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Venture creation is often seen as the form of academic entrepreneurship least compatible with the role of university scientists. The purpose of the article is to explore the changing role of university scientists towards venture creation, and understand the influence of university‐driven initiatives for venture creation.

The article is based on a qualitative study of two venture creation cases: one from a US university, and one building from two universities in Sweden. The cases and associated university environments were selected due to their venture creation activity. University venture creation data of the three universities complements the cases.

Venture creation at universities can be more compatible with the traditional role of the university scientist. Centers and laboratories concerned with entrepreneurship and action‐based education are identified as key university resources allowing university scientists to engage in venture creation in more compatible ways, and not having to become the lead venture creator.

The study underlying the article is limited to three university environments (in two countries) where venture creation activity is relatively frequent.

The article shows that venture creation can be more compatible with the role of the university scientist due to more collective entrepreneurial activity at universities. Furthermore, university scientists, in synergizing between different entrepreneurial roles, are important for venture creation without taking the lead venture entrepreneur role. Involving students in venture creation together with scientists is proposed as one such important entrepreneurial role that has not previously been recognized.

Several types of entrepreneurship with a societal purpose coincide in Sweden today, some stemming from older domestic traditions, others being more recent foreign influences. This paper aims to interrelate social, civic, community, and other entrepreneurships in search of a more unifying concept of societal entrepreneurship for Sweden and beyond.

As part of a larger study, Swedish researchers and practitioners promoting some kind of entrepreneurship with societal purpose, are interviewed and asked for examples and literature references. Altogether 176 actors are identified and 59 are interviewed. The main distinguishing factors between different discourses of entrepreneurship are accounted for as well as results from workshops where actors representing different discourses partook.

Seven societally oriented entrepreneurship discourses are distinguished, with different foreign or domestic origins. Key characteristics for interrelating different discourses are the type of actor (individual and/or collective) and purpose (social/ecological and/or economic) emphasized in a discourse. Interactions documented from workshops indicate a potential in unifying different entrepreneurships within a widened understanding of societal entrepreneurship.

The field of entrepreneurship emphasizing societal utility is fragmented with many parallel discourses. The conceptual analysis and empirical findings imply that there is potential in a more unifying concept. Furthermore, in the limited Swedish setting, collective dimensions of entrepreneurship stand out. This nevertheless implies that collective engagements into entrepreneurship of any kind are worthy of more research and recognition.

Implications are primarily limited to societal entrepreneurship within uncontested welfare states, such as Sweden, where most established societal needs are taken care of through taxes utilized by a public sector. Societal entrepreneurship in such a setting becomes a mechanism for renewal and experimentation.

The paper is original in its approach to identifying and interrelating current discourses in Sweden.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how legitimacy as “an entrepreneur” is gained in relation to others during the nascent phase.

The author studies two firm creating teams over a 12‐month incubation period. Data collected through participant observation, documentation and interviews are emploted as narratives in order to explore how nascent entrepreneurs gain legitimacy through social interaction. Positioning theory is used to explore how negotiated rights and duties are employed towards legitimacy‐gaining strategies.

Conforming, selecting and manipulating strategies are used to gain legitimacy during a process of firm creation through interactive dialogue with key stakeholders (role‐set). Positioning facilitates a process of negotiated rights and duties that helps to define the role of “entrepreneur” to which the nascent entrepreneurs aspire.

The study is bounded to a specific contextual setting and thus initial findings would benefit from further investigation in comparable and control settings. Findings illustrate the ways in which nascent entrepreneurs employ legitimacy‐gaining strategies through interaction with key stakeholders, an area of research not well understood. This contributes to an understanding of how entrepreneurial identity is developed.

Designed firm creation environments can facilitate interaction with key stakeholders and support positioning of nascent entrepreneurs as they attempt to gain legitimacy in the role of “entrepreneur”, while creating a new firm. Legitimacy‐gaining strategies can strengthen entrepreneurial identity development, which can be applied to multiple entrepreneurial processes.

The article accesses individuals in the process of becoming entrepreneurs, a phenomenon most often studied in hindsight. Emphasis on stakeholder interaction as contributing to entrepreneurial development is also understudied. Legitimacy‐gaining strategies are explored through narratives using positioning theory, an approach which has been discussed conceptually but not readily applied empirically.

