Search results

The purpose of this article is to provide a selective review of literature on the career‐related decision‐making processes in terms of the transition from student to business start‐up, and the nature and influence of support and guidance.

Primarily, a critical review of a range of recently published literature (1995‐2005) addressing the theoretical and practical aspects of the journey from student to start‐up. The literature is divided into sections: the graduate labour market: a state of flux; Conceptual and definitional issues; Career choice and decision‐making; and Start‐up training and support.

The paper finds that despite an increasing body of theoretical and empirical literature on career choice in general and on the career choice to start‐up a business in the form of intention models, there remains a lack of in‐depth research on the stories, circumstances, contexts and complexities of graduates on their journey from student to business start‐up. A transition from entrepreneurial intentions to actual start‐up is often assumed but under‐researched in terms of career development and decision making processes. The nexus between training, support, intent and actual career choice to start‐up a business remains under‐investigated.

Given that careers are made in a changing and complex context, simple relationships should not be expected. Hence, rather than focusing solely on certain aspects of the start‐up process, research is needed that takes a more holistic approach.

The study highlights the need for research that does justice to the complexities of the decisions made in the process from student to start‐up and by implication public policy and practice in relation to formal intervention within this aspect of the graduate labour market.

The paper lays the basis for a more nuanced understanding of the journey from student to start‐up of value to both researchers and policy makers.

This paper aims to investigate the factors that influenced seven graduates in the creative and digital industries to start their own businesses in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK – an area with lack of employing establishments and locally registered businesses.

Questionnaires and semi‐structured interviews identified the constraining and enabling factors graduates may encounter when attempting to start a business, and explored the impact of support provided.

Perceived constraining factors were: lack of general business knowledge, contradictory advisory support from external agencies, lack of sector‐specific mentors, lack of finance, and experience of familial entrepreneurship. Perceived enabling factors were: co‐mentoring from business partners, course content, financial gain, creativity and innovative ideas, control and risk taking, and the overarching package of support. Linkages between internal and external support could be improved.

The study provided insights into constraints and enablers to self‐employment for a small cohort of recent graduates looking to start‐up in the creative and digital industries. Further studies are required to explore the suggested effect of the “creative identity”, and of sector‐specific family entrepreneurial background.

The support provided by universities can facilitate the transition from early stage ideas to actual graduate business start‐up. Issues such as provision of specialist advice and links with external parallel and follow‐on support need to be considered.

University start‐up units provide an important contribution to the development of graduate entrepreneurs and their role in the growth of national and global economy. Suggestions for improvements in performance, such as closer links with external business development agencies and support providers, are discussed.

This paper aims to address the need for a re‐focused research agenda in relation to graduate entrepreneurship. An important theme for some years has been the effort to monitor attitudes and intentions of students towards starting up their own businesses. It is timely, however, to raise some questions about both the impact of this research and likewise the general approach it has taken in understanding the phenomenon of graduate entrepreneurship.

The paper draws on a large data set (over 8,000 students) from one UK region. Specifically, it presents data from the 2007/2008 Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) survey within the Yorkshire and Humberside region and reflects back over previous iterations of this research.

The paper identifies three key outcomes. First, it establishes that across all years of the survey a substantial minority of students consistently hold relatively strong start‐up intentions. Second, the paper highlights that, despite considerable efforts to increase the numbers moving to start‐up, little impact is discernible. Third, the paper suggests that, although the EI survey is useful as a stock‐taking exercise, it fails to address critical questions around the impact of higher education on entrepreneurship and the transition from entrepreneurial intent to the act of venture creation.

The paper provides an important positioning perspective on the relationship between higher education and graduate entrepreneurship. While highlighting the importance of the EI research, the paper establishes the need for a re‐focused research agenda; one that is conceptually robust and with a focus on the student journey from higher education to graduate entrepreneur.

Self-employment placements can provide an opportunity to experience the real-life world of the entrepreneur within an educational context but their implementation is rare. Here we describe a full sandwich year placement scheme at the University of Huddersfield – the Enterprise Placement Year (EPY). Details of the EPY are provided including academic requirements, application procedures and the learning opportunities provided. There are a growing number of EPY alumni continuing the development of their business idea or starting up a new business in their final year or after graduation and three examples are provided. In addition to increasing numbers of sustaining businesses, there is evidence of improved academic success with a greater than average percentage of ‘good degrees’ obtained. Regular changes to the delivery of the programme have been made as a result of ongoing evaluation. These are reported here with recommendations for other universities considering offering such a programme and suggestions for future research.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the influences of family business and exposure to family business ideas upon students and graduates during their transition from higher education (HE) towards career identification of entrepreneurship. It explores influences, values and experiences actively impacting on business start-up following exposure to family business or business ideas.

A grounded theory approach was adopted to investigate the wider student/graduate transition between HE and business start-up support provision. The aim of the interviews undertaken was to investigate those influences actively impacting on business start-up provision and reflect upon the complexities within the student journey through transition towards business start-up. The researchers investigated stories, experiences and insights of nascent and practicing entrepreneurs acquiring rich qualitative evidence.

