Entrepreneurship Education Initiatives Research Articles

Empowering Youth for Social Change: The Role of Social Entrepreneurship Education

Empowering youth to drive social change is imperative for building sustainable communities and addressing pressing societal challenges. Social entrepreneurship education emerges as a critical tool in fostering the necessary skills, mindset, and resources among young individuals. This research article examines the pivotal role of social entrepreneurship education in empowering youth for social change. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature and case studies, this study explores the significance of integrating social entrepreneurship education into youth development programs and formal education systems. Furthermore, it investigates the impact of such education on enhancing youths' capacity to identify social issues, develop innovative solutions, and implement sustainable ventures. The article also discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing social entrepreneurship education initiatives, along with recommendations for policymakers, educators, and practitioners to effectively empower youth for meaningful social impact.

Examining the Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Job Creation in China's Post-Pandemic Economy

This conceptual paper examines the relationship between entrepreneurship education and job creation in China's post-pandemic economy. It provides a background and context of China's post-pandemic economy, highlighting the impact of the pandemic and the recovery efforts made. The significance of entrepreneurship education in economic development is discussed, emphasizing its role in fostering entrepreneurial skills and mindset. The paper explores the overview of entrepreneurship education initiatives in China, analyzes the impact of entrepreneurship education on job creation, and identifies factors influencing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programs in this regard. It also provides policy implications and recommendations for integrating entrepreneurship education in national economic strategies and fostering collaboration between academia, government, and industry. The challenges and future research directions are discussed, addressing the limitations of the study, unresolved questions, and potential biases, and suggesting avenues for further research.

Impact of Entrepreneurial Education on Entrepreneurial Intention of Students : Analysis of Bhutanese Business Colleges

It has been observed that youth unemployment and entrepreneurship are two sides of a coin in the context of Bhutan. Entrepreneurship education initiatives in Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) target motivating Bhutanese youths towards entrepreneurship despite their general preference for white-collared jobs or civil service jobs. Thus, this research tried to focus on influence of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship intentions among undergraduate business students in Bhutan. The most widely used Theory of Planned Behaviour has been utilized for the study taking into consideration the mediating role of the factors subjective norms, attitudes towards entrepreneurship, and perceived behavioural control. For testing these assumptions, data were collected from 427 students of three business colleges in Bhutan. The findings suggest that all three dimensions of Theory of Planned Behaviour show significant association with entrepreneurial intention. Although the correlation and regression analysis support the hypotheses, not all the dimensions play the same part in influencing entrepreneurship intention (EI).

Effects of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Skills of Young High School Students

The effectiveness of entrepreneurship education (EE) initiatives aimed at young students in basic education has aroused the interest of researchers. International studies have also investigated the effects of cognitive and non-cognitive skills, competences, and entrepreneurial intentions. In Brazil there is a gap in this regard, so this research assesses the effects of the mini-company initiative offered by Junior Achievement (JA) Brasil on high school students’ perception of their entrepreneurial skills. A questionnaire assessed 10 entrepreneurial skills using a 7-point Likert scale, in addition to demographic and profile variables. Participants from five Brazilian states answered the questionnaires before and after participating in the JA Brasil initiative in 2019. The 287 questionnaires were statistically analyzed using the Wilcoxon test and regression models. There was a positive effect on four skills: entrepreneurial self-efficacy, analytical ability, creativity, and risk management. The results support decisions to expand EE initiatives in the curriculum of public, private, or third-sector educational institutions.

NUTS III as Decision-Making Vehicles for Diffusion and Implementation of Education for Entrepreneurship Programmes in the European Union: Some Lessons from the Portuguese Case

The questions of how Entrepreneurship Education (EE) initiatives can be successfully spread and what political structures can help with their implementation during compulsory school remain open. We will add to the literature by proposing that the scale of the NUTS III and its governance model/characteristics are ideal for carrying out initiatives related to EE in the EU and, thus, developing local entrepreneurship ecosystems. We will do so based on the evidence gathered from the case study of the Intermunicipal Community of Viseu Dão-Lafões. To underpin our main argument, we will explain the successful case of how the Intermunicipal Community of Viseu Dão-Lafões (a NUTS III) managed to become an exception in the Portuguese scenario when it comes to the funding, administrative articulation, and implementation of EE programmes for youths in the region.

