Is Entrepreneurship Education Only about Entrepreneurship?

Abstract

An important and unexamined issue in the study of entrepreneurship education (EE) and its outcomes concerns understanding the role of students in defining the outcomes of entrepreneurship education. Drawing on the narrative interviews with 31 students of educational programs, we identify that not all students join EE programs to become entrepreneurs and many students have the objective of becoming management professionals. Students with these decision frames engage themselves in constructing their respective professional identities: entrepreneurial and managerial. Professional outcomes achieved by those students either resulted in work- professional identity integration or work- professional identity coherence violation. Students were able to enact their professional identity in the situation of work- professional identity integration and work- professional identity coherence violation triggered identity redefining and/or constructing dual identity ( managerial and entrepreneurial). Based on these findings, we develop a theoretical model of students’ experiences of constructing, enacting and redefining their professional identities during and after the program and contribute to the literature of entrepreneurship education and identity.