Search results

The purpose of the present paper is to explore entrepreneurial learning at the centre of communities of practice.

Learning perspectives from the community of practice concept are applied to interpret and discuss results from an in-depth empirical investigation using a novel qualitative method, the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), to study the entrepreneurial learning behaviour of ten coaches in a student venture incubator. The coaches are students with a certain level of entrepreneurial experience. Given their coaching roles and practices, the coaches are considered “community insiders”.

The findings show how the socially situated entrepreneurial learning of community insiders could be considered an adaptive process following multiple learning trajectories depending on with whom and about what the entrepreneur involves in social relationships.

Policy makers seeking to facilitate communities of practice should enable learning activities for community insiders and organic development in addition to networking events and support for the entire ecosystem in order to enable bridging of communities of practice.

The present paper focuses on the entrepreneurial learning of community insiders using a novel qualitative method, ZMET. The paper empirically demonstrates that community insiders learn through an adaptive process and participation in multiple communities of practice. This is both in interaction with the nascent entrepreneurs whom they coach as well as when interacting with other community insiders.

This study unpacks how organizational members construct a collective entrepreneurial identity within an organization and attempt to instill entrepreneurial features in the organization's existing identity.

The study draws on the cases of two venturing units, perceived as entrepreneurial groups within their respective parent companies. Semi-structured interviews and secondary data were collected and analyzed inductively and abductively.

The data revealed that organizational members co-constructed a “corporate entrepreneur” role identity to form a collective shared belief and communities of practice around what it meant to act as an entrepreneurial group within their local corporate context and how it differentiated them from others. Members also clustered around the emergent collective entrepreneurial identity through sensegiving efforts to instill entrepreneurial features in the organization's identity, despite the tensions this caused.

Previous studies in corporate entrepreneurship have theorized on the top-down dynamics instilling entrepreneurial features in an organization's identity, but have neglected the role of bottom-up dynamics. This study reveals two bottom-up dynamics that involve organizational members' agentic role in co-constructing and clustering around a collective entrepreneurial identity. This study contributes to the middle-management literature, uncovering champions' identity work in constructing a “corporate entrepreneur” role identity, with implications for followers' engagement in constructing a collective entrepreneurial identity. This study also contributes to the organizational identity literature, showing how tensions around the entrepreneurial group's distinctiveness may hinder the process of instilling entrepreneurial features in an organization's identity.

The entrepreneur is often conceptualised as an individualistic hero (Essers & Benschop, 2007; Gill, 2017). Although this portrayal has been criticised as highly romanticised (Acs & Audretsch, 2003) it is still influential in the contemporary entrepreneurship literature (Down, 2010). Consequently, prevailing social discourses around entrepreneurship may restrict and even prevent an individual to develop their own entrepreneurial identity (Down & Giazitzoglu, 2014; Gill, 2017). In order to explore this issue, this chapter presents insights into the entrepreneurial experience of student entrepreneurs by exploring the role of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial identities in new venture creation. In-depth interviews were carried out with 11 student entrepreneurs who had, individually or in partnership with others, started a venture whilst they were enrolled in higher education courses.

These findings challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions entrenched in the characterisation of the homogenous entrepreneur (Jones, 2014) and suggest that individuals can arrive at entrepreneurship in different ways. In order to demonstrate the diversity of entrepreneurial identities, the chapter highlights those that fit the orthodox depiction of entrepreneurs through vignettes from Nicole and Georgie. This is then contrasted with alternative depictions through vignettes from Joanna, Christa, Darcie and Paige. The experience of the latter demonstrates how entrepreneurial identities are formed through role enactment and socialisation into entrepreneurial communities. The findings propose universities can support student entrepreneurship through both formal and informal activities. The broader conceptions of entrepreneurial identities with respect to the role of universities and enterprise education are considered.

This study contributes towards increased understanding of the perceived value of extracurricular enterprise activities from an entrepreneurial learning perspective. Past decades have witnessed a global increase in the provision of enterprise and entrepreneurship education alongside a growing suite of extracurricular enterprise activities. However, there is a paucity of research examining how entrepreneurial learning might be understood in the context of these activities.

The study draws on an empirical study of student and educator participants across 24 United Kingdom (UK) universities using semi-structured surveys and in-depth interviews. Three main learning theories drawn from the entrepreneurial learning literature: experiential, social and self-directed learning provided a conceptual framework to frame the research phenomenon.

Findings posit that extracurricular enterprise activities provide perceived value in the experiential and social learning opportunities afforded for students. However, these activities are restricted in enabling the experiential learning cycle to be completed due to limited reflection opportunities. Positioning these extracurricular activities outside the main curriculum also empowers participants to self-direct aspects of their learning and develop their autonomous learning capabilities.