Social Entrepreneurship Education: A Combination of Knowledge Exploitation and Exploration Processes

It is widely accepted that entrepreneurship education has become a key development priority for coping with uncertainty and for addressing various social, economic, and technological concerns related to health, living conditions, education systems, employment, and economic growth. In recent times we have witnessed a proliferation of Entrepreneurship Education (EE) programs and initiatives with the aim to promote the creation of new skills, competencies, and capabilities to deal with a wide range of social issues and for creating new societal. The COVID-19 pandemic situation has introduced radical challenges to the society and has impacted significantly, especially the process of entrepreneurial competencies, skills and attitudes development. This paper aims to provide insights into knowledge mechanisms and learning strategies that have been activated for the effective creation of entrepreneurship competencies. We have based our evaluation on an exploratory analysis of 10 program studies that deliver social entrepreneurship education. The paper presents elements of originality under two perspectives: it proposes a framework with the main patterns characterizing social entrepreneurship education (SEE), and it argues that the creation of an entrepreneurship mindset and competencies is an evolutionary process that combines dynamic knowledge exploitation and exploration mechanisms.

Entrepreneurial careers: Factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions using a sample of undergraduate exit students

Entrepreneurship is being encouraged as a possible career path especially within a context of high unemployment that mostly affects the youth. The study sought to empirically investigate the factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions using a sample of undergraduate exit students within a South African higher education (HE) context using a sample of final year students at a university campus in Durban. Researching the factors that influence entrepreneurial intentions can be a useful precursor to interventions that assist students. A sample of 320 respondents were surveyed from a Durban university campus. To determine relationships of the variables, correlation and regression tests were used. The results attest to the importance of the theory of planned behaviour in studies of this nature. Further, relationships existed between personality and participation in entrepreneurial education with entrepreneurial intentions. The study findings have implications for practitioners who may work in a space that encourages entrepreneurship development and education initiatives targeted at students in institutions of higher learning. The findings may serve as a catalyst for developing learning materials and creating opportunities that encourage entrepreneurship development and education.

Faculty and Trainee Perceptions of NSF I-Corps Technology Commercialization Training

At universities, interest is increasing in expanding entrepreneurship education opportunities for both engineering faculty and students, with the goals of improving the professional skills of students and accelerating research commercialization by faculty. However, questions remain about the effective design of entrepreneurship education initiatives for both of these two audiences. Comparing the experiences of trainees (including primarily graduate students and postdoctoral researchers) and faculty in entrepreneurship training will better allow for meeting the distinct needs of these two communities. In this analysis, structural equation modeling was used to examine differences between trainee and faculty perceptions of usefulness, instructional climate, and workload in the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) entrepreneurship training program. Data were drawn from the publicly available VentureWell I-Corps dataset, including precourse, postcourse, and longitudinal follow-up survey responses from 722 faculty and 781 trainee participants. Results show that trainees perceived the training program as more useful to their careers than did faculty, although no differences in perceived usefulness to one's research program were found. Trainees also perceived instructional climate more negatively and experienced a greater workload.

Analysing the different Entrepreneurship Education initiatives for the development of a conducive and motivating entrepreneurial ecosystem in Mauritius

Mauritius ambitions to be a high-income economy and therefore seeks to develop an entrepreneurial culture by furthering entrepreneurship knowledge in its education system. The government is keen in encouraging youths to develop an entrepreneurial mindset through significant reforms in both secondary and tertiary education. The setting of the African Leadership University in Mauritius tries to fill the knowledge gap in leadership skills necessary for the development of entrepreneurship education. The African Leadership University is also using different pedagogies of education to create the right skills set for students so that they can embrace leadership and entrepreneurial roles in future. The current research uses a qualitative approach using multi-case methods and content analysis to analyse the initiatives for empowering potential youth entrepreneurs in secondary and tertiary education in the Mauritian context. The purpose of the research is therefore to analyse the different entrepreneurship education initiatives being undertaken to promote the right entrepreneurial culture both at secondary and tertiary level of education. The government has made Business and Entrepreneurship Education compulsory from Grade 7 till Grade 9 in secondary schools. The research findings show that students in secondary school are motivated to develop entrepreneurial knowledge and the subject highly meaningful. Conversely, there is lack of entrepreneurship courses at tertiary level especially in public universities. The African Leadership University is using the flipped classroom teaching pedagogy for promoting entrepreneurship with their students. Besides, NGOs such as YUVA are also supporting youths and entrepreneurs to upgrade their business knowledge. It is worth noting that SMEs already represented 40% of the GDP of our economy in the year 2017. JEL Classification: A20, M13

Reconceptualising undergraduate entrepreneurship education at traditional South African universities

