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ET
50,7 Graduate entrepreneurship: more
than child’s play
Cecilia Hegarty
626 Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Ulster,
Coleraine, UK, and
Colin Jones
University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

Abstract
Purpose – With the unbridled demand for entrepreneurship in higher education, the purpose of this
paper is to identify how pedagogy can inhibit students in making the transition to graduate
entrepreneurship. Along the way, the concept of what and who is a graduate entrepreneur is
challenged.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper reports upon the pragmatic development of
enterprise programmes in Ireland and Australia. Despite different starting points, a convergence of
purpose as to what can be realistically expected of enterprise education has emerged.
Findings – This study reinforces the shift away from commercialisation strategies associated with
entrepreneurial action towards developing essential life skills as core to any university programme
and key to developing entrepreneurial capacity among students. Despite similar government
intervention, university policy and student demand for practical-based entrepreneurial learning in
both cases, graduates tend not to engage in immediate entrepreneurial action due to the lack of fit
between their programme of study and individual resource profiles, suggesting that graduate
entrepreneurship is more than child’s play.
Practical implications – There are practical implications for educationalists forced to consider the
effectiveness of their enterprise teachings, and cautionary evidence for those charged with providing
support services for graduates.
Originality/value – Given the evolutionary approaches used at the University of Tasmania to
develop students as “reasonable adventurers” and at the University of Ulster to develop “the
enterprising mindset” the paper presents evidence of the need to allow students the opportunity to
apply entrepreneurial learning to their individual life experiences in order to reasonably venture into
entrepreneurial activity.
Keywords Ireland, Australia, Curriculum development, Entrepreneurialism, Higher education,
Business enterprise
Paper type General review

Introduction
At the turn of the new century, various government initiatives aimed at supporting
innovative behaviours within society became increasingly common as a means to secure
a more competitive economy. In 2001, the Australian Federal Government released its
long-awaited innovations statement, “Backing Australia’s Ability”. This £1.33 billion,
five-year initiative to promote innovation in Australia primarily focussed on three key
Education þ Training elements. Firstly, strengthening the ability to generate ideas and undertake research.
Vol. 50 No. 7, 2008
pp. 626-637 Secondly, accelerating the commercial application of these ideas. Lastly, developing and
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0040-0912
retaining skills. Under the third component, 2,000 additional university places were
DOI 10.1108/00400910810909072 made available to foster a culture of “enterprise and innovation” as government
deliberately sought to broaden access to enterprise education in Australian universities. Graduate
Similarly in Northern Ireland because of relatively low-entrepreneurial activity, entrepreneurship
government launched its “Accelerating Entrepreneurship Strategy” in 2003 which
sought to “promote entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity” and “encourage more
people from all backgrounds” to think and behave in entrepreneurial ways (Invest
Northern Ireland, 2003). For Northern Ireland’s two universities, this created a challenge
as to how to embrace enterprise education and make provision for increased demand 627
within traditional business schools.
In reacting to this renewed commitment of governments worldwide, universities
and in particular business schools focussed attention on developing new
entrepreneurship programs that were radically different to previous (traditional)
offerings. In the not too distant past, business schools tended to streamline existing
courses by offering an elective in entrepreneurship (Jones and English, 2004). It is no
wonder this formula was not changed considering traditional management
programmes were well attended, if it were not for the profound criticism (Pfeffer and
Fong, 2002), from various quarters, that courses failed to be relevant to the needs of the
changing business environment. With Kirby and Mullen (1990) suggesting that
graduates require integrated programmes that teach a “practical skills set” a radical
overhaul in business and management curricula was eminent. It was further fuelled by
the unprecedented global student demand as students sought a style of business
education to provide them with the transferable skills necessary to succeed in an
increasingly divergent business environment (Cooper et al., 2004).
There have been many good examples of new curriculum development, for instance,
the University of Glamorgan Business School’s conceptually new postgraduate
programme, the Diploma in Entrepreneurial Practice (Jones-Evans et al., 2000).
