A Reflective Case Study on Using Team Academy Principles to Integrate a University-Based Business Incubator Service into the Mainstream Curriculum

Abstract

The fast-changing world requires graduates equipped with the entrepreneurial skills necessary to solve real-world challenges. University based business incubators have largely been regarded as production units for new businesses and existing academic research has focused on this rather than their potential in the field of university education. It is the intention of this case study to address the latter area from the perspective of the pedagogical challenges of entrepreneurship education. The case study explores the potential of business incubators as an entrepreneurship pedagogical tool and focuses on the business incubator at Edinburgh Napier University, a modern UK university. The study provides a critical reflection on a series of experiments on how team academy principles have been applied in a business incubator with a view to integrating ‘being’, ‘knowing’ ‘doing’ and ‘creating’ into mainstream curriculum. The case study provides new insights for universities on how best utilise business incubators as a catalyst for new knowledge creation. #