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Heriot-Watt University
Refocusing – building a future for entrepreneurial education and learning
Higgins, David; Galloway, Laura
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Industry and Higher Education
DOI:
10.5367/ihe.2014.0233
Publication date:
2014
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Citation for published version (APA):
Higgins, D., & Galloway, L. (2014). Refocusing – building a future for entrepreneurial education and learning.
Industry and Higher Education, 28(6), 449. 10.5367/ihe.2014.0233
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SPECIAL ISSUE
Entrepreneurship
education and learning
and the real world
Introduction
Laura Galloway, David Higgins and Pauric McGowan
Laura Galloway is in the School of Management and Languages, Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK. David Higgins (corresponding editor) is in the Department of
Leadership and Management, University of Hudders?eld, Queensgate, Hudders?eld HD1
3DH, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Pauric McGowan is with the Department of
Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown
Campus, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim BT37 0QB, UK
It is with great pleasure that we introduce this special
issue of Industry and Higher Education. The papers that
follow have been selected, reviewed and developed for
publication following their original presentation in the
‘Enterprise Education and Entrepreneurial Learning’
tracks of the 36th Annual Conference of the Institute for
Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) held in
Cardiff in November 2013.
The papers are collected here to show some of the
most interesting developments in academic and
practitioner work in entrepreneurship education and
learning. Collectively, they explore the utility of
entrepreneurship education for the contexts of
entrepreneurship and employment and the applicability
of skills in ‘real world’ practice.
In the ?rst paper, ‘Freedom or prescription: the case
for curriculum guidance in enterprise and
entrepreneurship education’, Rae et al investigate the
effectiveness of policy-led frameworks for
entrepreneurship education based on the expectation
that it will result in value creation in the economy –
especially pertinent in this time of economic recovery.
The authors note that evidence of a direct link between
entrepreneurship education and new venture creation is
weak. They explore in some detail the UK’s Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance and a document on
entrepreneurship education from Ireland’s Higher
Education Training and Awards Council (HETAC),
comparing the proposed approaches. Rae et al advocate
caution among educators with respect to the in?uence of
government agendas on the design of entrepreneurship
education programmes.
In the next paper, Penaluna et al explore the case of
assessing creativity through learning outcomes. The
authors argue that the prescriptive nature of teaching
and learning and the standardized testing of learning
outcomes in traditional education may inhibit creativity.
Some disciplines do not follow this trend, however, and
pedagogies in subjects such as design seem to be highly
effective in developing creativity that transforms into
social and economic value. Since we know
entrepreneurship requires and bene?ts from those with
developed creative abilities, the authors suggest that
there are lessons to be learned in entrepreneurship
education from practices in the design-based disciplines.
With regard to assessment, for example, they suggest
that measures including cognitive process, design
development and learning from doing and from failing
might be more appropriate than discrete outcomes such
as products or plans.
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION Vol 28, No 6, December 2014, pp 385–386, doi: 10.5367/ihe.2014.0234
In ‘Extracurricular business planning competitions:
challenging the assumptions’, Watson et al develop
some of these principles further, examining the very
common use of business plan competitions in
universities. They note that these competitions are
assumed to promote entrepreneurship and as such are
legitimized as a bene?cial form of entrepreneurship
education, but they advise caution in the application of
these assumptions. First, they highlight the danger that a
focus on nascent entrepreneurial activity may exclude
post-creation activity. Second, they point out that there
is no evidence that those who enter these competitions
want to be entrepreneurs. Watson et al argue, like
Penaluna et al, that an over-reliance on planning
assumes that nascent business activity is a rational,
sequential process, whereas we know that for many
established ?rms this was not the case. Thus, they
contend, winning a business plan competition does not
make successful business creation more likely and,
indeed, not winning does not preclude business start-up
success. In conclusion, Eatson et al recommend a
reorientation in education from planning to
implementation-based teaching and learning.
The next three papers are concerned with the skills
developed by entrepreneurship education. McNeil et al
argue that entrepreneurship and employment
destinations for graduates are not mutually exclusive.
Using observations from Manchester Metropolitan
University Business School’s Centre for Enterprise, they
suggest that support for destinations that include
entrepreneurship and/or employment should extend
beyond graduation. This would provide more effective
support as well as opportunities for ongoing knowledge
exchange between universities and their alumni.
Also focusing on support and skills development,
Refai and Thompson discuss speci?cally the
entrepreneurship education case for pharmacy students.
They report on a qualitative study of pharmacy
employers and pharmacy educators in several UK
universities. Among their ?ndings is that evidence of
enterprise skills development in pharmacy studies is
limited, despite employers’ expressions of
dissatisfaction with graduates’ functional business skills
and tacit skills such as con?dence, communication and
initiative, often associated with business and enterprise
education. The authors conclude that more needs to be
done to prepare pharmacy students for the actual
economic and sectoral environment they will enter
when they graduate and that pharmacy educators might
bene?t from training to develop and integrate
entrepreneurship education into curricula. The
implications extend beyond pharmacy of course, and the
lessons related here may apply to many vocational
industries and professions and the educational provision
required for them.
From an entrepreneurial learning perspective,
Harrison and Kirkham’s ‘The application of re?exivity
in small business research and implications for the
business practitioner’ provides some interesting insights.
The paper reports the experience of a business owner in
undertaking a study of his business over time. This
ethnographic and re?exive case enables observation and
understanding of the processes in a developing company
in a dynamic business and social environment. The
study is a deliberate departure from the usual
methodologies of entrepreneurship and business
research, which frequently focus on ‘cause and effect’.
While the authors do not deny that such approaches
have their place, they argue that understanding of
business is constrained by a lack of engagement with
the idiosyncratic and dynamic. Harrison and Kirkham
maintain that re?exivity in particular has much to
contribute in terms of experiential learning for
practitioners. Further, they argue that there are lessons
too for entrepreneurship education, insofar as
individuality and process and engagement with different
perspectives of business, and how to do business, are
worthy of pedagogical consideration and development.
The ?nal paper, by Higgins and Galloway, draws
together the themes of the special issue. It outlines the
various developments taking place throughout the
entrepreneurship education community, including the
examination of why we do what we do, how we do it,
what works and what does not work, and how learning
is applied in entrepreneurship and/or in employment.
The use of different learning and teaching methods,
particularly those that afford experiential learning for
entrepreneurial implementation, is also explored. The
authors conclude that the academic case is made for
entrepreneurship education and propose greater
engagement with theory to further inform and develop
the ?eld. Contextual and socially-focused theory,
particularly social learning theory, is advocated as a
useful framework within which the study of
entrepreneurship education and learning might develop.
As guest editors, we are very grateful for the
contributions of all the authors and the reviewers. We
believe that this special issue constitutes a valuable
contribution to the ?eld, particularly in terms of its
collective challenging of the assumptions we make
about entrepreneurship education and how we
investigate its effectiveness and utility in the real world.
Introduction
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 386
Freedom or prescription:
the case for curriculum
guidance in enterprise and
entrepreneurship education
David Rae, Harry Matlay, Pauric McGowan and
Andrew Penaluna
Abstract: This article reviews the development of guidance and frameworks
for enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) in higher education
institutions with reference to the international and European contexts as well
as educational development in the UK and Ireland. The arguments for and
the possible limitations and disadvantages of such frameworks are
discussed. There has been extensive work on EEE and on the development
of competence models, for example at secondary education level. This work
is critically reviewed to identify its contribution to the development of
educational guidance internationally and speci?cally in the UK and Ireland.
The paper provides a critical narrative of the development of the Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance in the UK and the Higher Education
Training and Awards Council (HETAC) document in Ireland by experts
involved in the design process and compares the approaches proposed.
While at European level there has been greater emphasis on institutional
frameworks focusing on the ‘entrepreneurial university’, there is scope for
comparison with the above educational frameworks. Feedback and
observations from enterprise educators at an international level are
summarized to contextualize a debate on the value, contribution, possible
disadvantages and future development of such frameworks. The
international interest in and adoption of related approaches have been
considerable and these are assessed. The paper has implications for
educational policies on EEE at national and HE institutional levels, as well as
for the practices of educators in designing, validating and delivering
educational awards.
Keywords: education policy; enterprise; employability; entrepreneurship
education; higher education curricula;
David Rae (corresponding author) is Dean of the Shannon School of Business at Cape
Breton University, PO Box 5300, Grand Lake Road, Sydney, NS B1P 6 L2, Canada. E-mail:
[email protected]. Harry Matlay is with the Faculty of Business and Creative Industries,
Business School, University of the West of Scotland, Hamilton Campus, Almada Street,
Hamilton ML3 0JB, UK. Pauric McGowan is with the Department of Marketing,
Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown Campus, Shore Road,
Newtownabbey, Co Antrim BT37 0QB, UK. Andrew Penaluna is with the Pro Vice
Chancellor’s Office (Enterprise) at the University of Wales Trinity St David, Mount Pleasant,
Swansea SA1 6ED, UK.
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION Vol 28, No 6, December 2014, pp 387–398, doi: 10.5367/ihe.2014.0227
This article explores the role, contribution and issues
arising from the development of guidelines for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) in
higher education institutions. The period since 2008 in
particular has seen a growing emphasis on the role of
entrepreneurship and education in higher education,
arising in part from the need to identify strategies for
achieving economic recovery from a major recession
and ways of creating employment for graduates. Whilst
the period preceding the 2008 banking crisis had seen a
steady growth in state investment in EEE, since then
there has been a reduction of investment but a
strengthened policy focus.
There has been extensive work on EEE and on the
development of competence models, for example at
secondary education level. This work is critically
reviewed to identify its contribution to the development
of educational guidance internationally as well as
speci?cally in the UK and Ireland. In addition, a critical
narrative is provided of the development of the Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance in the UK and the
Higher Education Training and Awards Council
(HETAC) document in Ireland by experts involved in
the design process and compares the approaches
proposed. At a European level, there has been greater
emphasis on institutional frameworks centring on the
‘entrepreneurial university’ and there is scope to
compare this approach with these curricular
frameworks. Using feedback and observations from
enterprise educators at an international level, the value,
contribution, possible disadvantages and future
development of such frameworks are considered and
both the substantial level of international interest and
the adoption of related approaches are assessed.
The article is expected to have implications for
educational policies on EEE at national and institutional
levels, as well as for educators involved with the design,
validation and delivery of educational awards. It poses
questions on the value created by the application of such
frameworks as well as in the future revision and
development of these approaches.
The debate: freedom or prescription?