However, a drawback of such fast pace changes is that in many cases the supply of
these newer programmes as full-blown programmes/degrees was frequently ill
conceived. It is argued, that only now are we seeing emergent programmes truly
offering effective educational experiences, as evidenced through the two evolving
approaches discussed in this paper.
Whilst many approaches have been employed to accommodate the inclusion of
enterprise as a distinct discipline area, this paper will remain focused upon
discussing the value of embedding entrepreneurship education within existing
course provision and the importance of developing student-centred approaches to
enterprise development. In doing so, this paper aims to build upon the recent
UK-based works in the area of career decision-making processes (Nabi et al., 2006a),
the pathways of students graduating into self-employment (Nabi et al., 2006b) and
entrepreneurial intentions among the graduate pool (Hannon, 2005). This paper also
draws upon the accepted framework of success factors (e.g. social, financial and
human capital) for nascent entrepreneurship proposed by Aldrich and Martinez
(2001). Therefore, the focus of this paper is on specific factors that potentially
determine/influence student readiness for start-up activities. The notion of what and
who is a graduate entrepreneur is for now, left open for the reader’s consideration
but revisited in the conclusion. Let us first consider the context of the programmes
to be discussed.
ET A tale of two programmes
50,7 The UTAS approach
Initially, the programme at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) was structured as a
major in entrepreneurship within the existing Bachelor of Commerce degree.
Essentially, it represented a curriculum structure that was familiar to everyone at
UTAS. Therefore, it benefited from established articulation arrangements with other
628 degrees and a variety of other institutions. However, the programme differed from
traditional offerings in the Bachelor of Commerce in that the teaching style was
deliberately very student-centred. There was a specific focus on aligning the
programme’s dual personal development and enterprise knowledge objectives with a
teaching approach that empowered students.
The foundational aspects of the programme were largely influenced by literature
emanating from American-based sources (Brown, 2000). However, as the programme
became embedded at UTAS, the works of the UK’s Gibb (1996, 2002) took
centre stage in the programme’s development. Within a fortnightly workshop
structure, students worked independently in groups and engaged in peer assessment of
class contributions. To begin with the focus was on understanding what
entrepreneurship is, how the mind can be creative, how to determine the feasibility
of an idea, and finally how to write a business plan. To date, notable outcomes of the
programme include; in excess of 15 individual businesses created by participating
students, a tendency of past students to return for mentoring for general life and
enterprise advice, and the development of a unique teaching framework that has been
recognised for its excellence by the Australian University Teaching Awards in 2005.
The programme’s most recent development has been co-driven by the needs and
aspirations of the students and lecturing staff. The inclusion of Whitehead’s (1929) idea
that students should learn in their here and now has led to the development of the
distinctive hic et nunc teaching and learning framework. This framework encourages
and enables each individual student to learn in their here and now, accommodating the
development of differing interpretations of the required learning topics and continuous
student reflection (Tyler, 1949). Put simply, each student is encouraged to apply the
required theory (e.g. the process of variation, selection and retention) to their own daily
life, to find contextual and personal meaning to the theory. Over time, the initial
learning activities have evolved to include games, case study discussion, workshop
presentations, and reflective diaries. Such activities support the pursuit of two specific
aims. The first being to assist students in making the journey from student to graduate
entrepreneur and the other (more general) aim relating to helping students develop the
attributes of a reasonable adventurer. Heath (1964) defines the reasonable adventurer
as a graduate capable of making his or her own opportunities for satisfaction.
A disposition argued to be a necessary pre-condition for engaging in entrepreneurial
behaviours.
In summary, the development of the programme at UTAS has required enterprise
educators to continually search for learning activities, that will enable students to
experience the entrepreneur’s way of life (Gibb, 2002). The success of the programme to
date would appear less related to how well the educators have found such activities,
and more related to how determined they have been in continually seeking out new
adventures for the students to encounter.
