Postgraduate entrepreneurship education: can entrepreneurial passion be developed?

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine postgraduate students' reflexive narratives about their entrepreneurial passion (EP) experience as a result of their direct participation in a series of hand-selected experiential learning events within the curated identity workspace (IW) of a cross-disciplinary postgraduate entrepreneurship education programme. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a qualitative exploratory design using interpretative phenomenological analysis with a group of graduate students from a cross-disciplinary postgraduate entrepreneurship education program at an entrepreneurial university. Findings This study discovers that students’ EP experience is developed through the internalisation of an entrepreneurship learning activity into their personal identity through the harmonisation and reorganisation of their competing micro-identities of professional and entrepreneurial identity, prompting them to create a new identity that enables them to act entrepreneurially without relinquishing their existing professional identity. Originality/value This study demonstrates how entrepreneurial education programmes function as an IW and posits a theoretical model illustrating the hidden connections between entrepreneurial activity, personal identity and entrepreneurial learning experience that collectively influence individuals' entrepreneurial behaviour.