Enterprise and entrepreneurship education has developed
from a diverse set of starting points, as outlined in the
review section. There has been extensive scope for
creative approaches and innovation in learning design
and delivery, in many cases with a strong emphasis on
experiential and discovery-led learning. This eclecticism
is in accordance with Gibb’s ‘entrepreneurial life world’
(Gibb, 2011), but the increase in EEE provision and the
prevailing policy context, especially subsequent to 2008,
creates a tension between the autonomy and
independence given to educators in creating a wide range
of approaches, with the drive for models which can be
shown to achieve policy goals, with increasing emphasis
on measurable impact.
The policy literature – at international, European and
UK levels – regards EEE as an instrument for achieving
economic goals of growth, value creation and
employment. Increasingly, studies based on this
approach seek causal links between EEE and an
evidence base which can demonstrate direct
relationships between educational inputs and outputs
that lead to behavioural and economic outcomes. This
tendency is exempli?ed by a recent study by
Williamson et al (2013) commissioned by the UK
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
on the impact of enterprise education on further and
higher education. This study featured a ‘logic model’ of
student participation based on a ‘theory of change gain
from formal and non-formal education and training’.
When applied to the extant literature, this approach
summarized the evidence and gaps in the research.
Overall, only weak evidence was found of any direct
relationships between EEE and entrepreneurial actions
such as venture creation. The lack of evaluation studies
which can directly demonstrate causal links between
educational inputs, actions and economic impact was
noted, although (perhaps surprisingly, given the overall
?ndings) it also observes that ‘it is evident that
enterprise and entrepreneurship education leads to
economic impacts’ (GHK, 2013, p 77). However, both
the literature on entrepreneurship education and
evaluation and tracking methodologies are found to be
de?cient in comparison with a recent European study
(EC, 2012).
Such commentary raises dilemmas for educators as
well as for their universities. The clear direction of
policy is that EEE is expected to contribute directly to
post-recessionary economic regeneration and
performance, as an integral part of a coordinated
university-wide approach to entrepreneurship. This
direction is embodied in the literature on the
‘entrepreneurial university’, and more recently with
regard to institutional awards and policy studies such as
European-level enquiries into the ‘entrepreneurial
potential of higher education’ (EC, 2013). There is a
lack of evidence that EEE does make the economic
contributions and impact that policy makers require.
Moreover, it risks compromising the independence and
intellectual autonomy which is rightly held to be a
fundamental principle of higher education. Increasingly
this principle is seen as a luxury in an era of economic
stringency: there is a danger that HE is expected to
provide entrepreneurship training with speci?c
outcomes of entrepreneurial action and venture creation.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 388
The policy-led argument includes a critique of the
eclectic approaches within EEE and the lack of a single,
‘best practice’ model or approach. In the 1990s, US-led
approaches such as the Babson College model, or the
MIT entrepreneurship programme, were seen as
exemplars; these approaches have since been recognized
for the transferable contributions they can make to
indigenous learning models. A difficulty with the quest
for an ‘optimal’ model of EEE is that education and
learning, by their nature, are situated in social and
cultural contexts and practices, so that what is held to
‘work’ in one situation is not necessarily transferable to
a different, albeit similar situation (Blenker et al, 2011).
Because there is a strong move by educators to ‘embed’
EEE in the social and cultural context, just as there is in
the subject discipline, adopting a generic model is
problematic.
There have been attempts in UK primary and
secondary education to de?ne competence frameworks
for enterprise education, but these have tended to
encounter problems such as confusion in de?ning what
‘enterprise’ is, what is being assessed, and the degree of
?exibility of interpretation afforded to both educator and
learners; it can be argued that prescription of the
enterprise curriculum does not really work (Draycott
and Rae, 2011). Moves to de?ne a ‘core curriculum’ in
enterprise have recurred, such as at post-16 and FE
levels in certain vocational areas – for instance, by
inclusion in BTEC awards.
1
However, evaluation and
constructive alignment of learning outcomes (Biggs,
2003) have continued to prove elusive (McLarty et al,
2010).
In higher education, it is likely that the argument for
prescribed or mandatory models of learning would ?nd
much opposition and little support. However, the Oslo
Agenda (EC, 2006b) is one of a number of calls for
‘improved practice-based pedagogical tools’. In the UK,
there has been a succession of educator-based initiatives
to enhance the quality and effectiveness of
entrepreneurship education, including an
acknowledgement of the need for greater consistency in
the assessment of learning outcomes, one of which was
a project supported by the Higher Education Academy
(HEA). This paved the way for dialogue between
educators and policy organizations on the potential
value of a set of guidelines to provide advice and
information on the development of entrepreneurship
education, supported by information and experience
from researchers and practitioners.
The importance of EEE
In recent years, self-employment and entrepreneurship
have grown in importance at both micro- and
macro-economic levels (Parker, 2004; EC, 2006a). The
perceptions of individuals, communities and
governments converge on the notion that
entrepreneurship in general and entrepreneurs in
particular make a positive contribution to the
socio-economic, cultural and political infrastructure of a
nation (Matlay, 2005a). As a result, entrepreneurship
has climbed to the top of the political agenda in
industrially developed and developing nations as well as
in countries in transition (Naudé, 2008; Matlay, 2008).
In this context, Van Praag and Versloot (2007) claim
that entrepreneurship makes a signi?cant contribution to
income generation, job creation, research and
development (R&D) as well as generating a wide
spectrum of economic bene?ts that exceed the personal
rewards that accrue to the entrepreneurs themselves. In
addition, the vast proportion of emergent technological,
product, service, knowledge and process innovation is
linked to entrepreneurial activities which diverge from
imitative and ‘me too’ approaches to small business
creation and management (Bessant and Tidd, 2007;
Czop and Leszczynska, 2011).
Wennekers et al (2010, p 4) highlight the importance
of entrepreneurship to regional and global development
and claim that ‘entrepreneurship has become a key
policy issue ... insight in the relationship between
entrepreneurship and economic development across
countries is important for policymakers because it
provides them with a beacon for their endeavours’.
Acs et al (2005) posit that the knowledge created by
entrepreneurship and related innovation results in
knowledge spill-overs that make a considerable
contribution to new venture creation, which further
reinforces economic growth and wealth creation at
local, regional and national levels.
Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a process that
drives change and addresses important social issues and
humanitarian needs in modern society (Short et al,
2009). Social entrepreneurs are seen to confront a
multitude of social problems and challenges through
their focus and actions that seek to relieve poverty,
exclusion and ethnic discrimination. Thus, the outcomes
of social entrepreneurship can contribute directly and
indirectly to the welfare of individuals and communities
as well as societies (Zahra et al, 2009).
According to Matlay and Carey (2007), the growing
importance of entrepreneurship has enabled enterprise
and entrepreneurship education to be elevated on the
agenda of policy makers and governments. These
authors argue that this re?ects a dominant paradigm
which asserts that more and better entrepreneurship
education will invariably result in a comparable growth
in both the quality and the quantity of entrepreneurs
entering an economy. Given the current high rates of
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 389
adult unemployment in general and youth
unemployment in particular, entrepreneurship education
is viewed as a cost-effective way to facilitate the
transition of large school leaver and graduate cohorts
from compulsory and higher education into
self-employment or salaried work (Rae, 2007; Draycott
and Rae, 2011).
Traditionally, business schools have offered various
types of enterprise and entrepreneurship education to
increase their students’ employability rates and reduce
persistent unemployment and underemployment
amongst their graduates (Matlay, 2005b; Binks et al,
2007; Refaat, 2009). In recent years, however, faculties
other than business schools have begun to provide their
undergraduate and postgraduate students with
customized enterprise and entrepreneurship education,
to facilitate the transition into self-employment and
business ownership (Levenburg et al, 2006; Carey and
Matlay, 2011) or, for instance in the arts, recognition
and rede?nition of existing practice as being
entrepreneurial (ADM-HEA, 2007). In most countries
much of this growth in both undergraduate and
postgraduate provision can be attributed to the
expansion of enterprise and entrepreneurship education
across institutes of higher and further education
(Solomon, 2007; Henry and Treanor, 2010).
Enterprise and entrepreneurship education
in the UK and in Europe
The adoption of enterprise and entrepreneurship
education by higher education institutions (HEIs) in the
UK began in the late 1970s; but only during the early
1980s did business schools begin deliberately to
develop the skills of graduate entrepreneurs and small
business owner–managers (Matlay, 1984). EEE grew
slowly during the 1980s, becoming a ‘top-up’ option for
?nal year business school undergraduates and
postgraduate students who were contemplating small
business ownership or management (Jack and Anderson,
1999; Peters, 2001). Much of its early development was
grounded in Thatcherism and the related ideology of
enterprise culture (Gibb, 1993).
2
By the 1990s just over
half of all HEIs in the UK were offering courses and
modules in enterprise start-up, small business
management and vocational education and training in
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). There was
no more extensive, dedicated provision that embedded
enterprise and entrepreneurship education in specialized
undergraduate or postgraduate curricula in UK business
schools (Matlay, 2005b). However, by 2006 most HEIs
were offering courses, modules and educational
experiences that focused on enterprise and/or
entrepreneurship (Hannon, 2006). Currently, enterprise
and entrepreneurship education is present in all UK
HEIs. As part of a wider socio-economic, educational
and political strategy, it embeds concepts of enterprise
and entrepreneurship, which permeate through the entire
UK educational system (Rae et al, 2012). Thus elements
of enterprise and entrepreneurship education can be
found in the curriculum of primary and secondary
schools as well as in HEIs at undergraduate,
postgraduate and doctoral levels (McLarty et al, 2010;
McKeown et al, 2006)
Recently, there has been signi?cant activity at
international level to connect entrepreneurship
education with economic development (World
Economic Forum, 2009), to establish activity levels
(Martínez et al, 2010) and to assess its effects and
impact (EC, 2012). The United Nations Conference for
Trade and Development provides clear policy guidance
on the role of education in the entrepreneurship
ecostructure that they wish to enhance (UNCTAD,
2012). An international theme is emerging that indicates
a requirement for new and innovative assessment
strategies (Pittaway and Edwards, 2013), and the
formation of the European Commission’s Thematic
Working Group Entrepreneurship Education indicates
the level of support that is emerging for active change in
strategies for educational evaluation. This provides an
international context for the development of curricular
guidance in the UK and Ireland
The development of the QAA guidance in
the UK
During 2010–2011 there was acceptance of the need in
the UK for a comprehensive approach to recommending
a framework for the development of enterprise and
entrepreneurship education. This was signalled by the
Concordat agreed at the Cardiff IEEC in September
2010 (EE UK, 2010) and in contributions to policy
dialogues with the responsible government department,
BIS, following the 2010 General Election. The new
coalition government published a Higher Education
White Paper as a precursor to its planned radical reform
of the sector and, while this never resulted in legislation,
it included two commitments on enterprise in HE: one
to the development of enterprise student societies, and
the other to the publication of guidelines on enterprise
and entrepreneurship education (BIS, 2011). Both
intentions represented the outcome of lobbying and
policy dialogue over several months by relevant people
and organizations. In this new period of public spending
austerity, it was signi?cant that the enterprise society
initiative, favoured by the then Minister of State and led
by NACUE (the National Association of College and
University Entrepreneurs), was funded, whilst the
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 390
enterprise education initiative was not. The Wilson
Review of HE–industry collaboration (2012) also
strongly endorsed the enterprise society initiative.
