Signe Hedeboe Frederiksen

Entrepreneurship as Everyday Practice: Towards a Personalized Pedagogy of Enterprise Education:

Adopting the perspective of ‘entrepreneurship as an everyday practice’ in education, the authors conceptualize opportunities as arising from the everyday practice of individuals. Opportunities are thus seen as emanating from the individual entrepreneurs ability to disclose anomalies and disharmonies in their personal life. The paper illustrates how opportunities unfold depending on regional differences, local heritage and gender, to show how entrepreneurship education must take into account differences in context, culture and circumstance. Rather than perceiving entrepreneurship education as universalistic and searching for a generally applicable teaching approach, the authors argue that there is a need to tailor entrepreneurship education to the particular. They therefore propose that the pedagogy of entrepreneurship education should be personalized and they build a conceptual framework that contrasts two opposing views of entrepreneurship education: ‘universalistic’ and ‘idiosyncratic’. Following this distinction, they explore how different elements of entrepreneurship education may be fitted to the particular needs of each individual learner. This insight is relevant for didactic reflections on single entrepreneurship courses and for the construction of an entrepreneurship education curriculum.

Methods in entrepreneurship education research: a review and integrative framework

Purpose – Research in entrepreneurship education faces substantial tensions and methodological challenges. Building on a review of extant empirical studies in the field, the purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative methodological framework for studying entrepreneurship education. Central questions are: What forms of entrepreneurship education research exist? Which data sources, research methods and approaches are used in this research? What are the methodological strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurship education research? How can entrepreneurship education research be improved methodologically? Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines a literature review with a conceptual discussion. The review identifies 88 journal articles reporting empirical studies of entrepreneurship education published between 2002 and 2012. The literature is coded according to method used, type of study, data collection and analysis techniques. From the analysis of the reviewed literature, a conceptual discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of various methods is undertaken, and an integrated approach to entrepreneurship education research is proposed. Findings – Research in entrepreneurship education is fragmented both conceptually and methodologically. Findings suggest that the methods applied in entrepreneurship education research cluster in two groups: first, quantitative studies of the extent and effect of entrepreneurship education; and second, qualitative single case studies of different courses and programmes. Benefits and drawbacks haunt both clusters. Quantitative studies bring objectivity, comparability and generalizability, but show limited appreciation of the heterogeneity of the education they seek to measure. Qualitative single case studies are ripe with contextually sensitive descriptions and best pedagogical practices, but suffer from limited comparability and generalizability as well as severe biases of teacher-researcher conflation. Originality/value – The suggested methodological framework builds on a systematic review of the research methods applied in extant entrepreneurship education research. It integrates qualitative and quantitative techniques, the use of research teams consisting of insiders (teachers studying their own teaching) and outsiders (research collaborators studying the education) as well as multiple types of data. To gain both in-depth and analytically generalizable studies of entrepreneurship courses and programmes, the suggested framework integrates the empirical sensitivity of qualitative techniques and diverse research positions, with the rigour of quantitative measures. The authors argue that studies of entrepreneurship education benefit from this integration. Furthermore, the authors describe a variety of helpful methods, explore the potential relation between insiders and outsiders in the research process and discuss how different types of data can be combined. The integrated framework urges researchers to extend investments in methodological efforts and to enhance the in-depth understanding of the dynamics and challenges of teaching entrepreneurship.

A CULTure of Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract High hopes are invested in a rapid institutionalization of an enterprise culture in Higher Education (HE). This has heightened the importance of entrepreneurship education (EE) in most Western societies; however, how values and beliefs about entrepreneurship are institutionalized in EE remains relatively unchallenged. This study applies the lens of the cult, in particular three elements Rituals, Deities and the Promise of Salvation, to reflect on the production and reproduction of entrepreneurship in EE. In doing so, the paper addresses uncontested values and beliefs that form a hidden curriculum prevalent in EE. We argue for greater appreciation of reflexive practices to challenge normative promotions of beliefs and values that compare with forms of evangelizing, detrimental to objectives of HE. Consequently, we call for a more critical pedagogy to counteract a ‘cultification’ of entrepreneurship in EE.