Entrepreneurship education at Nordic technical higher education institutions: Comparing and contrasting program designs and content

Abstract

In higher education (HE), science and technology (STEM) institutions were early adopters of entrepreneurship education; recognizing that STEM majors in particular have a disproportional potential to form high-growth ventures in high-tech industries with high-value prospects. Yet, only limited empirical work has been carried out to shed light on how these programs are developed and how and why they are designed and organized the way that they are. What we do know typically comes to us from single-case reports on isolated programs. This study aims to provide deeper insights through an innovative and comprehensive research design that provides a way to compare and contrast case studies of five programs, developed by different educators, in different Nordic nations, and at different HE STEM institutions. The study mainly aims to explore how these cross-case and cross-national studies can guide future entrepreneurship education program development. However, considering the deliberate selection of comparable cases, this study finds a striking diversity in effective and successful programs, and uncovers strong interdependencies between program design and inception and the program developers. As such, in addition to providing guidance for program developers, the study identifies implications for other stakeholders; including students, university management, and entrepreneurship education research.

Assessing Experiential Entrepreneurship Education: Key Insights from Five Methods in Use at a Venture Creation Programme

“…The CSE programme was top-ranked by the Swedish government in 2009 using an international review board of entrepreneurship education professors, and the collaborating incubator was ranked number eight in the world and second in Europe in 2014 by UBI Index. Its status as an extreme case of experiential entrepreneurship education has attracted a number of external scholars studying many different aspects of the programme (Åstebro et al 2012;Berggren 2011;Johannisson 2016;Lindholm Dahlstrand and Berggren 2010;Rasmussen and Sørheim 2006;Warhuus and Basaiawmoit 2014).…”

Insights for Shaping Entrepreneurship Education: Evidence from the European Entrepreneurship Centers

“…In addition, the literature points out that entrepreneurship centers have a focal position in stimulating enterprise and entrepreneurship activities within HEIs [32,33]. Nevertheless, even though their important role has been largely acknowledged, there is a lack of investigation related to how entrepreneurship centers organize their education actions in order to develop highly skilled human capital with an entrepreneurial mindset for technology entrepreneurship [34].…”

Technology and economic behavior: A theoretical framework

“…Further, for technology and human capital to work more productively together, society needs people who have both technology and business skills. Universities and professional training institutions respond to this need by offering interdisciplinary training for entrepreneurs and engineers (Warhuusa & Basaiawmoit, 2014; Winkler, Schweikert, Troudt, & Schulman, 2015).…”