The QAA is the organization responsible for HE
academic standard-setting and quality in the UK. It was
given the remit for development of the guidelines and
convened a Graduate Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Group (GEEG). This was chaired by Professor Andy
Penaluna, at the time the Chair of EE UK and regarded
as an in?uential ?gure in championing the move
towards a guidance document. The group also
comprised representatives of key organizations
including the Higher Education Academy (HEA), the
Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
(ISBE), the National Centre for Entrepreneurship
Education (NCEE), NACUE, Enterprise Educators UK
(EE UK), the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory
Services (AGCAS), and a number of experts in the HE
enterprise and entrepreneurship ?eld. The GEEG ?rst
met in July 2011 and subsequently, on a number of
subsequent occasions, in the following 12 months. From
a full membership of 13, it effectively became an active
working group of around half this number which
co-ordinated, drafted, exchanged and revised the content
of the document.
After considerable debate and review of the remit,
the group agreed that the guidance document would
include:
• An introduction stating the purpose and features of
the guidance;
• A policy context for and overview of the nature of
EEE;
• De?nitions of key terms and distinctions;
• Enterprise in the student learning experience;
• Graduate outcomes; and
• Delivery: teaching, learning and assessment.
The group reviewed extant frameworks and models for
EEE, including in particular Gibb’s (2005) learning
outcomes in enterprise education and the guidance
intended to build on these, adding coherence to existing
approaches to enhance students’ experiences of EEE
and provide a unifying framework for standards. Noting
the de?nitional confusion about ‘What is enterprise and
how is it different from entrepreneurship?’ the guidance
set out clear statements on these terms in relation to
education:
‘Enterprise is de?ned here as the application of
creative ideas and innovations to practical situations.
This is a generic concept that can be applied across
all areas of education. It combines creativity, ideas
development and problem solving with expression,
communication and practical action.
Enterprise education aims to produce graduates with
the mindset and skills to come up with original ideas
in response to identi?ed needs and shortfalls, and the
ability to act on them. In short, having an idea and
making it happen.
Entrepreneurship is de?ned as the application of
enterprise skills speci?cally to creating and growing
organisations in order to identify and build on
opportunities.
Entrepreneurship education focuses on the
development and application of an enterprising
mindset and skills in the speci?c contexts of setting
up a new venture, developing and growing an
existing business, or designing an entrepreneurial
organisation.’ (QAA, 2012, p 8)
Explanation of the distinction between entrepreneurs
and business owners, the inclusion of social enterprise
within a broad understanding of enterprise, the
relationship between enterprise and student
employability, and the distinction between education
‘about’ and ‘for’ entrepreneurship were areas of
ambiguity and debate which were addressed in this
section. The guidance recognized that students often
gain practical skills and experience through
participation in extra-curricular schemes, such as
membership of student societies or participation in
‘start-up’ schemes, instead of or alongside curricular
learning. Although the emphasis of the document was
on the curriculum, extra-curricular experiences and
activities needed to be valued as part of the learning
process of entrepreneurial behaviours.
The document set out a framework for development
and assessment of enterprise and entrepreneurship
behaviours, attributes and skills which, taken together,
contribute towards the development of an
entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial
effectiveness. Mindset and effectiveness, the ability to
function effectively as an entrepreneur or in an
entrepreneurial capacity, were seen as critical outcomes
for learners from the educational process. It proposed
that:
‘Entrepreneurial effectiveness is developed through a
combination of:
• Enterprise awareness;
• Entrepreneurial mindset; and
• Entrepreneurial capability.’
Entrepreneurial effectiveness was de?ned as the ability
to behave in enterprising and entrepreneurial ways. This
is achieved through the development of enhanced
awareness, mindset and capabilities to enable learners to
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 391
perform effectively in taking up opportunities and
achieving desired results.’ (QAA, 2012, p 10)
The relationship was developed and is illustrated in
Figure 1, which was included in the document. The
concepts of awareness and entrepreneurial mindset,
capability and effectiveness were seen as existing,
proven and generally accepted ideas from the
entrepreneurship literature that could be used as the
basis for a generic framework. The guidance was
explicit about its applicability across all subject and
academic disciplinary areas, and the need to move
entrepreneurship beyond its ‘comfort zone’ in business
studies into the creative arts, sciences and indeed all
areas.
In terms of learning style, ‘as students pass through
the stages of enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial
mindset and entrepreneurial capability to achieve
entrepreneurial effectiveness, there is expected to be an
associated shift in the focus of learning: from learning
by transmission or passive learning to problem solving
and active engagement’ (QAA, 2012, p 24).
Each of these concepts was de?ned, explained and
detailed in the guidance together with suggestions on
learning strategies. The section on entrepreneurial
capabilities introduced a framework of graduate
outcomes of enterprising behaviours, attributes and
skills. This suggested assessable outcome statements of
what students should be able to demonstrate or do, and
learning opportunities which should be included in the
curriculum. These were expanded into eight thematic
areas:
• Creativity and innovation;
• Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation;
• Decision making supported by critical analysis and
judgement;
• Implementation of ideas through leadership and
management;
• Re?ection and action;
• Interpersonal skills; and
• Communication and strategic skills.
Any such framework of capabilities is inevitably quite
generalized and overlaps with other lists and
taxonomies, in particular graduate outcomes and
employability skills. Rather than this being problematic,
it should enable course developers to identify where
entrepreneurial skills and learning opportunities already
exist or can be developed in programmes. This is
consistent with viewing enterprise and entrepreneurship
as generic and transferable life skills rather than
specialized or domain-speci?c skills.
The guidelines adopted a student-centred rather than
curriculum-centred approach, recognizing that the
development of entrepreneurial mindset, capabilities and
effectiveness is individual and occurs through unique
combinations of experience, formal and informal
learning. With such an approach a university can create
a rich entrepreneurial learning environment with a range
EntrepreneuriaI mindset
Personality and social identity
Ambition, motivation and goals
Personal confidence and resilience
Self-discipline and personal
organization
Go beyond perceived limitations
to achieve results
Tolerance of uncertainty, risk and
failure
Personal values: ethical, social
and environmental awareness
EntrepreneuriaI capabiIity
A range of behaviours, attributes and skills
Creativity and innovation
Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
Ìmplementation of ideas through leadership and management
Reflection and action
Ìnterpersonal skills
Communication and strategy skills
Enterprise awareness
Understanding what
enterprise means to me
EntrepreneuriaI effectiveness
Ìndependent self-direction
Progress individual goals and
approaches
Ìmplement enterprising ideas
Generate business and career options
Undertake new venture creation
Appreciate and create multiple forms of
value
Ìdentify and approach target markets
Figure 1. Connecting the development of entrepreneurial effectiveness with graduate outcomes.
Source: QAA, 2012, p 15.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 392
of opportunities with which students will engage in
many different modes, in iterative rather than linear
ways, with diverse starting and future transition points.
This was conceptualized in a model showing how the
development of entrepreneurial effectiveness could
occur in relation to both curricular and extra-curricular
learning (see Figure 2).
Finally, the section on ‘Delivery: teaching, learning
and assessment’ proposed general principles for
individual learning within this ‘ecostructure’ and a
progression of learning strategies and methods from
controlled, ‘safe’ modes towards enterprising,
personalized and active behaviours. That is, from:
• Case studies to emerging situations:
• Abstract problems to innovation;
• Passive learning to active learning;
• Objective analysis to subjective experience;
• Text-heavy communication to multimedia
communication;
• Neutrality to personal perspectives;
• Formal activities to authentic activities;
• Fearing failure to learning from failure; and
• Dependency to self-reliance and resilience. (QAA,
2012, p 25)
The guidelines were published in draft for consultation
in spring 2012 and circulated in the HE sector to all
HEIs and related interest groups. Over 70 responses
were received which were considered by the GEEG. A
key theme emerged, with critical and positive responses
being almost equally balanced, with respondents
commenting on there being insufficient considerations
of creativity and too little business-related guidance.
The QAA itself played an important role in editing,
publishing and distributing the guidelines at both draft
and ?nal stages. Once the responses to the consultation
had been incorporated, in summer 2012, the ?nal
version of the document was published in September of
that year.
Following this, Enterprise Educators UK was asked
by its membership to provide a series of workshops and
best practice events to help educators to develop new
provisions. Focusing on in-curriculum developments,
these workshops took into account the QAA’s thematic
approaches with regard to writing and evaluating for
assessment (EEUK, 2013).
Development of the HETAC guidance in
Ireland
The Higher Education and Training Awards Council
(HETAC) case illustrates the Entrepreneurship
Education Agenda in Ireland, and its development
provides an interesting comparison with the case of the
UK, highlighting similarities, shared issues and starting
points, as well as differing responses.
The Entrepreneurship in Ireland report (FORFAS,
2002) found that the country’s school system did not
support sufficiently the idea of self-employment as a
realistic career option and that the Irish education
system was perceived by entrepreneurs to have played a
limited role in supporting entrepreneurship up to that
point. In 2004 the Enterprise Strategy Group report
(ESG, 2004) and in 2007 the report Towards
Developing an Entrepreneurship Policy in Ireland,
together with reports from the Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor (GEM), argued for the development of
entrepreneurship education at all levels of the Irish
Formal education 'about'
enterprise and employability
or guided assignments that
raise awareness
Education 'for' enterprise.
Opportunity-centred learning
and creative problem-solving
that integrates business and
e-learning
Group and individual
projects/venture
planning/innovation and
design-based tasks, work
placements and experiential
and reflective contextualized
learning
Formal education 'about'
enterprise and employability
or guided assignments that
raise awareness
Enterprise awareness
Understanding what
enterprise means to me
DeveIoping an
entrepreneuriaI mindset
Participating in enterprising
learning and activities
DeveIoping entrepreneuriaI
capabiIity
Developing capability and
confidence through guided
experience and practice
EntrepreneuriaI
effectiveness
Ìndependent self-direction
Progressing individual goals
and approaches
Specialist start-up units
Careers support
Student Union support and
enterprise society interactions
Social media and distributed
media
Business ideas generation,
competitions, careers
guidance and development
of social and career
networks
Enterprise society events
and engaging with business
Taking responsibility for
social enterprise and
community-based projects,
organizing activities and
events
Student representation roles
and engaging with business
Pre-incubation and venture
planning, venture creation,
coaching and being
coached, internships and
proactive networking
Figure 2. Developing entrepreneurial effectiveness within and outside the curriculum.
