The Role and Impact of Entrepreneurship Education (original) (raw)
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A Tale of Two Universities: Graduates Perceived Value of Entrepreneurship Education
Purpose: This study evaluates career impact of entrepreneurship education (EE) considering evidence drawn from a quantitative study of alumni within two UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from a retrospective perspective. The findings inform the value of the EE experience and its impact on both self-employability and wider employability career choices. This study will be of relevance to both enterprise support agencies and government policy makers. Design/Methodology/Approach: This research study considers evidence drawn from an online quantitative survey of EE within two UK HEIs. The survey evaluated a range of issues including course design, programme satisfaction, impact, career outcomes and respondents demographics. Over 80 respondents completed the survey in full which was analyzed using a range of bivariate techniques. Findings: The evidence indicates that EE programmes provide value both in terms of helping to enable business start-ups and also in supporting other career paths, through the enterprising knowledge and skill sets graduates acquire during their specialised studies. This study contributes to the literature by recognizing and measuring these contributions. For example, this study enables discernment between different EE course components and their value for different career outcomes. Practical Implications: The HEI sector must evaluate its practices and measure the effectiveness of its graduates in terms of achieving sustainable business start-up. In course design, the evidence suggested that students value both the enterprising and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge components and discern value between them in their later careers. The findings suggest that EE graduates typically experience portfolio careers with multiple occupations in different sectors and roles within both employment and self-employment. Thus it is important that EE programme design includes both Enterprising and Entrepreneurial components to meet the future requirements of their graduates post-graduation. Originality/Value: This study offers new evidence regarding the value of EE in UK HEIs. This evidence should inform course design and policy makers regarding the value of EE in creating self-employment and developing enterprising employees.
Rethinking Entrepreneurship and University Education
Academia Letters, 2021
There is an ongoing debate around the world on the role of universities in producing employable graduates. Some argue that there is a need to focus on skills that the industry needs, with an emphasis on STEM and professional courses that offer hands-on skills easily transferable into the market. There is also a push towards placing more emphasis on two-year technical college programs. Others have asked that institutions focus on training students in entrepreneurial skills that they can use to employ themselves upon graduation instead of seeking employment from the government or industry. While all these arguments are valid, they reflect an emphasis on a single variable embedded within a diverse set of options. What if, for instance, instead of seeing university education as skill training for a specific job, we see it as an engagement that involves skills that not only produce employable graduates but also entrepreneurs and well-rounded citizens who adapt to the ever-changing world of work? Further, what if we started looking at what we consider to be employable skills from a broader perspective? Education is about knowledge and skills, about graduates with the knowledge to theorize about human life and phenomena, graduates with skills to provide practical solutions for current and future challenges. Without thinkers and theorizers, we cannot imagine a world outside of the immediate. If we train students on skills of repairing a tractor that is based on today's thinking, for instance, how do we prepare them for the tractor of the future that might be self-driving and using solar power instead of diesel or petrol? Here are a few thoughts on entrepreneurship as part of education that is beyond skill training. Entrepreneurship has become a staple in many conversations, strategies, and even practices in many boardrooms, political meetings, and businesses. When people talk about business success, they talk about people who are entrepreneurs; they talk about Uber, Netflix, Airbnb, etc., as entrepreneurial companies that changed the way business is done in their
Investigating the Potentials of Entrepreneurship Education
Galloway, L., Brown, W., Anderson, M. & Wilson, L. (2006). Investigating the Potentials of Entrepreneurship Education. International Journal of Management Education, 5(1), 57-65. Abstract According to governments, the modern economy requires people with transferable enterprise skills, which can be applied either entrepreneurially or intrapreneurially. Within the context of a globally competitive knowledge economy, enterprise skills and the practice of entrepreneurship (in the form of business start-up) are particularly important amongst those with high skills. As a result, much has been done to increase the opportunities for entrepreneurship and enterprise to be studied within universities. The current paper draws on theories of planned behaviour which indicate that intent can be a robust predictor of outcome. As such, the study investigates the extent to which the inclusion of entrepreneurship education is likely to make a difference to the number and quality of future graduate businesses. Results reveal that while it is likely that entrepreneurship education will have an effect on the number of graduate businesses in the future, this is more likely to be a long-term outcome rather than a short-term one. There is also suggestion of there being differences in the number and timing of future graduate business based on the degree subject of student. Results based on investigation into the potential effect of entrepreneurship education on the quality of future ventures were disappointing, however, and implications for pedagogy include that focus on start-up is insufficient in terms of encouraging entrepreneurial development skills and intentions in future graduate firms.