The purpose of this paper is to explores the influence of socialization upon the constitution and integration of learning leading to the development of entrepreneurial competence while at university, from the learner perspective. Self-reported learning is analyzed to illustrate ways in which students make use of institutional and social contributions of the university context.

The study investigates entrepreneurial journeys of 18 participants, either currently attending or recently graduated from three universities in three countries with both comparable and distinctive contextual elements. In depth analysis of individual life stories, focusing on self-identified critical incidents, is used to illustrate ways in which students, while at university, develop entrepreneurial competence for current and future practice.

Formal and non-formal learning remain important foundations for entrepreneurial competence development, delivered through designed content-centric structures. Informal learning – particularly mentor supported socialised learning – centring around the learner is key to solidifying learning towards entrepreneurial competence, through know-how and access to resources. The university emerges as an entrepreneurial learning space where students constitute and integrate learning gained through different forms.

Cross-cultural analysis is limited as the paper emphasizes the individual’s learning experience relative to the immediate university context.

Universities play a critical role as entrepreneurial learning spaces beyond formal and non-formal learning. This includes dedicating resources to orchestrate informal learning opportunities and enabling interaction with the different agents that contribute to socialised situated learning, supporting entrepreneurial competence development. Universities need to take responsibility for facilitating the entirety of learning.

Socialised learning in combination with other forms of learning contributes to student development of entrepreneurial competence while situated in the university context.

Effective internal dynamics of new venture teams is seen as a key contributor to venture success. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which new venture teams consisting of nascent entrepreneurs initiate trust and control during venture emergence.

Dimensions of trust and control are developed into an analytical framework applied to documented team norms. Coding detects frequency of trust and control dimensions. Supplementary data triangulate findings and explore follow-on effects in team dynamics and venture emergence.

Frequency of coded dimensions generates a venture team profile. Teams prime their dynamics through use of trust and/or control language in documented norms. Priming is seen to influence entrepreneurial perseverance during venture emergence, stemming either directly from team dynamics, or indirectly from key shareholder relationships or environmental conditions.

Data are bounded to a specific contextual setting representing incubation and education, where the nascent entrepreneurs are simultaneously students. The complexity of venture emergence means that multiple factors influencing new venture teams may influence trust and control in ways currently unaccounted for.

Exploration of trust and control during venture emergence emphasizes soft-skills critical to entrepreneurial perseverance and venture success. Team norms can be designed to prime toward trust or control, and can be indicative of teams’ sensitivity to external factors, enabling evidence for intervention.

The paper illustrates ways in which trust and control influence team dynamics during venture emergence.

Context impacts the design and practice of entrepreneurship education, but there is limited focus on context in entrepreneurship education literature. The purpose of this paper is to review the entrepreneurship education literature to understand how context has been addressed, derives contextual elements from prioritized literature and explores how context can be adapted to and designed with in entrepreneurship education.

A systematic literature review is undertaken to explore context in entrepreneurship education literature. Context entrepreneurship education yielded 239 items. After refinement, 232 entrepreneurship education associated publications were reviewed by the team of authors. Using selection criteria, 26 prioritized publications were analyzed and categorized according to a theoretical framework.

Context has been addressed both conceptually and empirically, quantitatively and qualitatively, and can be categorized across three sociological phenomena levels – micro, meso and macro. Within these levels, more specific context elements emerge from the entrepreneurship education literature. The findings assert that while context is highly influential in relation to entrepreneurship education, it is arbitrarily described, and holds a variety of documented and diffuse elements. Educators have a limited span of control in relation to context elements, however, for the most parts elements can be adapted to or designed with. Finally, due to the influence of context it is difficult to identify a universal best practice of entrepreneurship education because there simply is no ceteris paribus.

Contextual elements which emerged from the literature consider various subjects, spaces, structures and networks. Context is complex and has had limited treatment in entrepreneurship education literature, thus additional analysis and experimentation is necessary.

Context shapes understanding and influences learning. Addressing entrepreneurship education across three levels – micro, meso and macro – and through four framing questions – who, what, where and when – guides educators in how context influences and can be used when designing education.