Source: QAA, 2012, p 12.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 393
education system in order to ensure a sustainable source
of locally grown entrepreneurs. The 2008 European
Commission (EC) report Entrepreneurship in Higher
Education, Especially Within Non-Business Studies
noted that at higher education institutions across the EU
entrepreneurship had not been sufficiently integrated
into the curricula. In Ireland the National Strategy for
Higher Education, also known as the ‘Hunt Report’
(2011), highlighted the central role to be played by
HEIs in nurturing greater levels of creativity and
entrepreneurship, and advocated the need for
widespread reform of the HEI system at all levels. The
arguments on the importance of and the need to promote
the entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning
agenda appear to have been universally recognized and
accepted.
In response, HETAC launched an initiative in 2011
to develop draft guidelines and key criteria for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education. The Council
convened a panel of experts from across Ireland and
drew on other expertise from the UK and the EU.
Following a series of workshops and conferences the
Council published its guidelines to support HEIs in
Ireland. The guidelines acknowledged the work already
ongoing in Irish HEIs to promote the agenda, but
recognized that much more needed to be done before
the full potential of the guidelines to contribute to the
entrepreneurship agenda could be realized
Agreeing a de?nition for ‘entrepreneurship’ was, as
in the UK, a key starting point for the panel of experts.
The EC Report (EC, 2008b), given its focus on
entrepreneurship education especially including
non-business studies faculties, provided a useful starting
point in that it referred to an individual’s ability to turn
ideas into action. It was seen to include creativity,
innovation and risk taking as well as an ability to plan
and manage projects to achieve objectives. Critically,
this pushed the de?nition beyond the notion of
entrepreneurship as being solely about starting a new
business and embraced a wider agenda for the
development and growth of established business and the
launch of social or community enterprises. As suggested
by Timmons and Spinelli (2009) ‘entrepreneurship’ was
understood to be more a way of thinking and behaving,
and identifying opportunities; about the realization of
value, and building and learning from relationships; a
way of gathering and using scarce resources; about
being positive and taking risks; and about building for
the future. Re?ecting the work of Heinonen and
Poikkijoki (2005) ‘entrepreneurship education’ was
identi?ed as being aimed at developing enterprising or
entrepreneurial people and increasing their
understanding of and knowledge about entrepreneurship
and enterprise. Drawing on the EC Report of 2008,
‘entrepreneurship education’ had to be differentiated
from general business and economics studies, to be seen
as more about developing personal attributes and skills
that form the basis of an entrepreneurial mindset and
behaviour. It was conceived as including creativity,
initiative, risk-taking, autonomy, self-con?dence,
leadership and team spirit: it aims to raise students’
awareness of self-employment and new venture creation
as possible career choices by means, for example, of
work on practical enterprise projects and activities and
by providing speci?c business skills and knowledge of
how to start and run a company successfully.
Three quite distinct roles for entrepreneurship
education informed the response of the HETAC panel of
experts, each being context speci?c. These suggested
that students might (i) study entrepreneurship with a
view to acquiring knowledge about the subject as a
concept; (ii) learn to become entrepreneurial,
developing entrepreneurial skills and competencies; and
(iii) learn to become new venture entrepreneurs, by
acquiring the knowledge and skills speci?cally needed
for starting up and developing a new business venture,
(Bridge et al, 2011; Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2005).
The HETAC guidelines were designed to help HEIs
in developing and sustaining a healthy ‘entrepreneurial
ecosystem’, an environment that included and
empowered all of an institution’s entrepreneurially
active people and directed appropriate resources to
supporting the propagation of enterprising activity and
the development of entrepreneurial skills and attitudes
amongst staff as well as students. General criteria were
identi?ed to help individual HEIs evaluate the health of
their entrepreneurial ecosystems, including learning
outcomes, leadership, culture, learning approaches and
assessment.
The ‘learning outcomes’ criterion articulates
outcomes at an appropriate level in a higher education
programme as statements of what students need to
know, understand and can do in relation to enterprise
and entrepreneurship. Such outcomes are organized
under the headings of:
• Entrepreneurial Behaviour;
• Attitudes and Skill Development;
• Creating Empathy with the Entrepreneurial
Life-World;
• Key Entrepreneurial Values;
• Motivation and Entrepreneurship Career;
• Understanding of Process of Business Entry and
Tasks;
• Generic Entrepreneurship Competencies; and
• Key Minimum Business Know-How and Managing
Relationships.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 394
Leadership at all levels of the institution is recognized
as key to the development and maintenance of any
entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly coming from
‘top management’ (Gibb et al, 2009). An explicit
demonstration by those in senior roles in HEIs of their
strong commitment to the entrepreneurship education
agenda is seen as critical if others are to take the agenda
seriously. Such demonstration includes giving due
reward, recognition and empowerment, including
promotion, to those in the institution who demonstrably
engage with entrepreneurial practitioners and work at
the interface with the business sector. This is no easy
task in a climate of economic recession which
constrains the resources of HEIs.
According to the EC Survey of Entrepreneurship
Education (EC, 2008), in addition to appropriate
leadership and the development of core learning
outcomes the adoption of experienced-based learning
approaches is identi?ed as more effective in fostering
entrepreneurial skills in comparison with traditional
lectures. Furthermore, the involvement of
entrepreneurial practitioners in curriculum development
was also recognized as important and in?uential in
developing a supportive culture for generating and
maintaining a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. The
HETAC guidelines recognized that staff might need to
be convinced of the bene?ts of integrating the
entrepreneurship agenda into their programmes and of
their own capacity to achieve this outcome. To that end
appropriate training support and recognition and
rewards are acknowledged as important factors in
generating the culture needed for development of a
healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The embedding of entrepreneurial learning outcomes
in curricula is recognized in the HETAC guidelines as
an essential part of a strategy to support the learning
experience of students and the development of an
entrepreneurial ecosystem in an HEI. Such learning
outcomes should never be a ‘bolt-on’ to any programme
at any level. The challenge is to provide students with
an environment in which they can safely practice the
entrepreneurial skills they are acquiring. The exclusive
provision of discrete entrepreneurship modules was
thought to be unlikely to provide students with authentic
learning opportunities unless the modules were
integrated into other aspects of the programme.
A key factor for programme teams is the design of
appropriate assessments. The HETAC guidelines
recognized the critical relationship between learning
outcomes, teaching and learning activities and
assessment, and the importance of ensuring that
appropriate modes of assessment were designed for each
level of programme that authentically tested the stated
learning outcomes. Interestingly, HETAC itself was
restructured during educational reforms in Ireland and
the document has remained in draft form, although it is
in?uential in the enterprise education community.
In recent times HEIs in the UK and the EU more
generally have faced unprecedented challenges from
government, business and wider society to become
‘more meaningful’ in terms of how they carry out their
role as centres of learning. They are increasingly
required not only to become more relevant to society
but also to demonstrate the economic impact of their
teaching and research. HEIs are required to behave
much more entrepreneurially and to re?ect more closely
this new world in their efforts to support students’
learning and to prepare them for the job market (Gibb
and Hannon, 2005). In this regard, HEIs are being asked
to develop a new culture and ecosystem that supports
greater creativity and innovation in what and how
students learn that will make them ‘more relevant’ in
society as enterprising employees or as new business
venturers. In Ireland the HETAC guidelines and criteria
aim to support HEIs in reviewing enterprise and
entrepreneurship education provision, helping their staff
to build on current activities and to generate more
entrepreneurial activities themselves.
Conclusion
In this paper, we provide a critical narrative of the
development of the QAA Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship Education guidance in the UK and the
HETAC document in Ireland. These two documents
were developed by experts who, individually and
cumulatively, contributed their knowledge, experience
and empirically rigorous research to inform future
developments in enterprise and entrepreneurship
education in the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe as
well as other industrially developed and developing
nations. Feedback, consultation and observations from
various stakeholders were all sought during and after the
completion of drafts. The relevant content and process
are summarized in this paper, in order to frame a debate
on the future value, contribution, possible disadvantages
and future development of these and similar
frameworks.
This process started at a workshop at the 2012 ISBE
conference. A number of key themes and questions have
emerged since that workshop, including:
(1) The de?nitional stance, distinguishing between
enterprise and entrepreneurship helps to make sense
of learning outcomes, because it indicates whether
the learning is innovation-led and based on
individual competencies, or implementation-led and
based on procedures and processes;
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 395
(2) Enterprise is a necessary precursor to
entrepreneurship: without the skills of creativity and
innovation, new avenues for business opportunities
(rather than replication) cannot readily be explored;
and
(3) If learning is to be considered authentic and
context-based, in order to ensure relevance, broader
stakeholder engagement is required to limit the
potential for over-subjectivity by a single
university-led assessor.
At the core of these issues is a question related to
associative learning, which assumes that learners can
and will make new and innovative connections, within
the limits of their own knowledge and experience. In
terms of evaluation and assessment, this assumption can
present a problem. If divergent, creative and
non-conformist approaches bring forth new ideas and
perspectives, how can such activities in learning be
evaluated within the prescribed learning outcomes that
predict achievement? Moreover, if each student learns
as an individual, whilst often acting as a team member,
how can this be evaluated within the perceived
robustness of a standardized assessment strategy?
We would like to continue this debate on the value of
formal guidance on enterprise and entrepreneurship
education by seeking feedback and responses from a
wide variety of national, regional and international
stakeholders. Some indicative questions relating to this
context might be as follows.
(1) How useful are these guidelines in practice?
(2) How have they been used? For example, (a) in
developing, designing, delivering, assessing,
evaluating programmes and (b) in generating staff
awareness and staff development?
(3) How could the effectiveness of the guidelines be
evaluated?
(4) How can the policy-led requirement for assessment
of the impact of EEE be accommodated?
(5) How can they be revised, developed and improved
in future?
Notes
1
BTEC, the Business and Technology Education Council, a
leading provider in the UK of vocational quali?cations, was
merged in 1996 with the University of London Examination and
Assessment Council (ULEAC), one of the major exam boards in
the UK for GCSEs and A-levels (secondary school level), to form
Edexcel. The term ‘BTEC awards’ refers generically to
vocational quali?cations.
2
’Thatcherism’, which has acquired a wide range of
interpretations, is the term used to describe the political and
economic policies of Margaret Thatcher when she was Britain’s
Prime Minister: it is therefore especially associated with the
1980s in Britain. The policies placed an emphasis on private
enterprise, privatization, a reduction in in?ation and government
spending and the idea that people should help themselves
rather than relying on the state to help them.
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doc_240174188.pdf
During in this such a brief explanation around refocusing building a future for entrepreneurial education and learning higgins.