Entrepreneurship Education at University: a Driver In the Creation of High Growth Firms?
Education+ Training, 2002
Abstract There is, in the UK, increasing attention being paid to the potential of university education to facilitate high quality growth firms. While some commentators believe that this potential can be realised in the short term, many believe that only a long-term view of the entrepreneurial potential of graduate entrepreneurship is feasible as new graduates lack the resources, skills and experience necessary for sustainability and growth of ventures. Like most university entrepreneurship “departments”, the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Strathclyde examines the profile of students and outcome of entrepreneurship electives in terms of student ambition and motivation. Using data from this exercise along with data from a study of 2,000 Strathclyde alumni, an impression of potentiality and actual outcome of entrepreneurship electives is possible.
Unleashing the potential of university entrepreneurship education
New England Journal of Entrepreneurship, 2019
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which traditional views of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have inadvertently limited entrepreneurship education. The authors propose a broader view of what it means to be an entrepreneur and describe a disruptive approach to entrepreneurship education, one that centers around building students’ entrepreneurial mindset. By tapping into students’ “inner entrepreneur” and nurturing their abilities to think and act creatively, embrace failure, effect change and be resilient, the authors are preparing them for the challenges of the twenty-first century labor market. Design/methodology/approach This is a perspective paper about how the traditional views of entrepreneurship education may be limiting its potential to create entrepreneurial college graduates set to take on twenty-first century careers. Findings Teaching the entrepreneurial mindset and process will allow us, as educators, to best prepare our students for the co...
2019
How ready our future graduates are, depends on how higher educational institutions best prepare them for the challenges of the future workplace, and the community at large. With an ever-increasing number of new graduates entering the workforce, it becomes almost impossible for every graduate to find employment unless they are equipped with entrepreneurial skills that will elevate their capacity to become selfemployed. With this in mind, the Entrepreneurship Accelerator Project (EAP), a tailor-made capstone module was designed for final year students in a private university, with the aim of producing work-ready graduates with entrepreneurial skills. This study will assess how effective the EAP programme is, in developing students’ entrepreneurial skills and in preparing them to seize business opportunities, take risks, think strategically, and acquire other future work-ready skills set. The study is based on Schumpeter’s entrepreneurial theory of innovation, Kolb’s Experiential Theor...
Entrepreneurship education (EE) is arguably the most effective means of embedding an entrepreneurial culture at third level, fostering students' entrepreneurial mindset and developing the supply of future entrepreneurs. However, there is a lacuna of empirically rigorous research to support the assumption that it can generate better outcomes of entrepreneurial activity or that graduate entrepreneurs benefit from EE (BrockhausThis paper examines graduate entrepreneurs' perspectives of entrepreneurship education (EE) at third level in their formation as entrepreneurs. The researchers conducted research amongst 30 graduate entrepreneurs and 15 enterprise enablers i.e., entrepreneurship lecturers and enterprise development agency (EDA) personnel to provide a triangulated perspective of EE at third level. Whilst acknowledging initiatives to promote entrepreneurship, neither graduate entrepreneurs nor enterprise enablers believed that higher education prepares students for self-employment because: (i) HEIs are focused on preparing students for employment; (ii) the academic nature of EE; and (iii) a 'one size fits all' approach to EE fails to recognise the heterogeneity of learners' needs. However, many graduate entrepreneurs believed that graduate enterprise programmes provided the necessary 'breathing space' to develop their business, whereas some EDA personnel believed that it such programmes provide a hiding place for graduates from the realities of business. Significantly, the notion that more EE will lead to greater numbers of graduate entrepreneurs is unrealistic because: (i) graduates' route to selfemployment is circuitous; and (ii) there is a paucity of supports for 'raw graduates' in their transition to self-employment. This paper offers a nuanced understanding of EE at third level and contributes to the advancement of knowledge, practice and policy by proposing a conceptual framework for EE at third level to meet the diverse needs of graduate entrepreneurs.