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This paper provides insights about how graduates' career patterns (i.e. academic entrepreneur, self-employed or paid employed) are influenced by entrepreneurial university ecosystems (i.e. incubators and entrepreneurship education programs).

By adopting Douglas and Shepherd's utility-maximising function, the influence of one entrepreneurial university ecosystem on graduates' career choices was tested using a sample of 11,512 graduates from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) in Mexico.

Our results show the critical role of entrepreneurial universities ecosystems in facilitating employability options as academic entrepreneurship for ITESM's graduates. The study shows some insights about how graduates' risk aversion and work effort are positively influenced by the university business incubator and entrepreneurship education programs, respectively.

Diverse implications for stakeholders have emerged from our results. These implications are associated with potential benefits of implementing programmes oriented to engage academic entrepreneurship within Latin American universities.

Entrepreneurial universities provide a range of employability alternatives for their students, such as to be self-employed, academic entrepreneurs or paid employees. In this scenario, entrepreneurial universities have configured entrepreneurial ecosystems (educational programmes, business incubators and other infrastructures) to support potential entrepreneurs (students, academics, staff and alumni). Despite the relevance of the environmental conditions on individuals' occupational choices, few studies have explored the role of the entrepreneurial university ecosystems on graduates' employability. In this vein, our study contributes to some academic discussions: (1) the role of context on career choice models (Ilouga et al., 2014; Sieger and Monsen, 2015), (2) the role of incubators and entrepreneurship education on fostering academic entrepreneurship on the graduates' community (Nabi et al., 2017; Good et al., 2019; Guerrero and Urbano, 2019a) and (3) the effectiveness of the entrepreneurial university ecosystems on graduates' employability (Herrera et al., 2018; Wright et al., 2017).

The paper examines the proportion of higher education (HE) graduates in Norway who have undertaken different forms of entrepreneurship education and how comprehensive the entrepreneurship education has been. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible benefits and effects of entrepreneurship education in terms of learning outcome and the propensity to start their own business.

A representative survey among HE graduates (N=2,827) is used to present reliable estimates on the prevalence of entrepreneurship education within HE. The study provides a comparison of entrepreneurship graduates with other graduates in terms of the propensity to establish their own business or planning to do so. The study also examines the learning outcomes of entrepreneurship education as the entrepreneurship graduates are asked several questions concerning this, e.g. whether it was useful for establishing own enterprise or whether it increased their creative and innovative abilities.

The proportion of entrepreneurship graduates who are self-employed is very low and is not higher than for other graduates. The results indicate that entrepreneurship graduates to a certain extent are more interested in setting up their own company in the future, but this tendency is much lower than what is found in other European studies. Further, the reported learning outcome of the entrepreneurship education is not large. But entrepreneurship education, especially if it is of a certain type and scope, contributes to an increase in “generic” entrepreneurial skills. Most entrepreneurship students participated in rather short entrepreneurship courses, with lesser benefit.

The positive effect of entrepreneurship education on the graduates’ future plans with respect to starting their own business may partly be subject to self-selection. Further, the quality of entrepreneurship education in terms of academic content and teaching and learning methods needs further attention.

The overall results indicate that it would make more sense for some students to take a more comprehensive entrepreneurship education rather than that many more students taking some entrepreneurship education. This should be of interest to academia and policy makers. Further, it is primarily participation in education through (not about) entrepreneurship that increases the outcome in terms of generic entrepreneurial or innovative skills. This can be important information for the future development of entrepreneurship education.

The effect of entrepreneurship education on graduates’ entrepreneurial intentions is examined by use of a representative sample and when comparing entrepreneurship graduates with other graduates within the same fields and types of study. Thus, generalized conclusions can be drawn. The learning outcomes are measured when taking into account the length and type of entrepreneurship course.

The aim of this paper is to conceptualise entrepreneurial capacity-building as an integrated approach within the international higher education sector. Whilst university–enterprise collaboration is recognised as being essential to promoting graduate employability and entrepreneurship, the lack of an integrated approach towards embedding entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial capacity-building with an entrepreneurial skill and mind-set prevails in the higher education sector. With reference to the retail sector, increasingly competitive job markets and the need for entrepreneurial capacity-building place growing pressures on universities to nurture career-ready graduates with entrepreneurial acumen.

The theoretical paper presents a rationale for embedding entrepreneurship education into university curricula and for promoting university–business collaboration. Secondly, it reviews the extent to which entrepreneurial capacity-building is institutionally embedded to foster graduate entrepreneurship, university–business collaboration and business incubation within one strategic framework. Finally, the paper proposes five propositions within a tripartite approach that can foster graduate entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial skills and mind-set, useful for existing enterprises and start-ups. The implications for these propositions are discussed.

