches/mentors. This was the case, for example, with entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds, including North Korean refugees, trained in personal initiative training in South Korea. Thus, an action-oriented training intervention that focuses on broad action knowledge could be carried out independent of a traditional organizational context (e.g., that of an employer or educational institution), and it might spur the sort of informal learning in the informal economy that Beier et al., mentioned. Importantly, we are not claiming that specific forms of knowledge are not important to success in an uncertain and dynamic world of work; indeed, they are likely to be quite important. Instead, we are claiming that one of the only practical ways to ensure that individuals are able to learn the specific sets of knowledge required to deal, over time, with their unique and changing circumstances is to psychologically prepare and empower them to act and learn entrepreneurially; in turn, we are claiming that one of the best ways to do this appears to be via a training focused on broad behavioral competencies related to key self-regulation skills such as monitoring one’s learning and gathering new information when needed.

As an illustration of the potential utility of action-oriented EET to lifelong learning—both in the workplace and in the informal economy—consider two scenarios. The first scenario involves workers in the formal economy, perhaps from marginalized populations, who face stagnation or disruption to their careers due to technological change and climate change. An action-oriented EET would assist them in independently and proactively (see Crant, Reference Crant2000) identifying opportunities for workplace learning (e.g., identifying a mentor, volunteering for a variety of work assignments to build skills, and using free educational online resources) and then applying that learning to overcome obstacles to career success (e.g., job crafting and finding new jobs in emerging sectors). In short, an action-oriented EET would help to support the sort of career adaptability that supports both work-related success and personal well-being (Rudolph et al., Reference Rudolph, Lavigne and Zacher2017). The second scenario involves an individual in the informal economy, perhaps living in and/or displaced from a lower-income community. An action-oriented EET would assist that individual to independently identify available job opportunities (including but not limited to starting one’s own business) and then seeking out the particular gaps in their knowledge and skills required to perform those jobs. This process is unlikely to be straightforward or easy, and would require this individual to creatively draw on their personal strengths (that is, being self-starting), seek out new and emerging opportunities (that is, being future thinking), and to both mitigate risk and develop novel solutions to major obstacles such as limitations in resources and environmental instability (that is, overcome barriers).

If the field of I-O psychology is looking for a cost-effective and efficacious approach to support extra-organizational, self-directed lifelong learning in a dynamic and uncertain world, it should start by looking at the considerable body of research on EET (see also Frese & Gielnik, Reference Frese and Gielnik2014, Reference Frese and Gielnik2023). What it will find is a set of tools that can help to facilitate not only business owners, but everyone, in identifying, evaluating, and pursuing opportunities, regardless of resources currently controlled. This appears to be most effectively accomplished via action-oriented training that focuses on helping entrepreneurs to self-regulate their actions, build mental models about how to act, and develop behavioral competencies in being proactive, innovative, and resilient. We assert that this approach is critical not only for business owners but for everyone who face the challenges of our dynamic and uncertain world.