The Ulster approach Graduate
To cater for the increased demand for innovation and creativity within university entrepreneurship
courses in Northern Ireland, the Centre for Entrepreneurship (NICENT) a partnership
between the University of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast was established in
2000. Although the Centre at each university is lodged within a Business/Management
School, its activities were initially focussed within Science, Engineering and
Technology Faculties (Gibson et al., 2006). As one of 13 centres of excellence across 629
the UK established under the Science Enterprise Challenge Fund, the Centre equipped
with a “new venturing” agenda, assisted the commercialisation of University generated
research (Hegarty, 2006). A second phase of funding in May 2007, enabled the NICENT
partnership to spread the enterprise agenda university-wide and to also embrace
Faculties aligned with emerging industry sectors, such as the creative industries.
In widening the scope of enterprise education, the “enterprise for life” approach has
been used to underpin student learning. This approach proposes that all university
graduates should have the opportunity to develop the “entrepreneurship skills set”
within all core programmes, regardless of discipline since enterprise education should
provide essential life skills for students.
At the University of Ulster, the lead partner in NICENT, university policy has
endorsed the enterprise agenda through corporate planning; the University seeks to
become a sector leader in promoting creativity and innovation within the curriculum
and through extra-curricular activity. However, there are no guarantees that students
will become more entrepreneurial-minded as a result. This warrants further discussion
of what can be realistically expected of such programmes. NICENT have identified
four broad aims.
Firstly, the narrowest dimension is becoming an actual entrepreneur. UK research
undertaken by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (Hannon, 2005) has
shown few are entrepreneur-ready; only a minority will become graduate
entrepreneurs and after a considerable time lag – of up to ten years after exiting
the university environment. It is more likely that the vast majority of graduates will
work within an existing organisation. Secondly, the widest dimension would be that
enterprise education should equip students to become entrepreneurial employees; part
of an enterprising organisation or environment. Thirdly, in between these two
extremes enterprise programmes should also aim to develop student understanding of
what entrepreneurs do, why they are important to the economy and more importantly
to society, and to find out how students react to novel ideas presented by classmates or
entrepreneurial-minded individuals (within their own field). Fourthly, beyond the
realms of the classroom, to find out how students can become entrepreneurial
themselves and practice being entrepreneurial-minded in non-business aspects of their
life. For example, how are they able to cope better with their own lives and the
problems of society by taking responsibility for developing their personal skills? In
considering these aims for enterprise programmes, the “enterprise for life” approach is
best suited to the work of NICENT in developing a range of vital soft skills, core to any
degree-specific knowledge. However, the approach relies heavily on educators
fostering the principles of creativity and being receptive to constantly changing
practice and having a tolerance for ambiguity. Similar to the UTAS case, the
University of Ulster’s enterprise programmes generally prepare students for the launch
ET into the post-university environment and continue to develop the students’ practical
50,7 skills set.
In summary, considering government interventions, university policy and
programme re-structuring both cases have similar origins and seek to achieve a
similar output using different approaches. At UTAS, a concern for the reasonable
adventurer has emerged as the central driver for curriculum development whilst at
630 Ulster it is a focus on the need to influence the mindset in order to develop
entrepreneurial tendencies. Yet, in both cases, there appears to be little evidence that
the higher education sector will become the breeding ground for burgeoning graduate
entrepreneurs. Alternatively, the pragmatic development of enterprise programmes at
UTAS and Ulster suggests a converging of purpose related more to entrepreneurial
capacity than immediate entrepreneurial action. The emergent evidence is a focus
away from new venture creation and towards personal development in the context of
life-long learning. As outlined in more detail below, despite travelling different
development trajectories from different starting points, both programmes seem to be
converging towards a desire to allow students to discover themselves and
simultaneously develop entrepreneurial capacity.

The emergence of entrepreneurial capacity


The reasonable adventurer
The seminal personal development work of Heath (1964) was resurrected and applied
to the domain of enterprise education. The central argument being that while students
(by and large) may be considered nascent entrepreneurs, they could potentially be
underdeveloped in their individual experiences of life. It is assumed that what occurs
after graduation may be positively or negatively influenced by their higher education
experiences. Therefore, a specific focus has been brought to bear on six specific
attributes that Heath identified as being associated with a student’s ability to create
opportunities for their satisfaction. Let us consider each attribute briefly.