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Heriot-Watt University
Refocusing – building a future for entrepreneurial education and learning
Higgins, David; Galloway, Laura
Published in:
Industry and Higher Education
DOI:
10.5367/ihe.2014.0233
Publication date:
2014
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Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record
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Citation for published version (APA):
Higgins, D., & Galloway, L. (2014). Refocusing – building a future for entrepreneurial education and learning.
Industry and Higher Education, 28(6), 449. 10.5367/ihe.2014.0233
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SPECIAL ISSUE
Entrepreneurship
education and learning
and the real world
Introduction
Laura Galloway, David Higgins and Pauric McGowan
Laura Galloway is in the School of Management and Languages, Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK. David Higgins (corresponding editor) is in the Department of
Leadership and Management, University of Hudders?eld, Queensgate, Hudders?eld HD1
3DH, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Pauric McGowan is with the Department of
Marketing, Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown
Campus, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim BT37 0QB, UK
It is with great pleasure that we introduce this special
issue of Industry and Higher Education. The papers that
follow have been selected, reviewed and developed for
publication following their original presentation in the
‘Enterprise Education and Entrepreneurial Learning’
tracks of the 36th Annual Conference of the Institute for
Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) held in
Cardiff in November 2013.
The papers are collected here to show some of the
most interesting developments in academic and
practitioner work in entrepreneurship education and
learning. Collectively, they explore the utility of
entrepreneurship education for the contexts of
entrepreneurship and employment and the applicability
of skills in ‘real world’ practice.
In the ?rst paper, ‘Freedom or prescription: the case
for curriculum guidance in enterprise and
entrepreneurship education’, Rae et al investigate the
effectiveness of policy-led frameworks for
entrepreneurship education based on the expectation
that it will result in value creation in the economy –
especially pertinent in this time of economic recovery.
The authors note that evidence of a direct link between
entrepreneurship education and new venture creation is
weak. They explore in some detail the UK’s Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance and a document on
entrepreneurship education from Ireland’s Higher
Education Training and Awards Council (HETAC),
comparing the proposed approaches. Rae et al advocate
caution among educators with respect to the in?uence of
government agendas on the design of entrepreneurship
education programmes.
In the next paper, Penaluna et al explore the case of
assessing creativity through learning outcomes. The
authors argue that the prescriptive nature of teaching
and learning and the standardized testing of learning
outcomes in traditional education may inhibit creativity.
Some disciplines do not follow this trend, however, and
pedagogies in subjects such as design seem to be highly
effective in developing creativity that transforms into
social and economic value. Since we know
entrepreneurship requires and bene?ts from those with
developed creative abilities, the authors suggest that
there are lessons to be learned in entrepreneurship
education from practices in the design-based disciplines.
With regard to assessment, for example, they suggest
that measures including cognitive process, design
development and learning from doing and from failing
might be more appropriate than discrete outcomes such
as products or plans.
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION Vol 28, No 6, December 2014, pp 385–386, doi: 10.5367/ihe.2014.0234
In ‘Extracurricular business planning competitions:
challenging the assumptions’, Watson et al develop
some of these principles further, examining the very
common use of business plan competitions in
universities. They note that these competitions are
assumed to promote entrepreneurship and as such are
legitimized as a bene?cial form of entrepreneurship
education, but they advise caution in the application of
these assumptions. First, they highlight the danger that a
focus on nascent entrepreneurial activity may exclude
post-creation activity. Second, they point out that there
is no evidence that those who enter these competitions
want to be entrepreneurs. Watson et al argue, like
Penaluna et al, that an over-reliance on planning
assumes that nascent business activity is a rational,
sequential process, whereas we know that for many
established ?rms this was not the case. Thus, they
contend, winning a business plan competition does not
make successful business creation more likely and,
indeed, not winning does not preclude business start-up
success. In conclusion, Eatson et al recommend a
reorientation in education from planning to
implementation-based teaching and learning.
The next three papers are concerned with the skills
developed by entrepreneurship education. McNeil et al
argue that entrepreneurship and employment
destinations for graduates are not mutually exclusive.
Using observations from Manchester Metropolitan
University Business School’s Centre for Enterprise, they
suggest that support for destinations that include
entrepreneurship and/or employment should extend
beyond graduation. This would provide more effective
support as well as opportunities for ongoing knowledge
exchange between universities and their alumni.
Also focusing on support and skills development,
Refai and Thompson discuss speci?cally the
entrepreneurship education case for pharmacy students.
They report on a qualitative study of pharmacy
employers and pharmacy educators in several UK
universities. Among their ?ndings is that evidence of
enterprise skills development in pharmacy studies is
limited, despite employers’ expressions of
dissatisfaction with graduates’ functional business skills
and tacit skills such as con?dence, communication and
initiative, often associated with business and enterprise
education. The authors conclude that more needs to be
done to prepare pharmacy students for the actual
economic and sectoral environment they will enter
when they graduate and that pharmacy educators might
bene?t from training to develop and integrate
entrepreneurship education into curricula. The
implications extend beyond pharmacy of course, and the
lessons related here may apply to many vocational
industries and professions and the educational provision
required for them.
From an entrepreneurial learning perspective,
Harrison and Kirkham’s ‘The application of re?exivity
in small business research and implications for the
business practitioner’ provides some interesting insights.
The paper reports the experience of a business owner in
undertaking a study of his business over time. This
ethnographic and re?exive case enables observation and
understanding of the processes in a developing company
in a dynamic business and social environment. The
study is a deliberate departure from the usual
methodologies of entrepreneurship and business
research, which frequently focus on ‘cause and effect’.
While the authors do not deny that such approaches
have their place, they argue that understanding of
business is constrained by a lack of engagement with
the idiosyncratic and dynamic. Harrison and Kirkham
maintain that re?exivity in particular has much to
contribute in terms of experiential learning for
practitioners. Further, they argue that there are lessons
too for entrepreneurship education, insofar as
individuality and process and engagement with different
perspectives of business, and how to do business, are
worthy of pedagogical consideration and development.
The ?nal paper, by Higgins and Galloway, draws
together the themes of the special issue. It outlines the
various developments taking place throughout the
entrepreneurship education community, including the
examination of why we do what we do, how we do it,
what works and what does not work, and how learning
is applied in entrepreneurship and/or in employment.
The use of different learning and teaching methods,
particularly those that afford experiential learning for
entrepreneurial implementation, is also explored. The
authors conclude that the academic case is made for
entrepreneurship education and propose greater
engagement with theory to further inform and develop
the ?eld. Contextual and socially-focused theory,
particularly social learning theory, is advocated as a
useful framework within which the study of
entrepreneurship education and learning might develop.
As guest editors, we are very grateful for the
contributions of all the authors and the reviewers. We
believe that this special issue constitutes a valuable
contribution to the ?eld, particularly in terms of its
collective challenging of the assumptions we make
about entrepreneurship education and how we
investigate its effectiveness and utility in the real world.
Introduction
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 386
Freedom or prescription:
the case for curriculum
guidance in enterprise and
entrepreneurship education
David Rae, Harry Matlay, Pauric McGowan and
Andrew Penaluna
Abstract: This article reviews the development of guidance and frameworks
for enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) in higher education
institutions with reference to the international and European contexts as well
as educational development in the UK and Ireland. The arguments for and
the possible limitations and disadvantages of such frameworks are
discussed. There has been extensive work on EEE and on the development
of competence models, for example at secondary education level. This work
is critically reviewed to identify its contribution to the development of
educational guidance internationally and speci?cally in the UK and Ireland.
The paper provides a critical narrative of the development of the Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance in the UK and the Higher Education
Training and Awards Council (HETAC) document in Ireland by experts
involved in the design process and compares the approaches proposed.
While at European level there has been greater emphasis on institutional
frameworks focusing on the ‘entrepreneurial university’, there is scope for
comparison with the above educational frameworks. Feedback and
observations from enterprise educators at an international level are
summarized to contextualize a debate on the value, contribution, possible
disadvantages and future development of such frameworks. The
international interest in and adoption of related approaches have been
considerable and these are assessed. The paper has implications for
educational policies on EEE at national and HE institutional levels, as well as
for the practices of educators in designing, validating and delivering
educational awards.
Keywords: education policy; enterprise; employability; entrepreneurship
education; higher education curricula;
David Rae (corresponding author) is Dean of the Shannon School of Business at Cape
Breton University, PO Box 5300, Grand Lake Road, Sydney, NS B1P 6 L2, Canada. E-mail:
[email protected]. Harry Matlay is with the Faculty of Business and Creative Industries,
Business School, University of the West of Scotland, Hamilton Campus, Almada Street,
Hamilton ML3 0JB, UK. Pauric McGowan is with the Department of Marketing,
Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the University of Ulster, Jordanstown Campus, Shore Road,
Newtownabbey, Co Antrim BT37 0QB, UK. Andrew Penaluna is with the Pro Vice
Chancellor’s Office (Enterprise) at the University of Wales Trinity St David, Mount Pleasant,
Swansea SA1 6ED, UK.
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION Vol 28, No 6, December 2014, pp 387–398, doi: 10.5367/ihe.2014.0227
This article explores the role, contribution and issues
arising from the development of guidelines for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) in
higher education institutions. The period since 2008 in
particular has seen a growing emphasis on the role of
entrepreneurship and education in higher education,
arising in part from the need to identify strategies for
achieving economic recovery from a major recession
and ways of creating employment for graduates. Whilst
the period preceding the 2008 banking crisis had seen a
steady growth in state investment in EEE, since then
there has been a reduction of investment but a
strengthened policy focus.
There has been extensive work on EEE and on the
development of competence models, for example at
secondary education level. This work is critically
reviewed to identify its contribution to the development
of educational guidance internationally as well as
speci?cally in the UK and Ireland. In addition, a critical
narrative is provided of the development of the Quality
Assurance Agency (QAA) guidance in the UK and the
Higher Education Training and Awards Council
(HETAC) document in Ireland by experts involved in
the design process and compares the approaches
proposed. At a European level, there has been greater
emphasis on institutional frameworks centring on the
‘entrepreneurial university’ and there is scope to
compare this approach with these curricular
frameworks. Using feedback and observations from
enterprise educators at an international level, the value,
contribution, possible disadvantages and future
development of such frameworks are considered and
both the substantial level of international interest and
the adoption of related approaches are assessed.
The article is expected to have implications for
educational policies on EEE at national and institutional
levels, as well as for educators involved with the design,
validation and delivery of educational awards. It poses
questions on the value created by the application of such
frameworks as well as in the future revision and
development of these approaches.
The debate: freedom or prescription?