This study evaluates the influences impacting upon practicing entrepreneurs following exposure to family business and awareness of business ideas arising from immediate or extended family prior to undertaking a business start-up. The findings inform discussions about family role models and contribute to the development of enterprise education pedagogy. It is found that individuals attachment to business and family business values are strongly formed concepts that motivate and steer entrepreneurial direction.

This paper contributes to development of enterprise and entrepreneurship educator pedagogy and explores use of entrepreneurial role models and positive learning experiences gained through personal exposure to family business and ideas.

This study contributes to a fuller understanding of the potential for positive influence through exposure to familial businesses, growing up around businesses and awareness of business ideas arising from immediate or extended family. Integration of learning opportunities with development of pedagogy will be of interest to the enterprise education community.

This study aims to examine the role of gender balance in forming individuals’ understanding of entrepreneurship as manifested in the graduates’ occupational choices, asking: Does gender balance in entrepreneurship education influence start-up behaviour after graduation? Based on gender mainstreaming, this study builds on the assumption that gender balance influences classroom and student community discourses. This study presents two hypotheses suggesting a positive relationship between gender balance (student and mentor gender balance, respectively) and the likelihood of engaging in start-up behaviour after graduation.

The context is an international one-year master's programme in entrepreneurship and innovation, which adopts an experienced-based pedagogical approach to support learning. This study applies binary logistic regression analysis to test the hypotheses on a sample of 107 graduates who responded to a web-based questionnaire on post-graduation career paths.

This study finds support for the first hypothesis indicating that student gender balance in the classroom has a significant positive impact on graduates' likelihood of engaging in start-up activity post-graduation. In the interpretation of these findings, this study emphasizes that a master's programme in entrepreneurship is an important arena where students' attitudes, values, aspirations and intentions towards entrepreneurship are shaped and their identity developed.

While studies have demonstrated gender bias in the discourses on entrepreneurship education and content, there is little evidence of its consequences or how it is addressed. Findings of this study point directly to this gap by revealing that improved gender balance is not only beneficial to the underrepresented gender, but to the overall student group.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, evaluate and share the motivations and behaviours of student and graduate entrepreneurs (referred to as SGSUs) operating from university incubators. The study aims to understand the behaviours and motivations of SGSUs to build on the existing literature and contribute towards a discussion around support services for university incubation centres.

Empirical evidence is presented from an online survey of 100 SGSUs from a sample of university incubators across the UK. The results were analysed using the data analysis software package SPSS. The results of open‐ended questions were analysed manually.

The current research reveals a series of contrasting engagements towards and within the university incubator space. A better understanding of user expectations and motivations is needed in order to develop better services and support system within which SGSUs can develop.

The outcomes could have practical significance and managerial implications based on a greater understanding and awareness of the needs of SGSUs when allocating scarce resources in order to improve incubator performance, entrepreneurial support and new venture creation funding in HEIs.

The paper provides a unique insight into the needs of SGSUs and identifies the key issues that contribute to their early successes and some of the “known” and “unknown” reasons behind why they may not fulfil their ambitions. The findings present thinking of SGSUs and their outlook to the future challenges and relative entrepreneurial support in context of institutional support.

The purpose of this paper is to address the interface between design education and business start‐up in the designer fashion industry (DFI) and provide a new framework for reflecting on ways to improve design education and graduates’ business start‐up preparedness.

This interpretive study employed semi‐structured interviews to collect nascent fashion designers’ enterprise development narratives and tertiary educators’ views on how they prepare designers for the challenges of the DFI.

While design and production skills studied in design education are valuable, it was found that work placements are particularly important resources for aspiring fashion business owners because they provide “education in enterprise” and the sort of social capital required for business success. The research produced a framework for reflecting on and refining the fit between design education and the practice of enterprise development in the DFI that incorporates considerations of the creativity‐business tension and designer's enterprise orientations.

The findings suggest there is a need to create more intersections between fashion design and entrepreneurship education and to incorporate more education for and in enterprise. They also suggest there is value in encouraging students to select design education that fits their enterprise orientation and any skill deficits associated with this orientation.

The paper makes a valuable contribution to both the higher education and entrepreneurship literatures by presenting an original model for conceptualising the way design education can interface with business start‐up to develop industry‐appropriate social capital and sound business practices.

This paper presents findings of a research study carried out to review the outcomes of the Scottish Graduate Enterprise Programme (GEP). Two hundred and forty‐five graduates participated in the nine GEP business start up courses from 1983 to 1991. They came from a range of academic institutions and disciplines. At least a half have started a business at some point, we found 69 (50 per cent) of those traced were in business, almost half were female. They did not tend to come from entrepreneurial backgrounds, though most had previous work experience. They had considered a range of career options. They started up with low amounts of capital and found finance a constraint, although a range of other problems were identified. On average the businesses have shown growth in capital, turnover, profits and number of employees. They rated their business performance high on quality standards, innovation and competitiveness, though average on sales and profit performance. The Graduate Enterprise Programme helped those with sufficient motivation, to gain the ability to convert their idea into a business. We conclude with recommendations, based on the experiences of the Graduate Enterprise programme, for supporting graduates to create their own businesses.