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This case study focusses on student conceptions of becoming an academic, and their perceptions of their institution’s role in supporting them, or creating barriers, on this journey. In-depth qualitative research was conducted with nine undergraduate Fine Art and Design students from a range of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and White backgrounds to understand the impact that tutor relationships; the curriculum, creative pedagogies and the invisibility of diverse teaching staff might have on their journey through, and sense of belonging within, the academy. It is positioned amid the current BAME attainment gap in UK higher education (HE) and takes as its context the discourse on the lack of BAME academics in UK universities; an issue more pronounced in the creative disciplines (ECU, 2017a, p. 158).

The aim of the study was to understand how institutional practices might support or hinder students returning to the academy as staff, using Critical-Race Theory and whiteness and cultural capital frameworks to situate the research. The findings present an overwhelming interest amongst the students in teaching as a future career, and makes a case that students’ motivations and aspirations to teach, if fostered and supported, could partially remediate the current lack of BAME staff in HE.

Scholars have studied how entrepreneurs acquire resources but have not examined how resources may be bundled with constraints, which can threaten entrepreneurial autonomy. Organizational sponsors, such as incubators and accelerators, provide entrepreneurs with resources, but how do entrepreneurs sustain autonomy while seeking resources and support? We studied five entrepreneurial firms in a business incubator over a six-month period. While benefitting from incubator resources, entrepreneurs also experienced unexpected constraints, including mentor role conflict, gatekeeper control, and affiliation dissonance. By showing how entrepreneurs unbundled the incubator’s resources from constraints, we explain how entrepreneurs manage the tension between acquiring resources and preserving autonomy.