The existing literature focusses upon the entrepreneurial learning processes of established entrepreneurs rather than latent and nascent entrepreneurs within a higher education (HE) setting. The limited literature examining HE entrepreneurial learning does so by concentrating upon entrepreneurial learning resulting from in-curricular activities. This study offers novel insights into students’ entrepreneurial learning processes, highlighting the importance of experiential, social and self-directed learning opportunities to the entrepreneurial learning process and the perceived value of extracurricular activities as a platform for these types of learning.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical discussion of a developing epistemology and methodology for a qualitative study of participants of enterprise education in south‐west Ireland, run collaboratively between third level academics, a regional development agency, and entrepreneurs.

The perspective taken is social constructionist, drawing on ideas from identity theory and social learning theory. A discursive approach to entrepreneurship suggests that an entrepreneurial aspect of human identity (as with other aspects) is emergent and relational, developed through dialogue with family, customers, employees, suppliers, competitors and others. In the education programme, aspiring entrepreneurs’ exposure to and close engagement with a network of national and international mentors, coupled with their engagement in risk taking, can be understood through the notion of becoming, through and in relation to others.

The mentor network in the education programme is conceptualised as a community of practice that provides induction for nascent entrepreneurs for stimulating their learning of how to be, their acquisition of status and identify, and not simply their development of practical skills.

The immediate practical implication is that greatest insight would be achieved by a longitudinal study that follows nascent entrepreneurs from start to completion of an education intervention and takes an ethnographic approach.

Findings and the proposed methodology will be of value to those designing and researching entrepreneurship education, where outcomes are desired that go beyond knowledge acquisition.

Building on entrepreneurial learning research, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the students participating in foreign entrepreneurial education programmes can have realistic entrepreneurial learning experiences. This research addresses two specific questions: how situated ambiguity induced by a foreign culture may contribute to contextual entrepreneurial learning in education, and whether ambiguity induced by cross-cultural situated experience can stimulate critical reflection and important learning outcomes in entrepreneurship and increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE).

The authors adopted a phenomenological perspective in the research, and used focus group interviews and the critical incident technique to investigate Norwegian master’s students’ experiences of entrepreneurial learning in a long-term practice in an American startup.

The empirical findings reveal that the students perceived the foreign cultural learning setting as imbued with ambiguity and uncertainty. However, as the students enhanced their understanding of the culture and entrepreneurial milieu through observations and co-participating, they managed to adapt and develop new strategies and methods to cope with the new environment. Eventually, the students became more entrepreneurial and developed their ESE.

The research demonstrates how educators can design educational programmes that approach real entrepreneurial learning contexts. Nevertheless, the research also displays several ethical dilemmas that educators need to address.

The study delineates a new concept for educational designs called situated ambiguity, which reinforces the essence of situated entrepreneurial learning with cross-cultural learning. This concept offers a promising avenue for educators to approach real entrepreneurial learning in both theory and practice.

This paper seeks to address an underdeveloped aspect of entrepreneurship education (EE), which is still criticised for not explicitly linking educational practice with established educational theory. As such, the purpose of this paper is to propose a novel educational framework – Authentic Alignment – that the authors evolved based on their own EE practice, as well as two major educational theories.

A review of a range of conceptual educational frameworks in EE revealed a gap in the current literature, referring to the fact that practice is not sufficiently linked to sound educational theory. The paper combines a range of educational theories – predominantly Constructive Alignment (CA) and Authenticity – to develop a novel conceptual framework, termed “Authentic Alignment”. The discussion of Authentic Alignment draws upon EE literature, as well as student feedback and the reflections and experiences of the practitioners and academics involved in delivering a higher education unit underpinned by Authentic Alignment.

It is argued that Authentic Alignment coherently and explicitly links educational practice to major established educational theories and as such presents a valuable approach to education through entrepreneurship as it aligns authentic approaches to instruction, learning and assessment that strike a balance between resembling and being relevant for real entrepreneurial activity.

The paper invites educators to draw upon Authentic Alignment for their own entrepreneurship units/programmes by customising the specific approaches to their own requirements, while retaining the underlying principle of constructively aligned authentic education.

By explicitly linking EE to CA and Authenticity, this paper introduces a novel educational framework that provides a valuable structure for education through entrepreneurship. The customisability of Authentic Alignment, however, suggests a wider applicability and is thus valuable also for education about and for entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore current entrepreneurship and enterprise education policy in the UK. The way is which such education is defined and conceptualised in current policy discourse is discussed. The key question addressed in the paper is whether policy makers are expecting too much from current entrepreneurship provision in UK HE.

