A tale of two universities: graduates perceived value of entrepreneurship education

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate career impact of entrepreneurship education (EE) considering evidence drawn from a quantitative study of alumni within two UK higher education institutions (HEIs) from a retrospective perspective. The findings inform the value of the EE experience and its impact on both self-employability and wider employability career choices. This study will be of relevance to both enterprise support agencies and government policy makers. Design/methodology/approach This research study considers evidence drawn from an online quantitative survey of EE within two UK HEIs. The survey evaluated a range of issues including course design, programme satisfaction, impact, career outcomes and respondents demographics. Over 80 respondents completed the survey in full which was analysed using a range of bivariate techniques. Findings The evidence suggested here indicates that EE programmes provide value both in terms of helping to enable business start-ups and also in supporting other career paths, through the enterprising knowledge and skill sets graduates acquire during their specialised studies. This study contributes to the literature by recognising and measuring these contributions. For example, this study enables discernment between different EE course components and their value for different career outcomes. Research limitations/implications The study recognises the limitations of this survey data in terms of the size of the sample, number of HEIs evaluated and its point in time design. Practical implications The HEI sector must evaluate its practices and measure the effectiveness of its graduates in terms of achieving sustainable business start-up. In course design, the evidence suggested that students value both the enterprising and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge components and discern value between them in their later careers. The findings suggest that EE graduates typically experience portfolio careers with multiple occupations in different sectors and roles within both employment and self-employment. Thus it is important that EE programme design includes both enterprising and entrepreneurial components to meet the future requirements of their graduates postgraduation. Originality/value This study contributes new evidence regarding the value of EE in UK HEIs. This evidence should inform course design and policy makers regarding the value of EE in creating self-employment and creating enterprising employees.

The impacts of higher education institutions on sustainable development

“…The difficulty of systematically accounting for the impacts of HEIs on SD is exacerbated by many impacts occurring with significant time lags and cannot always be directly attributed to specific core elements. Such indirect impacts (GHG emissions caused by students, G omez et al, 2016; entrepreneurial activities of graduates, Jones et al, 2017) pose significant assessment challenges. In contrast, direct, short-term impacts can be much more easily observed, described and quantified (GHG emissions caused by operations, contribution to local economy).…”

The Role and Impact of Entrepreneurship Education

“…Moreover, the literature suggests that university graduates are poorly equipped for future business activity (Pittaway and Cope, 2007;Premand et al, 2016). A result of this debate has witnessed the rapid expansion of university provision of EE programmes both within the UK and globally (Jones et al, 2017). Baldassarri and Saavala (2006) note the requirement for more students to undertake business start-up, while Rae et al (2011) and QAA (2018) suggest that graduates need to acquire an enterprising mindset and competencies to prepare them effectively for employment.…”

“…There remains a need to validate the effectiveness of EE to demonstrate its value for its stakeholders (Martin et al, 2013;Rae et al, 2014;Jones et al, 2017). The eternal question of whether entrepreneurship can be taught remains an ongoing challenge to dispute for the EE community (Fisher and Koch, 2008;Lautenschläger and Haase, 2011).…”

“…EE remains unusual amongst business disciplines in having to continually validate its contribution and value (Oosterbeek et al, 2010). This evidence however remains relatively nascent despite an emerging literature (Jones et al, 2017). Preedy and Jones (2017) and Mueller and Anderson (2014) suggest that both Enterprise and EE are problematic to design and deliver due to the subjects' complexity and variability.…”

Are employability and entrepreneurial measures for higher education relevant? Introducing AGILE reflection

“…This involves switching jobs, employers and career paths several times (Marginson, 2014), which is not currently effectively tracked through cross-sectional exit destination data (HESA, 2016); Geneva ILO, 2017). This has lead Jones, Pickernell, Fisher and Netana, (2017) to conduct longitudinal studies of alumni many years after graduating, to explore their perceived longer term value of enterprise education to how they have adapted over time and their current situation, yet due to low numbers of respondents, issues of recall bias and the need for non-HE control groups, it is difficult to extract broader generalisations.…”