The paper gives new insight into how context is addressed in entrepreneurship education literature, and how this can influence educational design.

To increase the understanding of how entrepreneurship education impacts entrepreneurial careers, the purpose of the paper is to investigate the role that a venture creation program (VCP) might have in mitigating or surpassing a lack of other antecedents of entrepreneurial careers. In particular, the authors focus on entrepreneurial pedigree and prior entrepreneurial experience.

Data from graduates of VCPs at three universities in Northern Europe were collected through an online survey. Questions addressed graduate background prior to education, yearly occupational employment subsequent to graduation and graduates' own perceptions of entrepreneurial activity in employment positions. The survey was sent to 1,326 graduates and received 692 responses (52.2% response rate).

The type of VCP, either independent (Ind-VCP) or corporate venture creation (Corp-VCP), influenced the mitigation of prior entrepreneurial experience. Prior entrepreneurial experience, together with Ind-VCP, made a career as self-employed more likely. However, this was not the case for Corp-VCP in subsequently choosing intrapreneurial careers. Entrepreneurial pedigree had no significant effect on career choice other than for hybrid careers.

Entrepreneurial experience gained from VCPs seems to influence graduates toward future entrepreneurial careers. Evidence supports the conclusion that many VCP graduates who lack prior entrepreneurial experience or entrepreneurial pedigree can develop sufficient entrepreneurial competencies through the program.

This study offers novel evidence that entrepreneurship education can compensate for a lack of prior entrepreneurial experience and exposure for students preparing for entrepreneurial careers.

The purpose of this paper is to use entrepreneurship to bridge the traditional-progressive education rift.

The rift between traditional and progressive education is first deconstructed into five dualisms. Conceptual question-based analysis is then applied to determine if and how three entrepreneurial tools could contribute to bridging this rift; effectuation, customer development and appreciative inquiry. Finally, pattern-based generalizations are drawn from this analysis.

Patterns in the analysis motivate the articulation of an overarching educational philosophy – learning-through-creating-value-for-others – grounded in entrepreneurship and capable of bridging the educational rift.

Only three entrepreneurial tools are included in the conceptual analysis, signifying a need to explore whether other tools could also help teachers bridge the traditional-progressive education rift. Entrepreneurial tools and the new educational philosophy manifesting entrepreneurship could also need to be further contextualized in order to be useful in education.

The tentatively new educational philosophy has been shown to be capable of bridging five dualisms in education which are currently problematic for teachers in their daily practice, and to remedy teacher challenges such as complexity, lack of resources, assessment difficulties and student disengagement.

An educational philosophy grounded in entrepreneurship has arguably not been proposed previously. Contrasting existent educational philosophies, this new philosophy goes beyond learning-through to also emphasize creating-value-for-others. This could facilitate bridging between traditional and progressive education, one of the most important challenges in education. It could also be used to facilitate the infusion of entrepreneurship into general education.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how university-based entrepreneurship programs, incorporating real-life venture creation into educational design and delivery, can bridge the gap between entrepreneurship education and technology transfer within the university environment.

Based on a literature review and snowball sampling over a two-year period, 18 entrepreneurship education programs were identified as applying a venture creation approach. Ten of these programs were selected for case study, including direct interviews and participatory observation during a two-day workshop. Empirical findings were iteratively related to theory within entrepreneurship education and technology transfer.

The paper identifies the bridging capabilities of venture creation programs (VCP) across five core themes, illustrating the potential benefits of closer collaboration between entrepreneurship education and technology transfer in a university environment.

A definition for “VCP” is tested empirically. These programs are shown to be sophisticated laboratory environments, allowing for clinical research towards the understanding of entrepreneurship and technology transfer processes.

Findings identify practical benefits of combining entrepreneurship education and technology transfer activities, such as increased value creation through not only new firms, but also an entrepreneurially equipped graduate population. VCPs allow for “spin-through” of innovative ideas in the university environment, while simultaneously contributing to entrepreneurial learning.

This paper presents findings from the first multiple case study into entrepreneurship education specifically designed to develop real-life venture as part of the core curriculum. Findings provide basis for investigating the value of integrating entrepreneurship education and technology transfer at the university.