Firstly, the notion of intellectuality, or the ability to alternate between believing and
being sceptical. That is, an ability to remain curious whilst determining what matters
through making connections between the object under consideration and the reality of
their world. Secondly, close friendships, or the ability to discover the individuality of
others. That is, a realisation that they have shared feelings with others and that
perceptions have been altered due to these friendships. Thirdly, independence in value
judgements, or the ability to rely upon personal experience rather than known external
authorities. That is, an increased reliance upon one’s own judgement to provide an
avenue towards self-reflection that may be travelled with much vigour and
enthusiasm. Fourthly, a tolerance of ambiguity, or the ability to view life as a series
of interruptions and recoveries (Dewey, 1922). That is, to be able to suspend
judgements until sufficient information is obtained to make the right decision. Fifthly,
breadth of interest, or as Heath (1964, p. 34) notes, an “uncommon interest in the
commonplace”, indicating depth replaces breadth to enable the sustained pursuit of
specific problems. The last attribute is a balanced sense of humour, or a benign, but
lively sense of humour that distinguishes the reasonable adventurer, making he or she
good company, and capable of being sensitive towards others across conflicting
circumstances.
Enterprise education has been increasingly developed at UTAS based on the notion Graduate
that a fully functioning graduate is one that is capable of using his or her individuality entrepreneurship
in ways that are beyond their pre-existing mental endowments. Key to this notion is
the fact that the student is tethered to the reality of their world, capable of finding deep
satisfaction from the ingredients of individual life experiences. Put simply, despite
remaining in their present world, the student through, using personal reflection, is
better able to understand their current capabilities and skills deficiencies. This brief 631
outline of the reasonable adventurer summarises the minimal outcome for any
graduate, regardless of career destiny – employment in a large firm, the SME, or
self-employment. It is argued that the reasonable adventurer concept is the chassis
around which other features including additional subject-specific skills can be
fashioned, and is the foundation for life’s journey. This approach to enterprise
education represents a state of development without which, all other attempts at
enterprise skill development may well be merely add-ons to an inferior model of
graduate.

Enterprising minds
During the period 2000-2007/2008, NICENT has exposed 19,870 students to creativity
and innovation education through embedding entrepreneurship in the learning
outcomes of 390 courses. The centre is able to infiltrate into many university minds
through the use of highly interactive e-learning modules, which can be supported by
face-to-face workshops/seminars. To succeed in effecting change, these e-modules
must not be bolt on, elective options but integral to the course programme. NICENT
offers the online materials free of charge but lecturers must assume ownership,
becoming the e-tutor. These study programmes enable undergraduates to develop their
creative abilities in an enterprising teaching environment where they can learn how to
co-operate with others by learning together, by recognising the competencies of peers
and through reflection. The initial online programme develops student awareness and
understanding of the fit between the entrepreneur, opportunity and resources, the
entrepreneurial process and the entrepreneur’s environment. Students should develop
basic market research and financial accounting skills.
The secondary e-modules allow application in real time and present learners with
almost a blank canvas with the exception of a range of guidance notes to support
students through the action areas of researching, feasibility checking and planning as
well as preparing students for the launch from student to entrepreneurial graduate.
Note that planning was not necessarily a business or new venture plan but rather a
project plan in the widest sense including community/enterprise renewal/development
and project management. By learning in situ students in diverse disciplines were able
to continually challenge their knowledge and mindset and inform practice for instance
clinical practice for students in life and health sciences or teaching practice for student
teachers. The applied nature of e-learning exemplifies the shifting emphasis from a
lecturer-led, content oriented, passive learning situation to one in which the student is
truly involved – the crux of the entrepreneurial approach to education according to
Gibb (1987).
As well as the e-learning pathway, entrepreneurship was also delivered in the
classroom especially in those instances where creativity had always been truly
embedded within existing course provision for example in the School of Arts and Design.