Orientation: The relatively high number of unemployed graduates in South Africa is a major cause for concern. Entrepreneurial start-ups have been heralded as the panacea to the unemployment challenge.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to ascertain how entrepreneurship education, at traditional South African universities, measured against existing entrepreneurship education frameworks.Motivation for the study: Despite a plethora of entrepreneurship education initiatives, the South African higher education system fails to produce sufficient entrepreneurs; hence, the need to explore how entrepreneurship education is structured.Research design, approach and method: The research design was exploratory and both quantitative and qualitative in nature. The population comprised the eleven traditional universities in South Africa and all of them were included in the study. Secondary data was obtained from the respective universities’ websites. The search sequence in the websites were as follows: Faculty of commerce/Management Sciences, Year/handbook, undergraduate/postgraduate programmes. The word ‘entrepreneurship’ was also used as a keyword to search within the university website.Main findings: The findings revealed some entrepreneurship modules, with low total credit value in relation to total programme credit value, at the undergraduate level and specialisation at the postgraduate level with some form of centre or incubator initiatives. It was also found that little attention is given to the development of entrepreneurial skills such as perseverance, resilience and self-efficacy.Practical/managerial implications: The significance of this article lies in its potential to guide the reconceptualisation of entrepreneurship education at South African universities.Contribution/value-add: This study integrates an existing framework and model to reconceptualise the undergraduate entrepreneurship programme. The reconceptualised structure entails a programme where modules from other disciplines are integrated into an entrepreneurship programme as opposed to the current structure where entrepreneurship modules are integrated into other career-focussed programmes.

Boom or bust? Embedding entrepreneurship in education in Australia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the status of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Australia, replicating and expanding a similar study in 2015. The aim is to review neoteric global best practice EE initiatives, enabling the examination and embedding of EE offerings and initiatives at all 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The authors introduce a review of prominent and recent global EE scholarship, enabling an iterative and emergent inquiry perspective aligned to inductive and nascent multi-method empirical research associated with theoretical underpinnings of symbolic and substantive management theory. Findings This paper highlights the sparse and inconsistent distribution of EE programs and initiatives across all 40 Australian HEIs, particularly against the backdrop of rapidly expanding start-up and entrepreneurship ecosystems. Furthermore, outcomes provide best practice EE initiatives, which included staff mobility and transferability of skills. HEIs in Australia are experiencing a moderate EE boom, albeit marginally down on global EE transformation initiatives. Research limitations/implications Limitation of the data is subject to availability and accuracy of online documents and material resources, although implications have been mitigated using multi-method research design. Practical implications The findings provide critical grounding for researchers, practitioners and HEIs wishing to enhance EE within ever-expanding entrepreneurship ecosystems. Originality/value This study is the first multi-methods inquiry into the status of EE in Australia, consisting of quantitative, qualitative and algorithmic methods.

From Victim to Entrepreneur: Rebuilding shattered lives

Globally, millions of women experience violence or live with its consequences (Watts and Zimmerman, 2002). In addition to the physical implications, violence leaves psychological scars. Assumptions that the self is worthy and the world is a safe place become shattered when women experience domestic and sexual violence (Janoff, 1983), causing shame, extremely low levels of self-esteem, and a loss of trust in others (Cascardi and O’Leary, 1992). Entrepreneurship can be a way to rebuild one’s life professionally (and financially) but also on a more personal level. As such, EET may be a useful way to enable women who have experienced violence develop an entrepreneurial mind-set -thus overcoming the obstacle of a checkered career path - and build a new future for themselves (Haynie and Shepherd, 2011; Patzelt et al, 2014). It may boost their ‘entrepreneurial self-efficacy’ (Kickul et al, 2004) and enable them to ‘emancipate’ themselves from the individuals and structures that bind them (Rindova et al, 2009), opening up a new professional and personal life. Little research has addressed the ‘how’ of entrepreneurship education (Byrne, Toutain and Fayolle, 2014), throwing light on the particular methods used to achieve learning outcomes. At the same time, research exploring tailored entrepreneurship programs, such as women’s entrepreneurship training is severely lacking (Byrne and Fayolle, 2009; Bullough et al, 2015). Designing entrepreneurship education initiatives which aim to boost entrepreneurial self-efficacy is a complex and challenging task (Wilson et al, 2007), and we propose this task becomes even more challenging in the case of women who have been ‘victimized’ in some way (either through sexual, domestic or psychological violence). We believe that it is interesting to examine whether and how entrepreneurship education and training (EET) programs can succeed in nurturing favorable entrepreneurial attitudes among violence survivors.

