Entrepreneurship Education: Moving Forward for the Next Generation of Graduate Entrepreneurs

Dear Colleagues,

Several years ago, Ronstadt (1985) asserted that “Tomorrow's educated entrepreneurs will know better when, how, and where to start their new ventures, how to better pursue their careers as entrepreneurs, and how to maximize their goals as entrepreneurs”. Entrepreneurship education has proven a popular but complicated field. A large number of articles are published yearly, but there are research gaps that need to be confronted. The aim of entrepreneurship education is not only to teach students about entrepreneurship but also to cultivate the required skills and, ultimately, instill in them entrepreneurial spirit and attitudes. Entrepreneurship education has grown in popularity around the globe for at least the past twenty years (Hägg and Kurczewska, 2022; Nabi et al., 2017), but it is currently at a crossroads (Loi et al., 2022) and only loosely connected to learning theories (Kakouris et al., 2023). At present, it exhibits three different forms (Kakouris and Liargovas, 2021), embedded in different disciplines and curricula (Pittaway and Edwards, 2012). The view of entrepreneurship as a form of competence (Bacigalupo et al., 2016) has also been associated with other skills (e.g., Bianchi et al., 2022) and youth’s well-being (Sala et al., 2020), alongside being a career option (Kakouris et al., 2023).

This Special Issue aims to gather research on the abovementioned issues to provide insights for the education of the next generation of graduate entrepreneurs. Indicative, but not exhaustive, research questions could include the following:

• Which are appropriate methods to teach entrepreneurship with a significant impact on students?
• How do we assess our actual impact on learners?
• How do teaching methods and pedagogies relate to entrepreneurial learning processes (e.g., cognitive, participatory, situated, social, etc.)?
• How do educators reflect on their hitherto practice and methods in entrepreneurship education?
• How do different contexts (e.g., spatial, temporal, economic, social, etc.) affect the teaching of entrepreneurship?
• How does entrepreneurship in education relate to other competences and well-being?
• How does entrepreneurship education evolve in different educational levels (primary, secondary, tertiary) and settings (formal, non-formal, informal)?
• How does entrepreneurship education relate to sustainability and social change?
• How do programs balance the learning of knowledge, deep cognitive change (the mindset), skills, and behaviors?
• How do programs interact (skillfully or not) with external (and internal) stakeholders?

The present call invites empirical or theoretical research on the previous topics. Submissions will be considered on a double-blind peer review base, and the resulting collection will integrate complementary aspects of the current status of entrepreneurship education.

References

Bacigalupo, M., Kampylis, P., Punie, Y., & Van den Brande, L. (2016). EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework. European Commission. EUR 27939. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC101581

Bianchi, G., Pisiotis, U., & Cabrera Giraldez, M., (2022). GreenComp The European sustainability competence framework. In Y. Punie, M. Bacigalupo (Eds.), EUR 30955 EN, ISBN 978-92-76-46485-3, doi:10.2760/13286, https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128040

Hägg, G., & Kurczewska, A. (2022). Entrepreneurship education: Scholarly progress and future challenges (p. 101). Taylor & Francis.

Kakouris, A., & Liargovas, P. (2021). On the about/for/through framework of entrepreneurship education: A critical analysis. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 4(3), 396–421.

Kakouris, A., Morselli, D., & Pittaway, L. (2023). Educational theory driven teaching in entrepreneurship. The International Journal of Management Education, 21(2), 100814.

Kakouris, A., Tampouri, S., Kaliris, A., Mastrokoukou, S., & Georgopoulos, N. (2023). Entrepreneurship as a career option within education: A critical review of psychological constructs. Education Sciences, 14 (1), 46. DOI: 10.3390/educsci14010046

Loi, M., Fayolle, A., van Gelderen, M., Riot, E., Refai, D., Higgins, D., ... & Cavarretta, F. (2022). Entrepreneurship education at the crossroads: challenging taken-for-granted assumptions and opening new perspectives. Journal of management inquiry, 31(2), 123–134.

Nabi, G., Liñán, F., Fayolle, A., Krueger, N., & Walmsley, A. (2017). The impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education: A systematic review and research agenda. Academy of management learning & education, 16(2), 277–299.

Pittaway, L., & Edwards, C. (2012). Assessment: examining practice in entrepreneurship education. Education+ Training, 54(8/9), 778–800.

Ronstadt, R. (1985). The educated entrepreneurs: A new era of entrepreneurial education is beginning. American Journal of Small Business, 10(1), 7–23.

Sala, A., Punie, Y., Garkov, V., & Cabrera Giraldez, M. (2020). LifeComp: The European Framework for Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Key Competence, EUR 30246 EN, DOI:10.2760/922681, https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC120911

Dr. Aiketerini Sarri
Dr. Alexandros Kakouris
Dr. Norris Krueger
Guest Editors

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• entrepreneurship education
• entrepreneurial learning
• entrepreneurial competence
• entrepreneurial pedagogies
• graduate entrepreneurship