ET However, it was vital to make the connection to the entrepreneurial mindset more obvious,
50,7 not least to facilitate assessment of these learning outcomes. Enterprise behaviours can be
further endorsed at Ulster through a range of extra-curricular activities including
supporting the work of student networks, competitions, mentoring, intensive enterprise
training and events.
This range of course inputs at Ulster has for many students reawakened the notion
632 of expressing individuality/creativity and changed their expectations of what
enterprise has to offer them and therefore engendered/renewed commitment to being
entrepreneurial minded without sacrificing depth of knowledge in a particular subject
area. At Ulster, according to internal student and staff surveys (unpublished),
enterprise programmes have succeeded in provoking entrepreneurial intention, offered
assurances as to how to initiate the process and turn thought into realistic action for
the individual, and influenced each student (to some degree) to behave in
entrepreneurial ways in their personal life with the intention of considering
entrepreneurship as a function of their career development. These examples range
from engineering graduates with a greater appreciation of the application of their novel
ideas (that are different to existing solutions on the marketplace, not necessarily
problem solving), nursing graduates feeling better equipped to cope in a changing
work environment, to student teachers equipped to teach the new enterprise curricula
in the pre-tertiary education sector (Hegarty, 2006).

Discussion
By observing how the enterprise programmes in each case have been independently
initiated and subsequently shaped, several issues emerge for collegial discussion. Some
are simple and obvious. First of all, the experiential educational processes students
encountered in most instances have developed to a high degree, a common set of
enterprising skills including communication, problem solving, initiative, and
self-management. Students have demonstrated a capacity to think on their feet, a
confidence to use their instincts and express judgement supported by “street logic”.
These attributes not only provide an endorsement for the teaching pedagogies used but
also better prepare the graduate for the competitive post-university environment. It is
not surprising then that enterprising graduates by and large are well sought after in
the labour market, though employers hold varying accounts of what constitutes “an
entrepreneurial graduate”.
On a second point, the primary aim of the UTAS and Ulster programmes is to
develop entrepreneurial capacity. Basically, this means that as a result of undertaking
an entrepreneurship programme, students should be able to actively demonstrate
either philosophy of the mind – reasonable adventurer or enterprising mind-set – and
develop their skills set based on their own subject knowledge and individual life
experiences. It does not mean that students can become certified entrepreneurs as a
result of undertaking these programmes. Indeed, the potential of such programmes is
rather limited in promoting graduate entrepreneurship considering most students
are not entrepreneur-ready. Therefore, whilst the evolutionary approaches reported in
this paper demonstrate what educators realistically expected to achieve through
entrepreneurship education, there is no security with the outcomes. More specifically,
it would seem that there are no guarantees that students will develop
sufficient entrepreneurial capacity to support their transition from graduate
to graduate entrepreneur. This focuses the question of what the outcomes should be Graduate
from enterprise education in terms of the entrepreneurial capacity of graduates. entrepreneurship
In addressing this question, it is useful to revisit Aldrich and Martinez’s (2001) classic
paper “Many are called, but few are chosen”. The central thesis of their work is that in
order to understand entrepreneurial outcomes, we must first understand the processes
at play and the context in which they occur. In accepting this, the implication is that the
entrepreneur must possess a unique resource profile relative to the opportunity they 633
seek to pursue. Adopting the logic of their argument, the challenge of creating graduate
entrepreneurs becomes chilling reality. Our graduates will instantly be competing in
a marketplace that is on one hand unforgiving and unpredictable, and on the other full
of opportunity and excitement. For many, the world beyond graduation is merely
a mirage, for others it is a truly scary place within which employment offers comfort
from the harsh realities of entrepreneurship. In summary, it would seem that the
convergence towards personal development in the two programmes discussed is
logical, necessary, but insufficient to arm our graduates with the minimal requirements
to engage in independent entrepreneurial activity.
To understand how best to develop the entrepreneurial capacity of graduates
requires explicit consideration of how to assist students in developing a meaningful
resource profile through which their future development post graduation is possible.