The authors propose five propositions with a tripartite approach that can foster graduate entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial skill and mind-set, skills for creating enterprises and university–enterprise collaboration within one strategic framework.

Increasingly competitive job markets and the need for entrepreneurial capacity-building place growing pressures on universities to nurture career-ready graduates with entrepreneurial acumen in social science (e.g. retail, business management and accountancy) and science (e.g. pharmacy, architecture and engineering) programmes centred within the tripartite approach.

Whilst university–enterprise collaboration is recognised as being essential to promoting graduate employability and entrepreneurship, the tripartite integrated approach embeds entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial capacity-building with an entrepreneurial skillset and mind-set in the international higher education sector.

This paper seeks to highlight the role of entrepreneurship education in encouraging the growth of graduate entrepreneurship in the UK to help overcome the over‐supply of university graduates in a very difficult employment market. This paper aims to discuss the design principle for entrepreneurship education that facilitates graduate entrepreneurship, and the design methodology that allows multi‐faculty collaboration in the provision of entrepreneurship programmes.

This paper begins with the conceptualisation of design principles and frameworks based on current concepts found in the literature, followed by practitioner‐based reflection to shed insights into the process of developing entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions (HEIs).

The authors have developed the “30/70 methodology” to guide the future design of entrepreneurship education, and the “80/20 methodology” to support cross‐faculty entrepreneurship programmes to serve non‐business students. Factors that impede or support academic entrepreneurship and effective integration of entrepreneurship programmes in HEIs are discussed.

This paper shares the authors' experiences, and their unique design principles and methodology to support the development of education for entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to present a report on a tracer study conducted to find out the extent to which entrepreneurship education received by tertiary tourism graduates had been beneficial to them.

Application of mixed methods research to collect data from 205 tertiary education graduates by the use of snowball sampling techniques and two entrepreneurship teachers selected purposively.

The study revealed that <3 per cent of the graduates were operating their own businesses. Among the reasons given for the low level of entrepreneurship practice among the graduates included their inability to access initial capital, absence of entrepreneurship spirit in the graduates and the unrelated nature of entrepreneurship education studied at the polytechnic to the tourism and hospitality industry.

The main limitation with this study was sampling bias associated with the snowball sampling technique. This was, however reduced by initially selecting respondents to represent the various year groups of the alumni. In addition, it would have been more appropriate to have included present students in the study to find out their perception of the entrepreneurship education that they are receiving.

The practical implication of this tracer study is the need for educators to evaluate the entrepreneurship programme to make it subject specific. The work will therefore help tourism educators to prepare syllabi and teach entrepreneurship education that will be relevant and beneficial to tourism and hospitality graduates. Another implication is the need to start teaching entrepreneurship as a course at the basic school level.

The social implications of this study is that it would enable managers of tertiary education institutions to find appropriate means to increase the number of its graduates who will be able to create their own jobs. These entrepreneurs will be able to create more employment avenues.

The novelty of the work is in the use of a tracer study to obtain occupational distribution of graduates of a tertiary programme that enabled the author to ascertain the percentage of graduates who have started and are managing their own businesses.

The purpose of this study is to examine the underexplored link between entrepreneurship education (EE) and graduate employability in the higher education (HE) sector in the United Kingdom (UK).

The study draws on a thematic content analysis of semi-structured interviews with 45 professionals in UK HE, representing the “supply” side of EE.

The findings demonstrate a unidirectional link between EE and employability outcomes. This link is affected by societal, stakeholder-related, and teaching and learning-related factors.

Although the value of universities’ initiatives connecting EE and employability for economic development is emphasized, the study does not provide direct empirical evidence for this effect. Macroeconomic research is needed.

EE and employability would benefit from knowledge exchange between universities’ stakeholders and a broader understanding of what constitutes a valuable graduate outcome.

The study reveals the benefits of EE on a micro level. Participation in EE supports the connection between individual investments in HE and employability.

Based on human capital theory, many policymakers regard EE as a vehicle through which the relationship between investments in HE and career success on a micro level and economic growth on a macro level can be nurtured. Challenging this logic, the study highlights the potential of institutional theory to explain a contextualization of the link between EE and employability on a national level.

This paper aims to explore the influence of primary, secondary and tertiary stakeholders on developing enterprising graduates in UK higher education institutions (HEIs).

Longitudinal telephone surveys were conducted annually over a ten‐year period (2000 to 2009) to document and analyse a total of 331 stakeholders' influence on developing enterprising graduates in UK HEIs.

The findings highlighted a number of interesting trends relating to their involvement in, and impact on, entrepreneurship education provision in UK HEIs. A wide range of stakeholders can influence the development of enterprising graduates. Primary stakeholders, such as students, teaching and research staff, managers and administrators emerged as most influential in the development of enterprising graduates. Their influence, representing both the demand and supply sides of entrepreneurship education, was significant and directly relevant to the development of enterprising graduates in UK HEIs.