Enterprise and entrepreneurship education has developed
from a diverse set of starting points, as outlined in the
review section. There has been extensive scope for
creative approaches and innovation in learning design
and delivery, in many cases with a strong emphasis on
experiential and discovery-led learning. This eclecticism
is in accordance with Gibb’s ‘entrepreneurial life world’
(Gibb, 2011), but the increase in EEE provision and the
prevailing policy context, especially subsequent to 2008,
creates a tension between the autonomy and
independence given to educators in creating a wide range
of approaches, with the drive for models which can be
shown to achieve policy goals, with increasing emphasis
on measurable impact.
The policy literature – at international, European and
UK levels – regards EEE as an instrument for achieving
economic goals of growth, value creation and
employment. Increasingly, studies based on this
approach seek causal links between EEE and an
evidence base which can demonstrate direct
relationships between educational inputs and outputs
that lead to behavioural and economic outcomes. This
tendency is exempli?ed by a recent study by
Williamson et al (2013) commissioned by the UK
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
on the impact of enterprise education on further and
higher education. This study featured a ‘logic model’ of
student participation based on a ‘theory of change gain
from formal and non-formal education and training’.
When applied to the extant literature, this approach
summarized the evidence and gaps in the research.
Overall, only weak evidence was found of any direct
relationships between EEE and entrepreneurial actions
such as venture creation. The lack of evaluation studies
which can directly demonstrate causal links between
educational inputs, actions and economic impact was
noted, although (perhaps surprisingly, given the overall
?ndings) it also observes that ‘it is evident that
enterprise and entrepreneurship education leads to
economic impacts’ (GHK, 2013, p 77). However, both
the literature on entrepreneurship education and
evaluation and tracking methodologies are found to be
de?cient in comparison with a recent European study
(EC, 2012).
Such commentary raises dilemmas for educators as
well as for their universities. The clear direction of
policy is that EEE is expected to contribute directly to
post-recessionary economic regeneration and
performance, as an integral part of a coordinated
university-wide approach to entrepreneurship. This
direction is embodied in the literature on the
‘entrepreneurial university’, and more recently with
regard to institutional awards and policy studies such as
European-level enquiries into the ‘entrepreneurial
potential of higher education’ (EC, 2013). There is a
lack of evidence that EEE does make the economic
contributions and impact that policy makers require.
Moreover, it risks compromising the independence and
intellectual autonomy which is rightly held to be a
fundamental principle of higher education. Increasingly
this principle is seen as a luxury in an era of economic
stringency: there is a danger that HE is expected to
provide entrepreneurship training with speci?c
outcomes of entrepreneurial action and venture creation.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 388
The policy-led argument includes a critique of the
eclectic approaches within EEE and the lack of a single,
‘best practice’ model or approach. In the 1990s, US-led
approaches such as the Babson College model, or the
MIT entrepreneurship programme, were seen as
exemplars; these approaches have since been recognized
for the transferable contributions they can make to
indigenous learning models. A difficulty with the quest
for an ‘optimal’ model of EEE is that education and
learning, by their nature, are situated in social and
cultural contexts and practices, so that what is held to
‘work’ in one situation is not necessarily transferable to
a different, albeit similar situation (Blenker et al, 2011).
Because there is a strong move by educators to ‘embed’
EEE in the social and cultural context, just as there is in
the subject discipline, adopting a generic model is
problematic.
There have been attempts in UK primary and
secondary education to de?ne competence frameworks
for enterprise education, but these have tended to
encounter problems such as confusion in de?ning what
‘enterprise’ is, what is being assessed, and the degree of
?exibility of interpretation afforded to both educator and
learners; it can be argued that prescription of the
enterprise curriculum does not really work (Draycott
and Rae, 2011). Moves to de?ne a ‘core curriculum’ in
enterprise have recurred, such as at post-16 and FE
levels in certain vocational areas – for instance, by
inclusion in BTEC awards.
1
However, evaluation and
constructive alignment of learning outcomes (Biggs,
2003) have continued to prove elusive (McLarty et al,
2010).
In higher education, it is likely that the argument for
prescribed or mandatory models of learning would ?nd
much opposition and little support. However, the Oslo
Agenda (EC, 2006b) is one of a number of calls for
‘improved practice-based pedagogical tools’. In the UK,
there has been a succession of educator-based initiatives
to enhance the quality and effectiveness of
entrepreneurship education, including an
acknowledgement of the need for greater consistency in
the assessment of learning outcomes, one of which was
a project supported by the Higher Education Academy
(HEA). This paved the way for dialogue between
educators and policy organizations on the potential
value of a set of guidelines to provide advice and
information on the development of entrepreneurship
education, supported by information and experience
from researchers and practitioners.
The importance of EEE
In recent years, self-employment and entrepreneurship
have grown in importance at both micro- and
macro-economic levels (Parker, 2004; EC, 2006a). The
perceptions of individuals, communities and
governments converge on the notion that
entrepreneurship in general and entrepreneurs in
particular make a positive contribution to the
socio-economic, cultural and political infrastructure of a
nation (Matlay, 2005a). As a result, entrepreneurship
has climbed to the top of the political agenda in
industrially developed and developing nations as well as
in countries in transition (Naudé, 2008; Matlay, 2008).
In this context, Van Praag and Versloot (2007) claim
that entrepreneurship makes a signi?cant contribution to
income generation, job creation, research and
development (R&D) as well as generating a wide
spectrum of economic bene?ts that exceed the personal
rewards that accrue to the entrepreneurs themselves. In
addition, the vast proportion of emergent technological,
product, service, knowledge and process innovation is
linked to entrepreneurial activities which diverge from
imitative and ‘me too’ approaches to small business
creation and management (Bessant and Tidd, 2007;
Czop and Leszczynska, 2011).
Wennekers et al (2010, p 4) highlight the importance
of entrepreneurship to regional and global development
and claim that ‘entrepreneurship has become a key
policy issue ... insight in the relationship between
entrepreneurship and economic development across
countries is important for policymakers because it
provides them with a beacon for their endeavours’.
Acs et al (2005) posit that the knowledge created by
entrepreneurship and related innovation results in
knowledge spill-overs that make a considerable
contribution to new venture creation, which further
reinforces economic growth and wealth creation at
local, regional and national levels.
Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a process that
drives change and addresses important social issues and
humanitarian needs in modern society (Short et al,
2009). Social entrepreneurs are seen to confront a
multitude of social problems and challenges through
their focus and actions that seek to relieve poverty,
exclusion and ethnic discrimination. Thus, the outcomes
of social entrepreneurship can contribute directly and
indirectly to the welfare of individuals and communities
as well as societies (Zahra et al, 2009).
According to Matlay and Carey (2007), the growing
importance of entrepreneurship has enabled enterprise
and entrepreneurship education to be elevated on the
agenda of policy makers and governments. These
authors argue that this re?ects a dominant paradigm
which asserts that more and better entrepreneurship
education will invariably result in a comparable growth
in both the quality and the quantity of entrepreneurs
entering an economy. Given the current high rates of
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 389
adult unemployment in general and youth
unemployment in particular, entrepreneurship education
is viewed as a cost-effective way to facilitate the
transition of large school leaver and graduate cohorts
from compulsory and higher education into
self-employment or salaried work (Rae, 2007; Draycott
and Rae, 2011).
Traditionally, business schools have offered various
types of enterprise and entrepreneurship education to
increase their students’ employability rates and reduce
persistent unemployment and underemployment
amongst their graduates (Matlay, 2005b; Binks et al,
2007; Refaat, 2009). In recent years, however, faculties
other than business schools have begun to provide their
undergraduate and postgraduate students with
customized enterprise and entrepreneurship education,
to facilitate the transition into self-employment and
business ownership (Levenburg et al, 2006; Carey and
Matlay, 2011) or, for instance in the arts, recognition
and rede?nition of existing practice as being
entrepreneurial (ADM-HEA, 2007). In most countries
much of this growth in both undergraduate and
postgraduate provision can be attributed to the
expansion of enterprise and entrepreneurship education
across institutes of higher and further education
(Solomon, 2007; Henry and Treanor, 2010).
Enterprise and entrepreneurship education
in the UK and in Europe
The adoption of enterprise and entrepreneurship
education by higher education institutions (HEIs) in the
UK began in the late 1970s; but only during the early
1980s did business schools begin deliberately to
develop the skills of graduate entrepreneurs and small
business owner–managers (Matlay, 1984). EEE grew
slowly during the 1980s, becoming a ‘top-up’ option for
?nal year business school undergraduates and
postgraduate students who were contemplating small
business ownership or management (Jack and Anderson,
1999; Peters, 2001). Much of its early development was
grounded in Thatcherism and the related ideology of
enterprise culture (Gibb, 1993).
2
By the 1990s just over
half of all HEIs in the UK were offering courses and
modules in enterprise start-up, small business
management and vocational education and training in
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). There was
no more extensive, dedicated provision that embedded
enterprise and entrepreneurship education in specialized
undergraduate or postgraduate curricula in UK business
schools (Matlay, 2005b). However, by 2006 most HEIs
were offering courses, modules and educational
experiences that focused on enterprise and/or
entrepreneurship (Hannon, 2006). Currently, enterprise
and entrepreneurship education is present in all UK
HEIs. As part of a wider socio-economic, educational
and political strategy, it embeds concepts of enterprise
and entrepreneurship, which permeate through the entire
UK educational system (Rae et al, 2012). Thus elements
of enterprise and entrepreneurship education can be
found in the curriculum of primary and secondary
schools as well as in HEIs at undergraduate,
postgraduate and doctoral levels (McLarty et al, 2010;
McKeown et al, 2006)
Recently, there has been signi?cant activity at
international level to connect entrepreneurship
education with economic development (World
Economic Forum, 2009), to establish activity levels
(Martínez et al, 2010) and to assess its effects and
impact (EC, 2012). The United Nations Conference for
Trade and Development provides clear policy guidance
on the role of education in the entrepreneurship
ecostructure that they wish to enhance (UNCTAD,
2012). An international theme is emerging that indicates
a requirement for new and innovative assessment
strategies (Pittaway and Edwards, 2013), and the
formation of the European Commission’s Thematic
Working Group Entrepreneurship Education indicates
the level of support that is emerging for active change in
strategies for educational evaluation. This provides an
international context for the development of curricular
guidance in the UK and Ireland
The development of the QAA guidance in
the UK
During 2010–2011 there was acceptance of the need in
the UK for a comprehensive approach to recommending
a framework for the development of enterprise and
entrepreneurship education. This was signalled by the
Concordat agreed at the Cardiff IEEC in September
2010 (EE UK, 2010) and in contributions to policy
dialogues with the responsible government department,
BIS, following the 2010 General Election. The new
coalition government published a Higher Education
White Paper as a precursor to its planned radical reform
of the sector and, while this never resulted in legislation,
it included two commitments on enterprise in HE: one
to the development of enterprise student societies, and
the other to the publication of guidelines on enterprise
and entrepreneurship education (BIS, 2011). Both
intentions represented the outcome of lobbying and
policy dialogue over several months by relevant people
and organizations. In this new period of public spending
austerity, it was signi?cant that the enterprise society
initiative, favoured by the then Minister of State and led
by NACUE (the National Association of College and
University Entrepreneurs), was funded, whilst the
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 390
enterprise education initiative was not. The Wilson
Review of HE–industry collaboration (2012) also
strongly endorsed the enterprise society initiative.