Aldrich and Martinez (2001) with reference to Greene and Brown’s (1997) notion of a
resource profile, argue that three specific areas of capital (i.e. human, financial and
social) are of paramount importance for embryonic entrepreneurship. They argue that
nascent entrepreneurs typically rely on improvisation in new industry contexts; use
knowledge gained from past employment and constantly battle against a propensity to
optimistically misjudge market opportunities whilst acting in haste due to extreme
time pressures. Should we expect our graduates, regardless of the degree of personal
development they have achieved in higher education, to have sufficient human
(know-how) capital upon graduation? The second form of capital is financial. Here,
nascent entrepreneurs are equal in one assumed respect; they are all likely to start
small. Nevertheless, commencing with insufficient funding cannot be expected to aid
the survival prospects of any new venture. Can we assume that graduates are capable
of having sufficient capital and/or being capable of raising capital in the likely absence
of personal assets? Again, there are considerable barriers for our graduates to become
successful entrepreneurs immediately post graduation. Lastly, the issue of social
capital provides the glue that may assist nascent entrepreneurs to overcome
deficiencies in the other two areas. Should we expect that our graduates would have
developed networks within and across their chosen industry? Again, we are being
optimistic to assume that the majority of students would do so especially given there is
still much to be done to open up social networks to young entrepreneurs, university
researchers and graduates. Clearly, adopting the context/process logic of Aldrich and
Martinez (2001) casts a dark shadow on current effort to develop graduate
entrepreneurs immediately post graduation.
The retreat from developing benign academic business plans and from blue sky
dreaming within the two programmes discussed, represents a logical pathway away
from loading our graduates up with unrealistic expectations. It signals an explicit focus
on the individual first and foremost. This focus allows grounding of the student’s
aspirations in a specific industry context, a context that largely determines the nature
ET of any resource profile and what would be realistically required for an entrepreneur to
50,7 enter the industry sector and compete successfully. Therefore, the authors arrive at
the logical conclusion that as educators we should be able to decipher if students have
succeeded in developing entrepreneurial capacity by analysing their resource profile
vis-à-vis their chosen industry context. The key issue that has arisen is the importance
of allowing students to apply knowledge in relation to their personal development and
634 to their life rather than focussing student attention on case studies that provide access
to meaningless contexts. Meaningful development of individual resource profiles that
will be of potential value post graduation relies on positioning knowledge within the
context of the life of each individual student.

Conclusion
What emerges from this discussion is that the explicit focus of enterprise education
needs to be on the individual and the industry-specific context as a result, enterprise
education has increasingly become embedded and thus appreciated within university
curricula. In relation to the entrepreneur-resources-opportunity model these studies
suggest the entrepreneurial individual is most important followed by their resource
profile and then the opportunity. This allows for the resource profile factors that matter
(that are by and large divorced from the realities of graduate studies) to become the
central drivers of the actual graduate planning process.
This process may happen several years into employment after the graduate has
gained industry experience and acquired capital and/or social networks. Such a
process does not downgrade the importance of enterprise education, it simply factors
into the equation the time-specific dominant components related to personal
development. For some students, the stars will already be aligned, for others it
would be prudent for them to reconsider firstly, the nature of their immediate
aspirations, and/or secondly, their personal means in order to develop the appropriate
resource profile. Enterprise educators have their role to play in assisting students in
configuring individual resource profiles but this should also contribute to improving
the degree of fit between the role of enterprise programmes and the nature of graduate
entrepreneurship.
In the Ulster case, it is already apparent that as the centre uses the basic concepts of
variation, adaptation, selection and retention to roll out an embedded entrepreneurship
agenda university-wide, there is an increasing demand for customised programmes.
This provides tentative evidence to suggest that generic enterprise programmes do not
work and confirms the need for enterprise education to be learner-centred (connected to
individual’s knowledge and experience in their here and now) and connected to their
field of study (industry-specific context). At UTAS, there is already tentative evidence
to support the notion that students feel more inclined to pursue the aspirations
immediately post graduation when resource profiles linking aspirations and
opportunities have been established. Both studies imply that personal development
in the context of enterprise education must go beyond generic attribute skills
(e.g. communication, problem solving) to include purposeful reflection that ensures
down to earth consideration of the alignment of self and opportunity.
