Exploring ‘successful’ outcomes of entrepreneurship education: A follow-up study

During 2005-2006 HE students in several UK universities who studied entrepreneurship completed a survey about their background and career intentions. The paper reports, eight years on, a follow-up with ten of these participants, with the central aim of exploring student intentions and subsequent actions since graduating. Using a qualitative methodology, the study explores whether those measured as likely to be entrepreneurial are entrepreneurs, and if participants consider that their entrepreneurship education experience has been valuable.
Findings include that regardless of original ambitions, career experiences and outcomes for participants are highly idiosyncratic and do not seem to correspond particularly well with original intentions. The paper proposes that career destinations are complex in a dynamic graduate employment context, and that entrepreneurship education has a contribution to make to graduates, regardless of whether they become entrepreneurs or not. The paper reports a weakness in entrepreneurship education research in terms of its over-reliance on agency-based approaches and its assumption that outcomes are measured in binary terms of ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘not entrepreneur’. The paper recommends methodological development in the field to capture more appropriately the rich and nuanced relationship between entrepreneurship education and graduate careers. This might contribute a more robust understanding upon which to base information for delivery and practice.