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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 purpose of this study is to examine the portfolio of knowledge transfer (KT) activities in 162 UK higher education institutions. In doing so, this study creates an index and ranking, but more importantly, it identifies specific groupings or strategic profiles of universities defined by different combinations and strengths of the individual KT activities from which the overall rankings are derived. Previous research, concentrating on entrepreneurial universities, shows that individual knowledge transfer (KT) activities vary substantially among UK universities. The broad portfolio of universities' KT activities, however, remains underexplored, creating gaps in terms of the relative strength, range, focus and combination of these activities, and the degree to which there are distinct university strategic KT profiles. By examining KT activities and grouping universities into KT “types”, this research allows universities and policymakers to better develop and measure clearer KT-strategies.

The present study applied the Preference Ranking Organization Method for the Enrichment of Evaluations (PROMETHEE) to rank universities based on their portfolio of KT activities. It utilised data from the 2015–2016 Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey dataset.

Findings show that universities differ substantially in their portfolios of KT activities. By using PROMETHEE, a new ranking of universities is generated, based on their KT portfolio. This paper also identifies four distinct types or groups of universities based on the diversity and intensity of their KT activities: Ambidextrous, broad, focused and indifferent.

The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature, and more specifically entrepreneurial activities of universities through new knowledge generated concerning university KT activity. The research extends the existing literature on university archetypes (including those concerned with the Entrepreneurial University) and rankings using a new technique that allows for more detailed analysis of the range of university KT activities. By applying the PROMETHEE approach, results illustrate a more nuanced definition of university KT activities than before, by simultaneously evaluating their overall strength, range, focus and combination, allowing us to identify the universities' strategic profiles based on their KT portfolios. Implications of the findings for key stakeholders include a potential need for government higher education policymakers to take into account the different mixes of university archetypes in a region when considering how best to support higher education and its role in direct and indirect entrepreneurship promotion through regional policy goals.

Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is an exploratory orientation because its dimensions such as innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking are the essence of exploration that entails uncertain returns. While literature suggests firms might need to counterbalance and complement EO with another orientation for organisational success, research on this area remains limited. Drawing on organisational learning theory, the purpose of this article is to explore whether and how the EO dimensions and organisational ambidexterity complement each other to enhance new product performance. More specifically, the authors explore the configurations of innovativeness, proactiveness, risk-taking and ambidexterity for superior new product performance under different levels of market turbulence.

Based on a configurational perspective, the authors applied fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 88 small and medium-sized firms from the UK. Using fsQCA allows the authors to uncover the potential complementary role between the EO dimensions and ambidexterity for superior new product performance.

The results of this paper reveal three configurations that are sufficient to produce superior new product performance. The results suggest that the EO dimensions and ambidexterity can complement each other to enhance new product performance. Further, under the turbulent market environment, the EO dimensions are also sufficient to produce superior new product performance.

By adopting a configurational perspective using fsQCA, the study provides a more holistic understanding of how the EO dimensions work together to influence new product performance. It also contributes to the literature by uncovering the complementary role of the EO dimensions and ambidexterity in shaping new product performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether the entrepreneurial activities of universities in the UK can be statistically grouped together.

This paper is performing a principal component analysis (PCA) of the 2009/2010 UK Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCIS) data for the third stream activities of universities in the UK.

The PCA of the 144 included institutions identified four groups of entrepreneurial activities being engaged in by universities in the UK. Three of the four groups were related to spin-offs, labelled as “Staff Spin-off Activity”, “Non-HEI Owned Spin-Off Activity” and “Graduate Start-up Activity”. The remaining factor has been named “University Knowledge Exploitation Activity (UKEA)” and encompasses a wide range of university knowledge creation, exchange and exploitation activities.

The research indicates, through a ranking system for each university for the various groups of entrepreneurial activities, that universities are often entrepreneurial in just one or two of the groups of entrepreneurial activities identified by the PCA. Identifying what is causing those differences is required to further understand why we see this variation across the HE sector.

The use of a PCA to identify groups of entrepreneurial activities is a novel approach. Typically studies use a select few indicators, such as spin-offs or patents to analyse the entrepreneurial activities of universities. This study uses PCA to group together statistically related activities which can then be used to identify what is driving these groups of activities in future studies.

