The Impact of Employability Initiatives in Higher Education: Using Placement Confidence and Resilience as Measures

Employability skills are needed in addition to subject specific knowledge to support graduates in their career choices and employment. Placement is widely recognized as a key facilitator of graduate employability skills and employment with an expectation that students will have more than an academic qualification (degree) to secure employment (Yorke, 2006; Saunders and Zuzel, 2010). A large body of literature has emerged outlining the key attributes and skills a typical graduate should possess and why, (Harvey et al, 1997; Little, 2001; Lees, 2002; Holden and Jameson, 2002; Rothwell and Arnold, 2007; Wiley, 2014). Despite the acknowledged value of placement the number of students undertaking placement has decreased, year on year, across a number of disciplines which is challenging for Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s), (Saunders and Zuzel, 2010; Docherty, Jones and Sileryte, 2015). Various initiatives are used to enhance uptake of placement. This paper presents one such initiative involving the scaling-up of two co-curricular 5-credit point modules to Year 1 and 2 undergraduate students. Delivery of the pilot commenced in September 2017. The project is being evaluated against short, medium and long-term measures. To date, student confidence and resilience has increased for those engaged with the initiative across three time points

To understand the nature of, and changes in, decision-making, strategy, and marketing activities in small firms over time and to examine the internal and external factors contributing to these changes

The aim of this thesis was to examine the changes in decision-making, strategy and marketing activities in small firms over time and also to examine the key factors which have contributed to these changes. The work presents the findings from a longitudinal research study conducted covering a 15-year time period. It is this longitudinal dimension which arguably provides the greatest value of the thesis and the aspect which makes the greatest contribution to increasing knowledge of the subject area. No other study has examined these phenomena over such an extended time period. Qualitative research by means of a case study approach was undertaken. The primary source of data collection was a series of depth interviews conducted with the owner/managers of the case firms at various points over the time period. This was supplemented by observation and document analysis. Analysis was conducted on a firm-by-firm and cross-case basis. The overall conclusion is that there have been fundamental changes in the decision-making, strategy and marketing activities of small firms over time. These changes have been driven by both external factors (primarily the growth of the Internet and economic circumstances) and internal factors (the development of firms’ competencies and resources). Age and stage of the firm is also important; as firms develop and move through their life cycle, and as owner/managers develop their competencies over time, they change the way they do business generally and how they approach decision-making, strategy and marketing specifically. These, and other, key findings are discussed and presented in the conclusions chapter. While this thesis makes a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in this area (especially to educators and policy makers), there is further scope and opportunity to develop and build on this research in the future.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Comparing Attitudes to Entrerpeneurship Education among Business and Non-Business Undergraduate Students

This reflective paper aims to explore attitudes to entrepreneurship education among bothbusiness and non-business undergraduate students. Reporting on findings from a smallpilot study of final year university students, the paper highlights attitudes to the current andperceived importance of entrepreneurship in the curriculum, and examines the rolestudents believe the topic should actually play in their courses. Findings reveal a considerable gap, especially among non-business students, between thecurrent importance placed on entrepreneurship education in the curriculum, compared tothe role they believe it should play. The majority of business students believeentrepreneurship should play a major role in their course, while the majority of nonbusinessstudents believe that entrepreneurship has a part to play in their course, albeit ina ‘minor’ role. Only a small minority of non-business students believe thatentrepreneurship has no role at all to play in their course. Limitations and suggestions for future research are provided, the latter focusing on morequalitative enquiry to probe some of the issues raised in much greater depth. 

Opportunity or threat? The views of bankers towards crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has emerged as an innovative source of finance for start-ups and small and medium sized enterprises. This paper considers the views of the most important source of small business finance, retail banks, on crowdfunding. The paper identifies four key themes which emerged from interviews with respondents with experience as senior bank employees in the UK and Ireland. Firstly, firms which sought crowdfunded finance were seen as being too risky for traditional bank lending. Second, the respondents did not see crowdfunding as a threat to the business banking sector. Third, the respondents felt that banks provided a wide range of advice and services which protected them from innovations such as crowdfunding. Finally, crowdfunding was seen as a potential complementary product that could be suggested to firms as it would fund risky propositions that the banks would not support. The paper then offers some practical implications before it concludes

A shift in power? Value co-creation through successful crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative to traditional sources of finance such as bank loans and angel funding. In the post COVID-19 era where finance will be likely to become more difficult for small firms to access, crowdfunding has the potential to be an even more important part of entrepreneurial funding, and enable firms previously denied opportunities the chance to grow. This makes understanding crowdfunding important from a social as well as financial perspective. The paper explores how crowdfunding enables value co-creation. It does so by analysing interview data with start-ups who raised money through crowdfunding and then compares these findings with the views of traditional funders. The findings from the study highlight the speed of raising finance and the avoidance of financial monitoring controls as key sources of value co-creation, along with the increased negotiating power with traditional funders and retail partners that comes from achieving validation, i.e., providing evidence that there is demand for the start-up's products. The validation enables the entrepreneur to increase value capture from their interactions with further funders and business partners. The temporal dimension is crucial as a successful crowdfund can shift power towards the crowdfunded firm and away from other participants