The results emerging from this longitudinal research study provide valuable stakeholder perspectives into the development of enterprising graduates in UK HEIs. Policy makers should use these findings to inform relevant entrepreneurship education policies and initiatives, focus them on the specific needs of UK students and ensure that scarce resources are targeted efficiently to develop successful graduate entrepreneurs.

This study provides an empirically rigorous insight into stakeholder involvement in developing enterprising graduates in the UK. It provides valuable longitudinal data relating to the influence of a wide range of stakeholders on the development of enterprising graduates in UK HEIs.

The purpose of this paper is to find out the causes of Chinese graduate entrepreneurship dilemma (both the Chinese graduate entrepreneurship rate and the Chinese graduates' entrepreneurship low success rate) and then to propose some suggestions to the dilemma.

The study is conducted on the basis of 20 graduate entrepreneurship cases to summarize the necessary qualifications for graduates to start new businesses and then uses Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's (GEM) theory of entrepreneurial climate to analyze the entrepreneurial climate faced by Chinese graduates.

This paper points out the internal and external causes of Chinese graduate entrepreneurship dilemma: the internal one is that most graduates do not have the qualifications for entrepreneurship; the external one is that the present entrepreneurial climate in China is poor, resulting in difficulties for Chinese graduates to start new ventures.

The paper proposes the following countermeasures to help Chinese graduates get out of the entrepreneurship dilemma: undergraduates actively participating in social practice activities, establishing and improving the entrepreneurship education system, perfecting government policies and creating a strong entrepreneurial culture, respectively.

Nowadays, there is much research into the causes of the Chinese graduate entrepreneurship dilemma from various viewpoints. However, an analysis of the causes using GEMs theory of entrepreneurial climate is rare. This paper analyzes the problem from this aspect.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue by positioning and examining some of the key issues, tensions and challenges in graduate entrepreneurship in the developing world.

The paper recognises the complexity and diversity of approaches considered by the different authors, highlighting a range of issues and challenges in their contributions. The paper is divided into the following sections: entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes and motivations; the role of higher education; and contextual cases, opportunities and challenges in graduate entrepreneurship.

The paper suggests that there is a lack of research in the field of graduate entrepreneurship in the developing world, and that further research in developing countries may help to understand and shed light on the issues evolving around graduate entrepreneurial intentions, business start‐up and education. Some preliminary themes emerge from research included in this special issue. First, entrepreneurial intentions seem to be higher in developing countries when compared with developed ones. Second, economic and institutional frameworks tend to be unfavourable to entrepreneurial activity. As in developed countries, entrepreneurship seems to be experiencing an upsurge. This could be a tremendously powerful force to accelerate economic growth and development. In this sense, higher education in general, and entrepreneurship education in particular, may be key instruments to help promote entrepreneurial activity.

The paper provides an insight into entrepreneurial intentions and related education and training in developing countries. This should be of interest to researchers, policy‐makers, and higher education institutions.

Previous studies on the effect of entrepreneur education are not comprehensive. Thus, estimating the effect of entrepreneur education is imperative. According to the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE), only 1.7 percent (as of 2013) of university graduates are self-employed, that is managing one’s own business or known as graduate entrepreneurs. Consequently, a huge gap exists between what is targeted by the government (5.5 percent by 2015) and the reality (a small number of graduate entrepreneurs). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors influencing a graduate’s choice to be entrepreneur, particularly the effects of different entrepreneur education, either formal or informal.

A total of 2,300 graduates from Universiti Utara Malaysia participated in this study.

The findings showed that the majority of the respondents are consistent in terms of their intent to become entrepreneurs.

Due to time and resource constraints, the data are limited to only one university in Malaysia. It is suggested that future studies include more universities, especially entrepreneurial universities. Although it is believe that public universities’ undergraduates population are highly homogeneous, it is good that the findings of the present study to be further validated by future studies using larger sample that consists of varies of public universities.

This paper supports government policies in terms of cultivating educated entrepreneur such as promoting the entrepreneurship education among higher institutions of education (MoE, 2007). However, there are negative relationships among higher academic achievement of graduates toward their intention to be entrepreneurs. It is indicated that high academic achievements are negatively related to becoming entrepreneurs. Thus, it is suggested that entrepreneurship education in terms of both formal and informal education be implemented into the curriculum in order to cultivate entrepreneurial intentions.

There is still much more to be learned to fully understand the processes that leading to the decision to become an entrepreneur. Nevertheless, the results presented in this paper provide some understanding of the factors influencing the decision to become an entrepreneur among university students and graduates using a convenience sample. Thus, the results are exploratory and subjected to validation by future studies using more representative samples. Nevertheless, the study makes a contribution to the effort to predict and develop entrepreneurs in the country.