Threshold concepts in entrepreneurship – the entrepreneurs’ perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present research into the entrepreneurs’ perspective of concepts critical to thinking as an entrepreneur, in order to inform enterprise and entrepreneurship course design in higher education.Design/methodology/approachTaking a social constructivist approach, using a Delphi-style method, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs were conducted, transcribed, thematically coded and analysed, and a list of candidate threshold concepts was drawn up. Two rounds of Delphi were conducted with the entrepreneur panel and consensus was reached on a final collection of threshold concepts in entrepreneurship.FindingsThe threshold concepts identified are “I can create value” (or self-efficacy), “I see opportunities” (or opportunity), “I can manage risk” (or risk), “I know what’s important” (or focus) and “I take action” (or impact).Research limitations/implicationsEntrepreneurship is generally regarded as an important factor in economic growth, and higher education is an appropriate place for the development of entrepreneurship. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding how best to educate students for entrepreneurship in higher education or indeed what educating students for entrepreneurship really means. Identifying threshold concepts in entrepreneurship using the lived experience of entrepreneurs is likely to open up new and more effective approaches to teaching this multidisciplinary subject area.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the call for more research-grounded discussion on the quality of entrepreneurship education initiatives, particularly in relation to what makes pedagogical innovations effective by suggesting five entrepreneurship threshold concepts. These entrepreneurship threshold concepts can be used to set out a structure for the design and (re)development of enterprise and entrepreneurship curricula, as well as enabling more constructively aligned assessments.

Localising the impact of techno-entrepreneurship in Eastern Iran: Birjand's Science and Technology Park as a local innovation community

In peripheral cities, economies are dependent upon local enterprises, entrepreneurship and innovation to support growth locally. This paper focuses on the case of Birjand, Iran and the community of techno-entrepreneurs who are based in the city's Science and Technology Park (which opened in 1992). Relating to the Triple Helix model, this paper aims to better understand connections and limitations that interconnect industry, government and education through interviews with techno-entrepreneurs, government policymakers and academics. The analysis of this paper is organised into three sections: the first section considers government policies and support based on insight from entrepreneurs and policymakers to understand differing expectations. The next section addresses local economic impacts and the role of techno-entrepreneurs to understand the contribution they make in peripheral areas despite Iran being impacted by sanctions. The final section considers local entrepreneurship education initiatives in Birjand offered by the local Science and Technology Park and links with a local university to add perspective on the role of education to increase local initiatives and support the improvement of business practice.

Entrepreneurial education and learning at universities: exploring multilevel contingencies

Despite the worldwide increase in entrepreneurship education offered at universities, there is an ongoing debate whether and under which conditions this type of education contributes to students’ entrepreneurial learning. Building on human capital theory, we hypothesize that the exposure to various entrepreneurship education initiatives has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial learning outcomes. We also argue that this relationship is moderated by the entrepreneurial experience of the students, the teaching pedagogy applied in entrepreneurial initiatives offered at the university and the prevalence of opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in the country. A multi-level analysis on a cross-country sample of 87,918 students resulting from GUESSS (‘Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey’) strongly confirms our hypotheses, and allows us to discuss implications for researchers, educators and policy makers with respect to the nature of entrepreneurial learning, the design of entrepreneurial education programs, as well as the contextual conditions that impact entrepreneurial learning outcomes.

A decade of entrepreneurship education in the Asia Pacific for future directions in theory and practice

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to systematically review the literature on entrepreneurship education (EE) in the Asia Pacific spanning a ten-year publishing period. The results of previous EE research are summarily analyzed and the key themes are critically addressed.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a systematic literature review of EE articles published from 2007 to 2016 in peer-reviewed, English-speaking journals that are available on the Scopus database. Frequency, bibliometrical data, and research content of the literature review are analyzed.FindingsResearch in this area is experiencing a steady growth, and a small percentage of scholars or countries in the Asia Pacific are found to make significant contributions to a body of knowledge on EE. The findings also show that the majority of studies lack theoretical legitimacy on the definition of EE and its underpinning theories; however, some articles consider an institutional or contextual perspective on EE, present individual-centered pedagogy in a traditional educational context, or indicate the intertwined connections between EE initiatives and economic growth. Thus, the findings manifest EE research in the Asia Pacific as relatively limited across research agenda, viewpoints, and levels.Research limitations/implicationsBased on the discussion on key themes, a multi-faceted and multi-tier perspective and a longitudinal study are suggested to provide broader and deeper understanding of the complexities in EE provision and its role in the relationship with national entrepreneurship. Thus, the gap between Western/Asian research contexts and enabling a common evolving body of knowledge can be bridged.Practical implicationsThis study provides valuable insights that can aid educators and policymakers to establish and improve EE design and operations. This study would benefit EE systems in countries of the Asia Pacific region and should improve their practical outcomes. The relevance of integrating functional, personality, and behavioral views into EE development seems difficult but is suitable for EE advancements, thereby boosting the acceptance of entrepreneurship in society and subsequently impacting the economic development of a country.Originality/valueThis study is the first literature review on EE research in the Asia Pacific; it provides a summary analysis of the current state of EE and future directions in theory and practice.