This is a conceptual, perspective style paper, drawing mainly on entrepreneurship and enterprise education policy documents in the UK as well as related reports and academic literatures mainly published within the last decade. As such, its main intention is to prompt further debate and research in this area.

The paper helps further our understanding of entrepreneurship and enterprise education as portrayed in current policy documents, and suggests that expectations of outcomes from its inclusion in higher education (HE) may have spiralled beyond what is both realistic and possible. The author argues for a more realistic and measurable perspective of the expectations of entrepreneurship and enterprise education in HE, particularly in non-traditional discipline areas, and suggests that policy in this regard is in need of realignment.

The paper is based mainly on UK entrepreneurship and enterprise education policy documents published within the last decade, as well as related papers.

The paper has implications for educators and policy makers in terms of curriculum design and expectations.

The paper should be of value to researchers, educators and those involved in curricula design in the area of entrepreneurship and enterprise education. The paper should be of particular value to policy makers in the context of helping them to be more realistic in relation to their expectations of such education.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute towards understanding how entrepreneurial learning might be understood as being socially situated, embedded in everyday practice in the context of family business. The study is framed by three main principles drawn from situated learning theory. First, the family and the business are examined as overlapping communities of practice, as sites of practice‐based knowledge. Second, the concept of legitimate peripheral participation is explored in relation to members of the family business. Finally, how practice is both reproduced and transformed over time is examined in the context of two generations' participation in a family business.

The paper draws on an empirical study of two generations from five families, the founders of a business and their successors. The interview approach adopted phenomenological techniques. A thematic analysis identified conceptual frameworks to make sense of the data in a “quasi grounded” approach. Finally, the three main principles introduced from situated learning theory – communities of practice, legitimate peripheral participation, and cycles of reproduction and transformation provided a conceptual framework to analyse the empirical material.

This is an interpretive, qualitative study based on a small sample of families based in the North West of England. The findings are not intended to be generalised to a population, but to offer empirical insights that extend theoretical frameworks in order to better understand the entrepreneurial phenomenon.

The experience of the second generation both in the family business and in overlapping contexts of learning‐in‐practice brings innovation and change as well as continuity. The study also suggests that the complex process of succession might be informed by the understanding of the importance of the nature and extent of participation in the family business over time.

This paper introduces conceptual frameworks that capture the social complexity of intergenerational entrepreneurial learning and contributes an empirical illustration of situated learning theory within the context of family business. The situated learning perspective contrasts with much of the existing entrepreneurial learning literature, which has tended to focus on “the entrepreneur” and individual learning processes. This study demonstrates that applying a learning lens brings theoretical insights to the study of family business.

There is an evolving literature on criminal entrepreneurship which situates it as a sub-topic of the organised crime literature and either mythologies and elevates the criminal entrepreneur to Mafioso status or ascribes it to being an activity carried out by criminal cartels; or else it trivialises and minimises it as being ‘White-Collar Criminality’. In reality, entrepreneurship pervades everyday criminal life as it pervades the everyday practices of policing. In this chapter, the author acknowledges the existence of a ‘Crimino-Entrepreneurial Interface’ populated by a cast of criminal actors including the ubiquitous ‘Businessman Gangster’. These criminally entrepreneurial actors operate within a specific milieu or ‘Enterprise Model of Crime’ and operate alongside the legitimate ‘Entrepreneurial Business Community’. Within the two conjoined systems, there is a routine exchange of interactions either parasitical or symbiotic and these coalesce to form an ecosystem of enterprise crime in which it is not only the ubiquitous criminal entrepreneur who is present but a veritable cast of entrepreneurially motivated criminal actors. As well as the established business community there is a parallel, alternative community which is situated in the so-called ‘Criminal Areas’ where the traditional criminal fraternity carry out their nefarious entrepreneurial activities. Within such areas, an underclass exists which provides the criminal workforce for organised crime. The traditional criminal ecosystem is the natural habitat for the police, and it is around this activity that police are traditionally organised. A perpetual cycle of crime is set up which requires policing, but this leaves an unpoliced void which the entrepreneurial criminals exploit. It is necessary to understand the criminal places and spaces exploited by Organised Crime and what roles other criminal actors and facilitators play in the enterprise model. It is also necessary to understand the so-called ‘Perverse Model of Policing’ which distorts and magnifies the true scale of the problem and to appreciate how Serious and Organised Crime corrupt and infiltrate the legitimate ‘upperworld’ before one can understand the true scale of entrepreneurialism in policing and criminal contexts.