Encouraging graduates to defer the immediate pursuit of their aspirations does not
lessen the benefit to society. Firstly, it adds longevity to the concept of the
entrepreneurial graduate since it presents graduates with the opportunity to continually
engage in the process of analysing their resource profile vis-à-vis their chosen industry Graduate
context and therefore assists them in developing their entrepreneurial capacity. The entrepreneurship
entrepreneurial graduate is thus better equipped to eke out their role within competitive
and dynamic working arrangements and in choosing an individual pathway suited to
their needs and/or aspirations. Secondly, it allows industry, as custodians of our
graduates, the opportunity to influence graduate resource profiles as well as allowing
SMEs the time to put resources in place to create working environments conducive to the 635
performance of the entrepreneurial graduate. Thirdly, it reduces university reliance on
short-term rankings and league tables, which rank enterprise outcomes irrespective of
the time-dependent processes that matter and should never be ignored.
It could be concluded at present (given the overall size of enrolments) that enterprise
education does not create many graduate entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland or
Tasmania. But can this be attributed to a lack of enterprising effort on the part of the
universities or a lack of understanding of the challenge of achieving a fit between
entrepreneurial capacity and environmental forces? If we (as educators) accept that the
three essential elements for the success of nascent entrepreneurial activity are human,
financial and social capital then we must devote sufficient time to consider and capture
them in ongoing curriculum development. Within this emergent curriculum, there
should be scope for individual learners to apply the concepts – be it the reasonable
adventurer or an enterprising mind – to their particular resource situation. This will
require an explicit focus on pathways for developing individuals linked to
opportunities, which they themselves have identified; however, this is only half of
the required story towards graduate entrepreneurship. Without mapping out the
graduate trajectory for each individual student to pursue their aspirations, enterprise
programmes generally fail students that are too easily swamped in the post-university
environment by employers offering jobs that are ill related to their aspirations.
Universities now recognise they have a duty of care to their graduates and alma mater.
Furthermore, educators functioning as role models need to be able to positively
influence and mentor graduates. In summary, these academic aspirations together,
proffer much hope for developing graduate entrepreneurship within the contexts of
life-long learning and the entrepreneurial university.
In conclusion, this paper does not seek to generate predictive nor transferable
outcomes given the diverse pedagogies for enterprise programmes and the range of
cultural contexts. However, it would seem that in order to justify the contribution of
enterprise education going forward, there is a need for longitudinal studies to gain an
understanding of how graduates use and adapt their individual resource profiles to
progress their career and how this in turn broadly benefits society including for
example how it affects competition or consumer choice or to what extent they act as a
source for innovation, stability or the seedbed for new industries. This will inevitably
challenge the existing notion of the graduate entrepreneur and the authors predict
longitudinal analyses will ultimately lead to redefining the concept of the graduate
entrepreneur and much rediscovery within the graduate talent pool. The arguments
presented within this paper suggest that becoming a graduate entrepreneur is not
necessarily conditioned by business creation, but perhaps more related to the pursuit of
an opportunity vis-à-vis a specific environment context through the ongoing
development of the required resource profile; this process may take several years.
ET The research limitations of this study and future studies is the difficulty of isolating
50,7 causal relationships between enterprise education and the development of skills and
mindsets (i.e. a resource profile) given the exposure of the student to other forms of
education before, during and after exposure to enterprise education. Using student
reflection journals may go some way towards overcoming this issue since it offers the
promise of enabling various different life experiences to be examined vis-à-vis the
636 resource profile of the student at any given point in time. Ultimately, by examining
the development trajectory of each individual graduate, we step closer to discovering
the true value of enterprise education and developing our understanding of whom and
what constitutes the graduate entrepreneur.

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Further reading
Wiggins, G. (1989), “Teaching to the (authentic) test: testing can once serve teaching and learning
if tests clarify and set intellectual standards”, Educational Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 7,
pp. 41-7.

Corresponding author
Cecilia Hegarty can be contacted at: cb.hegarty@ulster.ac.uk

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