Pushing the entrepreneurial prodigy: Canadian Aboriginal entrepreneurship education initiatives

Globally, neoliberal education policy touts youth entrepreneurship education as a solution for staggering youth unemployment, a means to bolster economically depressed regions, and solution to the ill-defined changing marketplace. Many jurisdictions have emphasized a need for K-12 entrepreneurial education for the general population, and targeted to youth labeled ‘at risk’. The Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative’s Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Program (AYEP) has been enacted across Canada. This paper applies critical discourse analysis to a corpus of texts, exposing how colonial practices, deficit discourse, and discursive neoliberalism are embedded and perpetuated though entrepreneurial education targeted at Aboriginal students via AYEP.

The exploration of The Triple Helix concept in terms of entrepreneurial universities and corporate innovation

University-industry-innovation networks (UIINs) are made up of entrepreneurial higher education institutions, industry and government. Universities such as Scotland’s Strathclyde University, which was the entrepreneurial university of 2013 in the UK, organise themselves as co-productive institutions by means of technology transfer offices (TTOs), innovation centres and a variation of offices for knowledge transfer and university-business-co-operation (UBC). Such a network is referred to as the triple helix approach/concept/model of co-operation between industry, universities and government, with the aim of building an enterprising state in which these partners co-innovate in order to solve global economic challenges. The global economy faces multiple challenges represented by indicators such as the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) spiralling health-care needs, unemployment, un-sustainable changes to the environment and rapidly emerging digital business models. Most universities promote academic engagement with industry for various reasons (e.g. to generate a third stream of income). The effective management of triple helix takes UBC to the next level in terms of a formal prominent mission for the university. This article broadly describes the triple helix concept and analyses several international cases. The three main objectives of this article are to: 1) explore triple helix and the related concepts such as UBC and TTO; 2) determine the leading stakeholders of the triple helix model; 3) conduct a content analysis of triple helix case studies (45) in four groups, namely (1) national innovation strategies, (2) entrepreneurial universities, (3) entrepre-neurship education, and (4) new initiatives, frameworks and technologies.

Learning by failing: What we can learn from un-successful entrepreneurship education

This paper aims to understand why some Entrepreneurship Education (EE) initiatives in secondary schools are ineffective. Specifically, the goal of this paper is to identify mistakes, which could have been responsible for the failures and to derive some useful lessons from them. From a theoretical perspective, it reviews entrepreneurship literature in order to examine the main five constitutive elements of EE in secondary schools: what should the goals of EE be, who should attend EE, who should teach it, what should be taught and how it should be taught. From an empirical perspective, it provides descriptions of the unsuccessful EE initiatives under investigation and discusses failure by collecting the opinions of stakeholders (teachers, principals and students) involved.

The process of impact of entrepreneurship education and training on entrepreneurship perception and intention

Purpose – Conventional wisdom as well as many studies confirm that entrepreneurship education increases entrepreneurial intention but there is a lack of research on some aspects including conceptual and theoretical development, mechanism of the effect of education and study of regional variations. The paper studies the process of impact of entrepreneurship education and training (EET) on attitudes toward entrepreneurship, perception of social norms, self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical data from 601 individuals from Iran is utilized to evaluate the model. The data are reported by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Binary logistics regression is used to evaluate the effects of variables. Findings – Results show that completion of one entrepreneurship course increases the likelihood of having entrepreneurial intention by 1.3 times. Wald criteria demonstrate that fear of failure, desirability of entrepreneurial career, entrepreneurs’ status in society, self-efficacy and education and training are significant predictors of entrepreneurial intention. Perceived opportunity is not a strong but a moderate predictor. Research limitations/implications – Because of the country-level focus of research, the paper's results may lack generalizability. The paper makes no rigid claim of causality. The causality is likely to be bi-directional. Practical implications – The findings have wider implications for a theory of entrepreneurial intention and also for the practice of teaching entrepreneurship. Higher efficiency of informal training than formal training, failing entrepreneurship education to provide necessary knowledge and skills for nascent entrepreneurs, and not considering the effect of macro socioeconomic conditions call for an immediate pedagogical redesign of EET in Iran. Originality/value – The paper summarizes learning processes and teaching models of entrepreneurship education, matches them with educational theories and makes argument on the mechanism of the effects of education. Then, utilizing empirical data, the paper shows the effectiveness of entrepreneurship training and education initiatives in Iran and propose areas for improvement in the national level based on the summarized educational theories and teaching models.