Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research Volume 7: Entrepreneurship Education: New Perspectives on Research, Policy & Practice

Citation

Pham, D. (2018), "Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research Volume 7: Entrepreneurship Education: New Perspectives on Research, Policy & Practice", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 317-319. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-01-2018-426

Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, as an official book series of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, seeks to provide theoretical and practical insights into various themes of importance to the entrepreneurship and small business community. Entrepreneurial education (EE) has been prevalent in several developed countries for decades; however, to date little research in the field has been done on its significance and factors influencing entrepreneurial behaviour as an outcome. Articles in Volume 7 – Entrepreneurship Education: New Perspectives on Research, Policy & Practice, with a healthy blend of theory and practice, explore recent trends in EE, emphasising the quality and relevance of cognitive and behavioural aspects of research.

The editors have succeeded in synthesising the various theoretical perspectives of EE in keeping with a global proliferation of interest and demand for dedicated entrepreneurship higher education programmes. Indeed, the editors argue that, under ongoing cuts in public spending by governments across the globe, EE is vitally important to equip students and small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) owner-managers with appropriate entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to develop economically sustainable ventures. Since most SMEs do not survive the first five years of business, this book can be considered a must-have for educators and policy-makers, as it captures current academic debate revolving around key constructs in the field and stimulates creative pedagogical approaches to EE. The book, which is structured into three well-connected sections, exhibits novel practices, evidences successful EE, and provides relevant lessons and implications for policy and practice, as well as future avenues of research.

Specifically, four chapters in the first part consist of studies considering the impact of EE upon students’ perceptions towards opportunity recognition and implementation. Breslin’s chapter promotes the notion that entrepreneurship is a process that evolves over time, highlighting improvement in the quality of ideas among students as they adopt an externally focused perspective. The next two studies offer evidence into entrepreneurial intentions and behaviour among students in the developed and developing context, respectively. While Tognazzo, Gianecchini and Gubitta’s study highlights the importance of individual characteristics and the role of the learning experience Italian students have during their university studies, the importance of entrepreneurial spirit to undertake self-employment in the agricultural sector for agricultural students after graduation in Ghana is provided by Bosompem, Dadzie and Tandoh. These studies emphasise the external influencers, e.g., the university’s support of entrepreneurship and environmental instability, together with several interesting individual factors such as perceived market competition, mother’s education level and familiarity with farming activities, calling for the development of comprehensive and sustainable long-term policies to inspire and attract youth into self-employment. The section ends with Seymour and Topazly’s study exploring the impact of UK entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurial actions of Russian students in UK universities, concluding that UK university EE teaching is effective in positively changing foreign students’ entrepreneurship perception and behaviour.

The second part offers novel EE pedagogy within which five chapters are presented. As an entrepreneurship educator, this section is something that I have been searching for a number of years. The first chapter, by Klapper and Neergaard, posits that there is a need to focus on how students think before we can teach them how to act. I have personally tested the suggested techniques and have been surprised at how effective these were in enhancing students’ engagement and excitement over an extended period. Next, drawing on evidence from the UK and EU, Higgins and Refai consider the creation of a meaningful entrepreneurial practice that encourages the view of learning as a socially enacted process. Interestingly, Jones, Newbery and Underwood highlight the development of a valid business idea through the use of visual learning methods, described here as “rapid entrepreneurial action”, aiming specifically at today’s “digitally demanding” students. The next two chapters, by Zamora and Gonsalves and by Kakouris, evaluate a play-based and experiential-learning simulator called Synergy, and a constructivist online environment known as the TeleCC platform in Greece, respectively.

Four chapters in the third section promote informal domains of learning, examining EE interventions in the form of creative instructional approaches to encourage rigid methods of instruction and participant engagement at both undergraduate and executive levels. First, Bibikas, Vorley, and Wapshott discuss the development of a series of pan-European summer academies for entrepreneurship training funded by Horizon 2020, which is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over seven years (2014-2020), through the lens of a project focussed on the ICT sector. The chapter reflects on the challenges of delivering and sustaining such a model of entrepreneurial learning. Next, Morselli’s chapter considers a capability approach to enterprise education, which improves students’ active participation and their ability to make informed choices. Smith and Clegg’s chapter describes a sandwich-year placement scheme – the Enterprise Placement Year – at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, where students explore self-employment between their second and final years of study. Finally, Smith, Jones, Scott and Stadler’s study describes inclusive and accessible EE initiative at the Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, which takes into account governmental policy drivers to guide pedagogical design and normative assumptions enhancing participant progression, and engagement of external stakeholders. Thus, the sections provide interesting findings by focussing on the link between education and the outcomes, considering both environmental and individual factors.

In view of the volume’s strengths and focus, I would highly recommend this edited collection to educators who are teaching entrepreneurship and small business management programmes at undergraduate and master’s levels across the world. It could also meet the needs of doctoral students and academics who are looking to engage with the field, or can simply work as a primer for anyone who wishes to effectively grasp essential elements of the discipline. Since this is an excellent book informing current and relevant theoretical and practical issues in EE, I expect academics and practitioners, after reading this book, to come up with further teaching initiatives that collectively advance the effectiveness of EE on the society as a whole.

Notwithstanding the extensive contribution, the diverse student samples, and creative analytical methods, most studies in this book were carried out within the developed country context, limiting its generalisation power across cultures and economies. Thus, manipulating these studies is recommended in the context of developing countries, where entrepreneurship activities have recently been proved to be an effective driver of economic growth. This is also in line with current increasing focus of research on the global South.

Overall, then, the diverse collection of chapters already provides an excellent intellectual outlook for EE scholars and practitioners to reflect and further debate on the topic. This book offers convincing evidence that, in these days of a rapidly changing world, there is a need to consider a more holistic and systemic approach to EE, which requires external supports from governments, societies and institutions to develop students’ intrinsic values and motivation to grow entrepreneurially.