Purpose
Entrepreneurship education has moved from an elitist view focussing on a start-up and picking-the-winners philosophy towards a broader enterprising behaviour approach; recognising entrepreneurship as an activity of relevance for everybody. The purpose of this paper is to extend this development and identify how university entrepreneurial ecosystems can be expanded to support communities that are under-represented in entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an integrative literature review (Torraco, 2005), this paper draws together and synthesises literature from the field of entrepreneurship, higher education studies and under-represented communities in an integrated fashion, leading to the development of a new conceptual model.
Findings
This paper challenges the traditional role of universities in supporting entrepreneurship as focussing mainly on economic growth and new venture creation, and identifies how universities are also positioned to provide greater civic support to entrepreneurial learning amongst under-represented communities. Through a critical analysis of the literature, the conceptual model proposed identifies six key considerations in the expansion of university entrepreneurial ecosystems for under-represented communities.
Practical implications
There are currently 96.6m people at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU (OECD, 2017) and an estimated 43.1m Americans (US Census Bureau, 2017). This paper explores how university entrepreneurial ecosystems can be expanded to support minority and disadvantaged communities who are under-represented in terms of entrepreneurial activity.
Originality/value
Given that there is little research regarding how universities might activate inclusive entrepreneurship initiatives amongst under-represented communities, this paper expands existing knowledge as it identifies the key considerations encompassing university-led community collaborative enterprise support.
ForewordDear colleague, Welcome to the latest edition of the RENT anthology based upon a selection of the best papers from the XXIII RENT conference in Budapest. This conference had the highest number of abstract submissions and conference participants in the history of the conference, which ensured that the high standard of papers and presentations that is now a feature of RENT conferences was maintained. Following your reading of this anthology, I am confi dent that you will agree that the excellence of research that is featured in this book refl ects the increased quality of the work currently being undertaken by entrepreneurship academics across Europe.The European Council for Small Business (ECSB) has been a constant driving force over the past two decades in the move to raise the standards of research, publications and teaching in the fi eld of entrepreneurship. The RENT conference has become a landmark occasion each year for entrepreneurship academics and researchers, but the event has expanded to include workshops, seminars and other related events targeted at particular groups within our network. The Doctoral Colloquium is now over-subscribed each year as we seek to develop the work of our younger researchers, while the Post-Doctoral Roundtable has quickly established itself as an opportunity for recent PhD graduates to receive mentoring on the next steps of their careers. Meanwhile the Policy Forum has become a biannual event and case writing workshops are being hosted throughout the year and are also available by webinar.The anthology is not the only publication that arises from the RENT conference as ECSB also produces an online publication called 'Inter-RENT' which is targeted at researchers who are developing their journal writing skills. This is a mentored programme that helps young researchers who have presented papers with good potential to improve the paper to a standard that warrants publication in our online journal. The anthology and Inter-RENT demonstrate ECSB's commitment to improving the quality of journal article writing within the fi eld and to showcasing the best talents within our network.ECSB is more than just the RENT conference as we off er a wide range of services and events throughout the year. I would strongly recommend
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