Student entrepreneurship ecosystems at Australian higher education institutions

Abstract

PurposeDespite the significance, university student start-ups and student entrepreneurship ecosystems (SEEs) have been subject to little research. This study aims to apply a qualitative emergent enquiry approach to explore best practice SEEs in Australia, complimented by narratives from leading scholars in higher education institutions with the aim of delineating the integrative components of SEEs.Design/methodology/approachAdopting the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework and aligned to the social cognitive theory, this paper explores the components and dynamics of SEEs, contributing to an understanding of how such components can better support the growth, sustainability and success of student start-ups. The authors extend entrepreneurship research on social construction using narrative research.FindingsThe findings provide guidelines for researchers, entrepreneurship scholars and educators, entrepreneurship students, policymakers and practitioners to enhance the impact and success of university student start-ups by adopting a student ecosystem approach.Research limitations/implicationsThe narratives represent a limited number of universities with an opportunity for further research to empirically measure the impact and outcomes of SEEs. The research is exploratory, inherently conceptual and emergent, providing an opportunity for validation of narrative frameworks in future studies.Practical implicationsThe findings may assist university managers to be more aware of their own subconscious preferences to student entrepreneurship and start-up initiatives, which may be useful in refining their impact and offerings regarding a quest toward the entrepreneurial university.Social implicationsFrom social perspectives, the alignment of the components of SEE has the ability to enhance and shift the entrepreneurial mindset of entrepreneurship students, notwithstanding enhancement of intentionality and self-efficacy.Originality/valueThis is the first study of SEEs in Australia, highlighting the importance of the integration of entrepreneurship education programs, entrepreneurship education ecosystems, the entrepreneurial university and specific start-up initiatives such as university accelerators. Furthermore, students may enhance their entrepreneurial mindset by actively engaging in such ecosystems.

The Impetus of School-Based Income-Generating Activities on Students’ Entrepreneurship Skills Among Public Secondary Schools in Kilimanjaro Region-Tanzania

“…Thus, operating IGAs in public secondary schools is one of the prominent contributing factors to students' gaining project management skills and may enrich students' active learning in the classroom. These findings relate to what is suggested by the studies were done by Maritz et al (2022) in Australia and Lembani et al (2020) in South Africa which put forward that IGAs enhance students' start-up income-generating projects after the school cycle and engage students to integrate modern educational requirements like application of ICT in learning. This signifies that project management skills are part and parcel of the school hidden curriculum of developed countries which raises concern for the developing countries like Tanzania to imitate the same.…”

Comparative analyses of the educational methods in the leading business development masters programmes in Hungary

“…-support services: university services that influence entrepreneurial aspirations may include the provision of consulting, coaching or workshops (Premand et al 2016); -physical infrastructure: university incubators might provide a workplace or digital infrastructure for students with an entrepreneurial spirit (Pittaway et al 2019); -finance: funding elements of university incubation programs or alumni investment funds (Aranyossy 2019;Farkas et al 2022); -networks and demand: universities' corporate and institutional partnerships, and their networks can be used to support start-ups in a mutually beneficial way (Maritz et al 2022); -culture: influencing the entrepreneurial spirit, thinking and values of students, which affects the utilization of the knowledge gained and activities carried out within the framework of the university (Kuti -Bedő 2018).…”

University accelerators and entrepreneurship education in Australia: substantive and symbolic motives

“…For contextualization, such spaces include associated entrepreneurship engagement initiatives such as international collaborations, workshops, thinktanks, entrepreneurs in residence, startup weekends, hackathons, learning from entrepreneurs, guest lectures and related entrepreneurial activities (Maritz et al, 2019;OECD/EU, 2018;Morris et al, 2013). Value creation is the nucleus of our conceptualized definition, embracing not only value creation in products and services but also unified value creation to all participants in entrepreneurship endeavors (Loi and Fayolle, 2021;Jones et al, 2020;Maritz et al, 2022). This further embraces pedagogical enhancements moving from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy toward self-directed learning and dedicated self-negotiated action (Maritz et al, 2021b;Neck and Corbett, 2018).…”

“…Value creation is the nucleus of our conceptualized definition, embracing not only value creation in products and services but also unified value creation to all participants in entrepreneurship endeavors (Loi and Fayolle, 2021; Jones et al. , 2020; Maritz et al , 2022). This further embraces pedagogical enhancements moving from pedagogy to andragogy to heutagogy toward self-directed learning and dedicated self-negotiated action (Maritz et al.…”

“…, 2017), entrepreneurship and enterprise teaching and pedagogies primarily by Jones (see Jones, 2019a, b), EE programs by Maritz (see Maritz, 2017; Maritz and Brown, 2013), studies of the Australian EE landscape predominantly by Maritz and colleagues (see Maritz et al. , 2019, 2021a, b, 2022) and the entrepreneurial university by Nguyen (see Nguyen et al. , 2021).…”