While previous research has identified that environmental innovation is shaped by a variety of drivers, researchers have devoted limited attention to the role of nature-based resources in the country. Building on environmental innovation theory and the natural resource-based view of the firm, this study introduces ecological resource deficits as a novel driver of environmental innovation. The authors explore how ecological resource deficits interact with institutional and regulatory drivers as well as firm-level technology drivers to explain the extent of environmental innovation across different countries.

The authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to a multi-source dataset to identify different pathways for environmental innovation across 28 countries.

Findings show that higher environmental innovation is a function of ecological resource deficits complemented by the presence of at least two other conditions. Moreover, the results show that environmental policy stringency and societal expectations are substitute conditions of environmental innovation.

This study reveals the interdependences between different conditions for environmental innovation across countries contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the geography of environmental innovation.

Prior research shows that universities differ in the knowledge exchange (KE) activities they pursue, but little is known about universities’ strategies regarding their portfolio of KE activities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the KE strategy of UK universities in specific relation to their portfolio of KE activities with small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Based on the 2015–2016 Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey data set, this study employs the Preference Ranking Organisation METHod for the Enrichment of Evaluations to assess the KE activities from 162 UK higher education institutions.

The study reveals that entrepreneurial universities valorise university knowledge assets through five SME-focussed KE activities most beneficial to measuring the entrepreneurial university. It also uncovers four different archetypal categories (groupings) of universities based on their strategic focus of KE activities.

This study contributes to the entrepreneurial university literature by considering universities’ overall KE portfolio rather than examining individual KE activity in isolation. It provides a clearer understanding of universities’ KE strategies that help define and delineate entrepreneurial universities regarding their range, focus and the combination of KE activities.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of effectuation when used by small suppliers within key account management (KAM) relationships.

An exploratory longitudinal case study approach was used to examine a single small supplier operating in the snack foods sector of the UK foods industry, as it entered into a new KAM relationship with a major retailer and undertook four new product development projects.

Findings suggest effectuation may positively moderate the ability of a small supplier to enter into a KAM relationship by enabling it to obtain resources and limit risk. However, once within the relationship, the use of effectuation may negatively impact success by increasing the potential for failure to co-create new product development, leading to sub-optimal products, impacting buyer confidence and trust. Furthermore, a failed KAM relationship may impact other customers through attempts to recover revenues by selling these products, which may promote short-term success but, in the long-term, lead to cascading sales failure.

It cannot be claimed that the findings of just one case study represent all small suppliers or KAM relationships. Furthermore, the case presented specifically concerns buyer-supplier relationships within the food sector.

This study appears to suggest caution be exercised when applying effectuation to enter into a KAM relationship, as reliance on effectual means to garner required resources may lead to the production of sub-optimal products, which are rejected by the customer. Additionally, a large customer considering entering into a KAM relationship with a small supplier should take care to ensure their chosen partner has all resources needed to successfully deliver as required or be prepared to provide sufficient support to avoid the production of sub-optimal products.

Findings suggest the use of effectuation within a KAM relationship has the potential to develop a dark side within business-to-business buyer-supplier relationships through unintentional breaches of trust by the selling party.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are tasked with driving economic recovery globally, particularly through knowledge diffusion and consequently, government policy-makers strive to encourage innovation activity to benefit their economies. Entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) are increasingly used as a framework through which such policies are funnelled, but an increased focus on high-growth, scale-up entrepreneurship risks overlooking the effects of entrepreneurship on social groups affected by multiple sets of disadvantage. This chapter identifies and analyses the existing research on disadvantaged entrepreneurship and the EE via a systematic review of the literature and then briefly outlines how the chapters contained within this book seek to address the gaps found.

The chapters in this book have drawn together issues affecting disadvantaged entrepreneurs as they struggle to access, interact with, and benefit from the traditional entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE). The findings highlight the importance of their motives for entrepreneurial activity, their resources, and how access to these are affected by issues such as gender and migrant status. In addition, substitutes for and complements to more traditional EEs have also been identified, including incubators, civil society organisations, and social enterprises, demonstrating the importance of alternative EEs often left unexplored in mainstream literature. The authors conclude that future research could usefully further explore background contexts driving disadvantaged groups towards entrepreneurial activity and the existing theory surrounding this. Particularly relevant for future research is the role of human capital, intersectional factors such as gender, migrant status, location, and roles of activities. Future research into stakeholders that can substitute for elements of the traditional EE is also important. Understanding this will assist disadvantaged entrepreneurs to both develop the absorptive capacity to create and develop their own businesses and potentially begin to access parts of the formal EE.