The QAA is the organization responsible for HE
academic standard-setting and quality in the UK. It was
given the remit for development of the guidelines and
convened a Graduate Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
Group (GEEG). This was chaired by Professor Andy
Penaluna, at the time the Chair of EE UK and regarded
as an in?uential ?gure in championing the move
towards a guidance document. The group also
comprised representatives of key organizations
including the Higher Education Academy (HEA), the
Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
(ISBE), the National Centre for Entrepreneurship
Education (NCEE), NACUE, Enterprise Educators UK
(EE UK), the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory
Services (AGCAS), and a number of experts in the HE
enterprise and entrepreneurship ?eld. The GEEG ?rst
met in July 2011 and subsequently, on a number of
subsequent occasions, in the following 12 months. From
a full membership of 13, it effectively became an active
working group of around half this number which
co-ordinated, drafted, exchanged and revised the content
of the document.
After considerable debate and review of the remit,
the group agreed that the guidance document would
include:
• An introduction stating the purpose and features of
the guidance;
• A policy context for and overview of the nature of
EEE;
• De?nitions of key terms and distinctions;
• Enterprise in the student learning experience;
• Graduate outcomes; and
• Delivery: teaching, learning and assessment.
The group reviewed extant frameworks and models for
EEE, including in particular Gibb’s (2005) learning
outcomes in enterprise education and the guidance
intended to build on these, adding coherence to existing
approaches to enhance students’ experiences of EEE
and provide a unifying framework for standards. Noting
the de?nitional confusion about ‘What is enterprise and
how is it different from entrepreneurship?’ the guidance
set out clear statements on these terms in relation to
education:
‘Enterprise is de?ned here as the application of
creative ideas and innovations to practical situations.
This is a generic concept that can be applied across
all areas of education. It combines creativity, ideas
development and problem solving with expression,
communication and practical action.
Enterprise education aims to produce graduates with
the mindset and skills to come up with original ideas
in response to identi?ed needs and shortfalls, and the
ability to act on them. In short, having an idea and
making it happen.
Entrepreneurship is de?ned as the application of
enterprise skills speci?cally to creating and growing
organisations in order to identify and build on
opportunities.
Entrepreneurship education focuses on the
development and application of an enterprising
mindset and skills in the speci?c contexts of setting
up a new venture, developing and growing an
existing business, or designing an entrepreneurial
organisation.’ (QAA, 2012, p 8)
Explanation of the distinction between entrepreneurs
and business owners, the inclusion of social enterprise
within a broad understanding of enterprise, the
relationship between enterprise and student
employability, and the distinction between education
‘about’ and ‘for’ entrepreneurship were areas of
ambiguity and debate which were addressed in this
section. The guidance recognized that students often
gain practical skills and experience through
participation in extra-curricular schemes, such as
membership of student societies or participation in
‘start-up’ schemes, instead of or alongside curricular
learning. Although the emphasis of the document was
on the curriculum, extra-curricular experiences and
activities needed to be valued as part of the learning
process of entrepreneurial behaviours.
The document set out a framework for development
and assessment of enterprise and entrepreneurship
behaviours, attributes and skills which, taken together,
contribute towards the development of an
entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial
effectiveness. Mindset and effectiveness, the ability to
function effectively as an entrepreneur or in an
entrepreneurial capacity, were seen as critical outcomes
for learners from the educational process. It proposed
that:
‘Entrepreneurial effectiveness is developed through a
combination of:
• Enterprise awareness;
• Entrepreneurial mindset; and
• Entrepreneurial capability.’
Entrepreneurial effectiveness was de?ned as the ability
to behave in enterprising and entrepreneurial ways. This
is achieved through the development of enhanced
awareness, mindset and capabilities to enable learners to
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 391
perform effectively in taking up opportunities and
achieving desired results.’ (QAA, 2012, p 10)
The relationship was developed and is illustrated in
Figure 1, which was included in the document. The
concepts of awareness and entrepreneurial mindset,
capability and effectiveness were seen as existing,
proven and generally accepted ideas from the
entrepreneurship literature that could be used as the
basis for a generic framework. The guidance was
explicit about its applicability across all subject and
academic disciplinary areas, and the need to move
entrepreneurship beyond its ‘comfort zone’ in business
studies into the creative arts, sciences and indeed all
areas.
In terms of learning style, ‘as students pass through
the stages of enterprise awareness, entrepreneurial
mindset and entrepreneurial capability to achieve
entrepreneurial effectiveness, there is expected to be an
associated shift in the focus of learning: from learning
by transmission or passive learning to problem solving
and active engagement’ (QAA, 2012, p 24).
Each of these concepts was de?ned, explained and
detailed in the guidance together with suggestions on
learning strategies. The section on entrepreneurial
capabilities introduced a framework of graduate
outcomes of enterprising behaviours, attributes and
skills. This suggested assessable outcome statements of
what students should be able to demonstrate or do, and
learning opportunities which should be included in the
curriculum. These were expanded into eight thematic
areas:
• Creativity and innovation;
• Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation;
• Decision making supported by critical analysis and
judgement;
• Implementation of ideas through leadership and
management;
• Re?ection and action;
• Interpersonal skills; and
• Communication and strategic skills.
Any such framework of capabilities is inevitably quite
generalized and overlaps with other lists and
taxonomies, in particular graduate outcomes and
employability skills. Rather than this being problematic,
it should enable course developers to identify where
entrepreneurial skills and learning opportunities already
exist or can be developed in programmes. This is
consistent with viewing enterprise and entrepreneurship
as generic and transferable life skills rather than
specialized or domain-speci?c skills.
The guidelines adopted a student-centred rather than
curriculum-centred approach, recognizing that the
development of entrepreneurial mindset, capabilities and
effectiveness is individual and occurs through unique
combinations of experience, formal and informal
learning. With such an approach a university can create
a rich entrepreneurial learning environment with a range
EntrepreneuriaI mindset
Personality and social identity
Ambition, motivation and goals
Personal confidence and resilience
Self-discipline and personal
organization
Go beyond perceived limitations
to achieve results
Tolerance of uncertainty, risk and
failure
Personal values: ethical, social
and environmental awareness
EntrepreneuriaI capabiIity
A range of behaviours, attributes and skills
Creativity and innovation
Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
Ìmplementation of ideas through leadership and management
Reflection and action
Ìnterpersonal skills
Communication and strategy skills
Enterprise awareness
Understanding what
enterprise means to me
EntrepreneuriaI effectiveness
Ìndependent self-direction
Progress individual goals and
approaches
Ìmplement enterprising ideas
Generate business and career options
Undertake new venture creation
Appreciate and create multiple forms of
value
Ìdentify and approach target markets
Figure 1. Connecting the development of entrepreneurial effectiveness with graduate outcomes.
Source: QAA, 2012, p 15.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 392
of opportunities with which students will engage in
many different modes, in iterative rather than linear
ways, with diverse starting and future transition points.
This was conceptualized in a model showing how the
development of entrepreneurial effectiveness could
occur in relation to both curricular and extra-curricular
learning (see Figure 2).
Finally, the section on ‘Delivery: teaching, learning
and assessment’ proposed general principles for
individual learning within this ‘ecostructure’ and a
progression of learning strategies and methods from
controlled, ‘safe’ modes towards enterprising,
personalized and active behaviours. That is, from:
• Case studies to emerging situations:
• Abstract problems to innovation;
• Passive learning to active learning;
• Objective analysis to subjective experience;
• Text-heavy communication to multimedia
communication;
• Neutrality to personal perspectives;
• Formal activities to authentic activities;
• Fearing failure to learning from failure; and
• Dependency to self-reliance and resilience. (QAA,
2012, p 25)
The guidelines were published in draft for consultation
in spring 2012 and circulated in the HE sector to all
HEIs and related interest groups. Over 70 responses
were received which were considered by the GEEG. A
key theme emerged, with critical and positive responses
being almost equally balanced, with respondents
commenting on there being insufficient considerations
of creativity and too little business-related guidance.
The QAA itself played an important role in editing,
publishing and distributing the guidelines at both draft
and ?nal stages. Once the responses to the consultation
had been incorporated, in summer 2012, the ?nal
version of the document was published in September of
that year.
Following this, Enterprise Educators UK was asked
by its membership to provide a series of workshops and
best practice events to help educators to develop new
provisions. Focusing on in-curriculum developments,
these workshops took into account the QAA’s thematic
approaches with regard to writing and evaluating for
assessment (EEUK, 2013).
Development of the HETAC guidance in
Ireland
The Higher Education and Training Awards Council
(HETAC) case illustrates the Entrepreneurship
Education Agenda in Ireland, and its development
provides an interesting comparison with the case of the
UK, highlighting similarities, shared issues and starting
points, as well as differing responses.
The Entrepreneurship in Ireland report (FORFAS,
2002) found that the country’s school system did not
support sufficiently the idea of self-employment as a
realistic career option and that the Irish education
system was perceived by entrepreneurs to have played a
limited role in supporting entrepreneurship up to that
point. In 2004 the Enterprise Strategy Group report
(ESG, 2004) and in 2007 the report Towards
Developing an Entrepreneurship Policy in Ireland,
together with reports from the Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor (GEM), argued for the development of
entrepreneurship education at all levels of the Irish
Formal education 'about'
enterprise and employability
or guided assignments that
raise awareness
Education 'for' enterprise.
Opportunity-centred learning
and creative problem-solving
that integrates business and
e-learning
Group and individual
projects/venture
planning/innovation and
design-based tasks, work
placements and experiential
and reflective contextualized
learning
Formal education 'about'
enterprise and employability
or guided assignments that
raise awareness
Enterprise awareness
Understanding what
enterprise means to me
DeveIoping an
entrepreneuriaI mindset
Participating in enterprising
learning and activities
DeveIoping entrepreneuriaI
capabiIity
Developing capability and
confidence through guided
experience and practice
EntrepreneuriaI
effectiveness
Ìndependent self-direction
Progressing individual goals
and approaches
Specialist start-up units
Careers support
Student Union support and
enterprise society interactions
Social media and distributed
media
Business ideas generation,
competitions, careers
guidance and development
of social and career
networks
Enterprise society events
and engaging with business
Taking responsibility for
social enterprise and
community-based projects,
organizing activities and
events
Student representation roles
and engaging with business
Pre-incubation and venture
planning, venture creation,
coaching and being
coached, internships and
proactive networking
Figure 2. Developing entrepreneurial effectiveness within and outside the curriculum.
