Search

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the status of entrepreneurship education (EE) in Australia, replicating and expanding a similar study in 2015. The aim is to review neoteric global best practice EE initiatives, enabling the examination and embedding of EE offerings and initiatives at all 40 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Australia. Design/methodology/approach: The authors introduce a review of prominent and recent global EE scholarship, enabling an iterative and emergent inquiry perspective aligned to inductive and nascent multi-method empirical research associated with theoretical underpinnings of symbolic and substantive management theory. Findings: This paper highlights the sparse and inconsistent distribution of EE programs and initiatives across all 40 Australian HEIs, particularly against the backdrop of rapidly expanding start-up and entrepreneurship ecosystems. Furthermore, outcomes provide best practice EE initiatives, which included staff mobility and transferability of skills. HEIs in Australia are experiencing a moderate EE boom, albeit marginally down on global EE transformation initiatives. Research limitations/implications: Limitation of the data is subject to availability and accuracy of online documents and material resources, although implications have been mitigated using multi-method research design. Practical implications: The findings provide critical grounding for researchers, practitioners and HEIs wishing to enhance EE within ever-expanding entrepreneurship ecosystems. Originality/value: This study is the first multi-methods inquiry into the status of EE in Australia, consisting of quantitative, qualitative and algorithmic methods.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the role of accelerators as authentic learning-based entrepreneurial training programs. Accelerators facilitate the development and assessment of entrepreneurial competencies in nascent entrepreneurs through the process of creating a start-up venture. Design/methodology/approach: Survey data from applicants and participants of four start-accelerators are used to explore the linkages between accelerators and the elements of authentic learning. Authentic learning processes are then mapped onto the start-up processes that occur within the accelerators. Findings: Accelerators take in nascent entrepreneurs and work to create start-ups. This activity develops the participants' entrepreneurial competencies and facilitates authentic self-reflection. Research limitations/implications: This study explores how accelerators can be useful as authentic learning platforms for the development of entrepreneurial competencies. Limitations include perceptual measures and the inability to conduct paired sampling. Practical implications: Entrepreneurship training is studied through the lens of authentic learning activities that occur within an accelerator. Participants develop and assess their mastery of and interest in entrepreneurship through tasks, exposure to experts and mentors, peer learning, and assessments such as pitching to investors at Demo Day. Originality/value: This paper reports on the authentic learning processes and its usefulness in competency development and self-appraisal by accelerators participants. The opportunity for competency development and self-appraisal by nascent entrepreneurs before escalating their commitment to a start-up may be an accelerator's raison d'être.

Entrepreneurs have two key aims in managing their ego-networks: extending reach to valuable resources and facilitating resource acquisition. This study provides a synthesis of the brokerage, cohesion, and embeddedness literatures [...]

This inductive study explores factors by which some new and innovative firms try yet fail to achieve born-global status. Born-global studies have a survivorship bias, with errors of omission that paint a favourable picture of how innovative and well-funded new ventures internationalise. In this paper, we counter such biases by focussing on innovative ventures that expressed intentions to become born global but failed to do so. Our findings reveal that these new ventures fail in two ways. Either they underestimate the need to tailor a portfolio of value propositions and over-extend their efforts across too many markets, a pattern called "baby born-global". Or they over-commit to one market at a time, thus limiting their capacity to develop value propositions in similarmarkets, a pattern called "micromultinational". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure is commonly conceptualized as a set of facilities that play a critical role in facilitating activities by individuals and organizations. Conventionally, infrastructure is tightly linked to publicly funded projects that facilitate access to key resources and enable diverse activities. Within entrepreneurial clusters research, infrastructure includes universities, research institutions and telecommunication technologies that facilitate entrepreneurial activities. These capital-intensive investments seek to facilitate start-ups emergence by aiding access to markets and development of ideas. Accelerators facilitate the same activities and have only recently been conceptualized as start-up infrastructure. This study builds upon this research stream by elaborating on how accelerators can play this meaningful role at the cluster level. Specifically, and by relying on the analysis of empirical evidence from three distinct studies, we uncover how accelerators provide tangible and intangible dimensions of start-up infrastructure to form a positively reinforcing cycle of entrepreneurial activities. Additionally, our findings allow us to push further the idea that start-up infrastructure development can be an endogenous process involving multiple actors within the cluster. Our empirical findings and the theoretical insights derived from them have meaningful implications for the aforementioned literature, as well as start-up practitioners and policymakers linked to the funding of entrepreneurial clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to illustrate the design and execution of an entrepreneurship education (EE) program that is inclusive of all faculties. It describes the genesis, design, and purpose of the Diploma in Innovation Management at the University of New South Wales, with emphasis on its first core course. This study adopts a reflective summary of the EE program from the perspective of its principal designer and accounts for institutional context and professional background. The curriculum design introduces three levels of experiential learning opportunities: indirect via guest speakers and mentors, virtual via pitches in the classroom to real investors, and (optional) direct experiences via pitching their ideas at industry networking events and pitch competitions. This gradual approach eases students into the process of acting and thinking like real entrepreneurs, which may at first be taken for granted, but is later appreciated by students. The design of the EE program provided may provide a guideline for other institutions that wish to develop inter-faculty EE programs. This article contributes to a limited literature on EE that acknowledges the qualifications of the educator, the institutional context of the university, and the proximity to local industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]