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Student entrepreneurs account for a considerable number of start-up ventures derived from university settings. Nevertheless, there is little research that demonstrates how university entrepreneurship education (EE) directly influences students’ start-up activities. The primary purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of various types of university entrepreneurship activities (incorporate entrepreneurial courses, extra-curricular initiatives, and start-up support) on student start-up behavior. This quantitative research utilized questionnaire data collected from university students (n = 1,820) in southeast China and was analyzed with hierarchical Poisson regression in STATA procedures. Research results indicate that engaging in any type of university entrepreneurship activities positively predicts students’ start-up activities, yet this positive effect is contingent on students’ prior start-up experience and the overall university entrepreneurial climate. These findings advance our understanding of crucial elements within university entrepreneurial ecosystems and how various entrepreneurship activities within these ecosystems potentially impact students’ venture creation.

This chapter provides insights into the activities carried out by alumni in the domain of academic entrepreneurship. Given the increasing role of alumni in the support to entrepreneurial learning in universities and the scant evidence about their actual engagement into these initiatives, it explores the alumni organisations affiliated to the population of 58 alumni organisations in 55 higher education institutions (HEI) in Italy, particularly for the activities designed to support entrepreneurship. The authors explore and define services related to entrepreneurship for and from the alumni. Among others, alumni organisations or clubs help members in accessing networks with their peers for career opportunities and role modelling. The authors contribute to the increasing literature about the entrepreneurial university by documenting the activities carried out by alumni organisations to foster entrepreneurship at their parent HEI and promoting an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Universities must take into consideration that peer support can be as important for spreading entrepreneurial initiatives within universities as other more formal supporting measures.

Entrepreneurship is a new field of research in Russian higher education. This chapter discusses the emergence of entrepreneurial education in Russian universities by examining their key documents and relevant curricula. Findings indicate that only a few modern Russian universities develop entrepreneurial programmes that contribute to the income of the less funded from research organisations. These programmes are mainly student-paid graduate programmes aimed at providing students with hard skills. The study also addresses factors that influence students’ entrepreneurial intention following the theory of planned behaviour. Beyond attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control, a new contextual variable of entrepreneurial environment and education significantly impacts intention. This result along with subjective norm influence implies that prospective graduate entrepreneurs in Russia are motivated to venture to contribute to their society. Finally, this study provides recommendations on how Russian universities could empower entrepreneurial education to undertake a substantial role in regional entrepreneurial ecosystem development.

Despite the important role of entrepreneurial implementation intentions for closing the intention-behavior gap, empirical evidence on their drivers and mechanisms is scant and inconclusive. In the case of college students’ technology-driven entrepreneurship, the objective of the present study is to examine whether implementation intentions are contingent on the university environment in which the progression from entrepreneurial intentions to subsequent actions unfolds. The sample for this study is composed of 299 Bulgarian STEM students, who reported technology-based entrepreneurial intentions. A binary logistic regression is applied to examine four specific mechanisms that facilitate or impede the students’ actual implementation intentions. Findings suggest that students enrolled in universities that provide greater concept development support are more likely to have formed specific implementation intentions, while students in more research-intensive universities are less likely to do so. Practitioner implications and recommendations for future research are provided.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

Since the 1980s, US universities have greatly increased attention given to innovation and entrepreneurship out of a genuine commitment to enhancing American competitiveness. Although regional innovation and entrepreneurship can be enhanced by universities in multiple ways, the primary metrics of “success” remain patenting, licensing rates, and university spin-outs. While these metrics can be a useful proxy for the entrepreneurial university they tend to understate the many important contributions universities, including non-research intensive universities, make to their regional economies. In this chapter, we introduce a framework of capabilities that are essential to nurturing ecosystems of innovation and entrepreneurship at the regional level. We then describe the varied ways in which universities can support the development of these capabilities. Finally, we provide a framework of metrics, which can more comprehensively capture the value that universities represent to innovation and entrepreneurship in their regions.

Within a knowledge-driven, entrepreneurial economy, an increase in a university’s importance is observed because of its significant affect on the economy. Thus, entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that could be observed among all university levels: management, academicians, researchers, and undergraduate and postgraduate students. Entrepreneurial universities could produce several externalities in terms of demography, economy, infrastructure, culture, mobility, education, and societal challenges that will later be reflected in productivity, competitive advantages, and regional capacities, networks, identity, and innovation. In this context, entrepreneurial universities have or are positioned to develop innovative pathways to reinforce entrepreneurship in their communities. This chapter explores how entrepreneurial university pathways (education and training) have had an impact on students’ start-up intentions and actions. Adopting the institutional economics approach, this research proposes a conceptual model, tested with a sample of 1,759 university students enrolled in three entrepreneurial universities (ITESM, Mexico; UNICAMP, Brazil; and UPC, Chile) in Latin America. Our findings confirm the relevant effect of entrepreneurial university pathways on start-up creation. Not only do the results provide important contributions to the literature, they also provide insights for policy-makers to design policies that further benefit society and educational organizations.

There are increasing expectations and demands being placed on the universities to become more entrepreneurial. This entails universities becoming more entrepreneurial in their culture and processes as well as supporting entrepreneurship within and beyond the university setting. Entrepreneurial universities are key institutional actors in supporting entrepreneurship and economic growth.

For poorer regions, like the North east of England, entrepreneurial universities have an even more vital institutional role in supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems and taking a lead in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation. The growth of public sector entrepreneurship through government policies and programmes targeted at increasing the levels of entrepreneurship and innovation at national and regional levels provides new opportunities for entrepreneurial universities. The focus of this chapter is to explore some of the challenges and opportunities faced by entrepreneurial universities as they engage more with public sector entrepreneurship programmes, designed to increase the collaboration intensity between universities, industry and society. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of Brexit for entrepreneurial universities in the North East and their regions.

This paper investigates empirically the link between entrepreneurship education programs and students’ entrepreneurial behavior, with a particular focus on the distinction between experiential and classroom-based education. We introduce a more refined measure of entrepreneurial engagement that combines entrepreneurship intention and actual steps taken to realize that intention. Using data from a survey of 836 students at the National University of Singapore (NUS), we utilize linear regression models to examine not only the direct effect of entrepreneurship education program participation on entrepreneurial engagement, but also its possible interaction effect with several psychological constructs drawn from the Theory of Planned Behavior. The results show that participation in university entrepreneurship programs, especially experiential-learning programs, has significant positive influence on students’ entrepreneurial engagement. Moreover, the effect of program participation is significantly moderated by the students’ attitudes and perceptions. The findings have important practical implications for universities in designing entrepreneurship programs on campus. The study supports the call to move toward hands-on experiential programs as a more effective way for educational institutions to influence students’ entrepreneurial behavior and encourage venture creation activity on campus. We also contribute to the literature by confirming the impact of entrepreneurship education not only on entrepreneurial intentions but also on the concrete steps taken by students toward venture creation.