Source: QAA, 2012, p 12.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 393
education system in order to ensure a sustainable source
of locally grown entrepreneurs. The 2008 European
Commission (EC) report Entrepreneurship in Higher
Education, Especially Within Non-Business Studies
noted that at higher education institutions across the EU
entrepreneurship had not been sufficiently integrated
into the curricula. In Ireland the National Strategy for
Higher Education, also known as the ‘Hunt Report’
(2011), highlighted the central role to be played by
HEIs in nurturing greater levels of creativity and
entrepreneurship, and advocated the need for
widespread reform of the HEI system at all levels. The
arguments on the importance of and the need to promote
the entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning
agenda appear to have been universally recognized and
accepted.
In response, HETAC launched an initiative in 2011
to develop draft guidelines and key criteria for
enterprise and entrepreneurship education. The Council
convened a panel of experts from across Ireland and
drew on other expertise from the UK and the EU.
Following a series of workshops and conferences the
Council published its guidelines to support HEIs in
Ireland. The guidelines acknowledged the work already
ongoing in Irish HEIs to promote the agenda, but
recognized that much more needed to be done before
the full potential of the guidelines to contribute to the
entrepreneurship agenda could be realized
Agreeing a de?nition for ‘entrepreneurship’ was, as
in the UK, a key starting point for the panel of experts.
The EC Report (EC, 2008b), given its focus on
entrepreneurship education especially including
non-business studies faculties, provided a useful starting
point in that it referred to an individual’s ability to turn
ideas into action. It was seen to include creativity,
innovation and risk taking as well as an ability to plan
and manage projects to achieve objectives. Critically,
this pushed the de?nition beyond the notion of
entrepreneurship as being solely about starting a new
business and embraced a wider agenda for the
development and growth of established business and the
launch of social or community enterprises. As suggested
by Timmons and Spinelli (2009) ‘entrepreneurship’ was
understood to be more a way of thinking and behaving,
and identifying opportunities; about the realization of
value, and building and learning from relationships; a
way of gathering and using scarce resources; about
being positive and taking risks; and about building for
the future. Re?ecting the work of Heinonen and
Poikkijoki (2005) ‘entrepreneurship education’ was
identi?ed as being aimed at developing enterprising or
entrepreneurial people and increasing their
understanding of and knowledge about entrepreneurship
and enterprise. Drawing on the EC Report of 2008,
‘entrepreneurship education’ had to be differentiated
from general business and economics studies, to be seen
as more about developing personal attributes and skills
that form the basis of an entrepreneurial mindset and
behaviour. It was conceived as including creativity,
initiative, risk-taking, autonomy, self-con?dence,
leadership and team spirit: it aims to raise students’
awareness of self-employment and new venture creation
as possible career choices by means, for example, of
work on practical enterprise projects and activities and
by providing speci?c business skills and knowledge of
how to start and run a company successfully.
Three quite distinct roles for entrepreneurship
education informed the response of the HETAC panel of
experts, each being context speci?c. These suggested
that students might (i) study entrepreneurship with a
view to acquiring knowledge about the subject as a
concept; (ii) learn to become entrepreneurial,
developing entrepreneurial skills and competencies; and
(iii) learn to become new venture entrepreneurs, by
acquiring the knowledge and skills speci?cally needed
for starting up and developing a new business venture,
(Bridge et al, 2011; Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2005).
The HETAC guidelines were designed to help HEIs
in developing and sustaining a healthy ‘entrepreneurial
ecosystem’, an environment that included and
empowered all of an institution’s entrepreneurially
active people and directed appropriate resources to
supporting the propagation of enterprising activity and
the development of entrepreneurial skills and attitudes
amongst staff as well as students. General criteria were
identi?ed to help individual HEIs evaluate the health of
their entrepreneurial ecosystems, including learning
outcomes, leadership, culture, learning approaches and
assessment.
The ‘learning outcomes’ criterion articulates
outcomes at an appropriate level in a higher education
programme as statements of what students need to
know, understand and can do in relation to enterprise
and entrepreneurship. Such outcomes are organized
under the headings of:
• Entrepreneurial Behaviour;
• Attitudes and Skill Development;
• Creating Empathy with the Entrepreneurial
Life-World;
• Key Entrepreneurial Values;
• Motivation and Entrepreneurship Career;
• Understanding of Process of Business Entry and
Tasks;
• Generic Entrepreneurship Competencies; and
• Key Minimum Business Know-How and Managing
Relationships.
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 394
Leadership at all levels of the institution is recognized
as key to the development and maintenance of any
entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly coming from
‘top management’ (Gibb et al, 2009). An explicit
demonstration by those in senior roles in HEIs of their
strong commitment to the entrepreneurship education
agenda is seen as critical if others are to take the agenda
seriously. Such demonstration includes giving due
reward, recognition and empowerment, including
promotion, to those in the institution who demonstrably
engage with entrepreneurial practitioners and work at
the interface with the business sector. This is no easy
task in a climate of economic recession which
constrains the resources of HEIs.
According to the EC Survey of Entrepreneurship
Education (EC, 2008), in addition to appropriate
leadership and the development of core learning
outcomes the adoption of experienced-based learning
approaches is identi?ed as more effective in fostering
entrepreneurial skills in comparison with traditional
lectures. Furthermore, the involvement of
entrepreneurial practitioners in curriculum development
was also recognized as important and in?uential in
developing a supportive culture for generating and
maintaining a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. The
HETAC guidelines recognized that staff might need to
be convinced of the bene?ts of integrating the
entrepreneurship agenda into their programmes and of
their own capacity to achieve this outcome. To that end
appropriate training support and recognition and
rewards are acknowledged as important factors in
generating the culture needed for development of a
healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The embedding of entrepreneurial learning outcomes
in curricula is recognized in the HETAC guidelines as
an essential part of a strategy to support the learning
experience of students and the development of an
entrepreneurial ecosystem in an HEI. Such learning
outcomes should never be a ‘bolt-on’ to any programme
at any level. The challenge is to provide students with
an environment in which they can safely practice the
entrepreneurial skills they are acquiring. The exclusive
provision of discrete entrepreneurship modules was
thought to be unlikely to provide students with authentic
learning opportunities unless the modules were
integrated into other aspects of the programme.
A key factor for programme teams is the design of
appropriate assessments. The HETAC guidelines
recognized the critical relationship between learning
outcomes, teaching and learning activities and
assessment, and the importance of ensuring that
appropriate modes of assessment were designed for each
level of programme that authentically tested the stated
learning outcomes. Interestingly, HETAC itself was
restructured during educational reforms in Ireland and
the document has remained in draft form, although it is
in?uential in the enterprise education community.
In recent times HEIs in the UK and the EU more
generally have faced unprecedented challenges from
government, business and wider society to become
‘more meaningful’ in terms of how they carry out their
role as centres of learning. They are increasingly
required not only to become more relevant to society
but also to demonstrate the economic impact of their
teaching and research. HEIs are required to behave
much more entrepreneurially and to re?ect more closely
this new world in their efforts to support students’
learning and to prepare them for the job market (Gibb
and Hannon, 2005). In this regard, HEIs are being asked
to develop a new culture and ecosystem that supports
greater creativity and innovation in what and how
students learn that will make them ‘more relevant’ in
society as enterprising employees or as new business
venturers. In Ireland the HETAC guidelines and criteria
aim to support HEIs in reviewing enterprise and
entrepreneurship education provision, helping their staff
to build on current activities and to generate more
entrepreneurial activities themselves.
Conclusion
In this paper, we provide a critical narrative of the
development of the QAA Enterprise and
Entrepreneurship Education guidance in the UK and the
HETAC document in Ireland. These two documents
were developed by experts who, individually and
cumulatively, contributed their knowledge, experience
and empirically rigorous research to inform future
developments in enterprise and entrepreneurship
education in the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe as
well as other industrially developed and developing
nations. Feedback, consultation and observations from
various stakeholders were all sought during and after the
completion of drafts. The relevant content and process
are summarized in this paper, in order to frame a debate
on the future value, contribution, possible disadvantages
and future development of these and similar
frameworks.
This process started at a workshop at the 2012 ISBE
conference. A number of key themes and questions have
emerged since that workshop, including:
(1) The de?nitional stance, distinguishing between
enterprise and entrepreneurship helps to make sense
of learning outcomes, because it indicates whether
the learning is innovation-led and based on
individual competencies, or implementation-led and
based on procedures and processes;
Curriculum guidance in enterprise and entrepreneurship education
INDUSTRY & HIGHER EDUCATION December 2014 395
(2) Enterprise is a necessary precursor to
entrepreneurship: without the skills of creativity and
innovation, new avenues for business opportunities
(rather than replication) cannot readily be explored;
and
(3) If learning is to be considered authentic and
context-based, in order to ensure relevance, broader
stakeholder engagement is required to limit the
potential for over-subjectivity by a single
university-led assessor.
At the core of these issues is a question related to
associative learning, which assumes that learners can
and will make new and innovative connections, within
the limits of their own knowledge and experience. In
terms of evaluation and assessment, this assumption can
present a problem. If divergent, creative and
non-conformist approaches bring forth new ideas and
perspectives, how can such activities in learning be
evaluated within the prescribed learning outcomes that
predict achievement? Moreover, if each student learns
as an individual, whilst often acting as a team member,
how can this be evaluated within the perceived
robustness of a standardized assessment strategy?
We would like to continue this debate on the value of
formal guidance on enterprise and entrepreneurship
education by seeking feedback and responses from a
wide variety of national, regional and international
stakeholders. Some indicative questions relating to this
context might be as follows.
(1) How useful are these guidelines in practice?
(2) How have they been used? For example, (a) in
developing, designing, delivering, assessing,
evaluating programmes and (b) in generating staff
awareness and staff development?
(3) How could the effectiveness of the guidelines be
evaluated?
(4) How can the policy-led requirement for assessment
of the impact of EEE be accommodated?
(5) How can they be revised, developed and improved
in future?
Notes
1
BTEC, the Business and Technology Education Council, a
leading provider in the UK of vocational quali?cations, was
merged in 1996 with the University of London Examination and
Assessment Council (ULEAC), one of the major exam boards in
the UK for GCSEs and A-levels (secondary school level), to form
Edexcel. The term ‘BTEC awards’ refers generically to
vocational quali?cations.
2
’Thatcherism’, which has acquired a wide range of
interpretations, is the term used to describe the political and
economic policies of Margaret Thatcher when she was Britain’s
Prime Minister: it is therefore especially associated with the
1980s in Britain. The policies placed an emphasis on private
enterprise, privatization, a reduction in in?ation and government
spending and the idea that people should help themselves
rather than relying on the state to help them.
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