An enquiry into potential graduate entrepreneurship:is higher education turning off the pipeline of graduate entrepreneurs?

Purpose: In today’s global economy, high in talent but low in growth, the capability and skills mismatch between the output of universities and the demands of business has escalated to a worrying extent for graduates. Increasingly, university students are considering alternatives to a lifetime of employment, including their own start-up, and becoming an entrepreneur. The literature indicates a significant disconnect between the role and value of education and healthy enterprising economies, with many less-educated economies growing faster than more knowledgeable ones. Moreover, theory concerning the entrepreneurial pipeline and entrepreneurial ecosystems is applied to graduate entrepreneurial intentions and aspirations. Design/methodology/approach: Using on a large-scale online quantitative survey, this study explores graduate ‘entrepreneurial intention’ in the UK and France, taking into consideration personal, social and situational factors. The results point to a number of factors that contribute to entrepreneurial intention including social background, parental occupation, gender, subject of study, and nationality. The study furthers the understanding of and contributes to the extant literature on graduate entrepreneurship. It provides an original insight into a topical and contemporary issue, raising a number of research questions for future study.Findings: For too long, students have been educated to be employees, not entrepreneurs. The study points strongly to the fact that today’s students have both willingness and intention to become entrepreneurs. However, the range of pedagogical and curriculum content does not correspond with the ambition of those who wish to develop entrepreneurial skills. There is an urgent need for directors of higher education and pedagogues to rethink their education offer in order to create a generation of entrepreneurs for tomorrow’s business world. The challenge will be to integrate two key considerations: how to create a business idea and how to make it happen practically and theoretically. Clearly, change in the education product will necessitate change in the HE business model.Research limitations/implications: The data set collected was extensive (c3500), with a focus on France and the UK. More business, engineering and technology students completed the survey than others. Further research is being undertaken to look at other countries (and continents) to test the value of extrapolation of findings. Initial results parallel those described in this paper.Practical implications: Some things can be taught, others need nurturing. Entrepreneurship involves a complex set of processes which engender individual development, and are highly personalised. Higher Education Enterprise and Teaching and Learning Strategies need to be cognisant of this, and to develop innovative and appropriate curricula, including assessment, which reflects the importance of the process as much as that of the destination.Originality/value: This work builds on an extensive literature review coupled with original primary research. The authors originate from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, and the result is a very challenging set of thoughts, comments and suggestions that are relevant to all higher education institutions, at policy, strategy and operational levels

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Practitioner articleIn the fields of business organisation and management much has been written and spoken about values and beliefs. However, we find ourselves entering a fresh and novel phase of experience, a new spirituality-linked epoch we can describe as a “postsecular” era in which the secularisation of society has given way to renewed attention to the values of faith, religion and spirituality

Re-sale as sustainable social innovation: understanding shifts in consumer decision-making and shopping orientations for high-end secondhand clothing

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to draw from sustainable social innovation theory and the Consumer styles inventory (CSI) instrument to examine secondhand clothing consumption habits for Russia. The secondhand market is the logical outcome of efforts to adopt resale as a facet of sustainable social innovation, with which to drive sustainable decision-making and socially responsible marketing in the secondhand high-end clothing market. Resale represents the cornerstone of business model innovation (BMi) for the retail sector, offering substantial opportunities for retailers who understand changes in consumption behaviour. More cost-effective and arguably greener, the sale of secondhand clothing is expected to be double the volume of fast fashion by 2030 but it remains an understudied field of research in the literature relating to the fashion industry. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses are developed from the existing literature. Survey methodology is used to collect data from 250 Russian consumers in the city of Petersburg. The objective is to test the veracity of CSI shopper orientations, focusing on nascent motivations for high-end branded secondhand clothing, to examine sustainable social innovation and resale in an emerging market. Findings: Four new shopping orientations are identified. Based on the empirical data, the authors suggest that five (out of the original eight CSI shopping orientations) are of internal statistical relevance, and that our new orientations are relevant for not only this market, but for neighbouring Eastern European countries too. The findings reflect postmodern evolution in behavioural motivations for Russian consumers, that can inform retail strategy in terms of BMi consumer for harnessing opportunities offered by sustainable social innovation and resale. Originality/value: Whilst the CSI has been widely used, research for Eastern Europe is limited. Understanding the shopping orientations for sustainable alternatives to newly produced clothing has theoretical and practical implications for improving circularity, post-war entry strategies and countries facing economic downturn. This study contributes novel insights by examining consumer decision-making and shopping orientations in an emerging market

A Perfect Storm, Brexit, COVID-19 and Increased Cases of Food Contamination. A Case Study of how British Food Manufactures Foster Safe Food cultures.

The effects of the 2008 economic recession are continuing to add friction to the wheels of the UK economy. The situation is compounded by the effects of the uncharted waters of Brexit on a global scale and also further heightened by the International Monetary Fund’s warning that the ‘global economy is facing a deep recession with the ongoing impact of COVID-19’. The UK Food Standards Association indicates that the sector suffered an 89% drop in business in April 2020, resulting in 675,000 sector-specific job losses. It is also predicted that 23% of businesses may fail, equating to a further 10,000 job losses in 2021. Unfolding events in real time have done little to support UK industry, and in particular, the food manufacturing sector, who are being constantly challenged with the threat of contamination. In this context, the statistics on food contamination are concerning, as globally up to 600 million people suffer food contamination each year, resulting in 420,000 deaths. In the UK, it is also estimated that annually 2.4 million people are affected by food contamination, costing the economy more than £1bn a year. Since 2015, there has been a continuous year-on-year increase in the number of such food incidents in the UK. Such failings clearly damage brand identity, reduce revenue and ultimately lead to the potential termination of operations. This discussion paper charts the unfolding effects of the 2008 UK recession, which cost the UK economy approximately £7.4 trn, the events leading to the UK Brexit negotiations, at a cost of £32.9 bln, and the continuing devasting consequences of the global pandemic on the UK and the UK food manufacturing sector, as it strives to develop a progressive food safety culture. It further offers viable suggestions in their efforts to establish a positive food safety culture

‘Smart Cities’ – Dynamic Sustainability Issues and Challenges for ‘Old World’ Economies: A Case from the United Kingdom

The rapid and dynamic rate of urbanization, particularly in emerging world economies, has resulted in a need to find sustainable ways of dealing with the excessive strains and pressures that come to bear on existing infrastructures and relationships. Increasingly during the twenty-first century policy makers have turned to technological solutions to deal with this challenge and the dynamics inherent within it. This move towards the utilization of technology to underpin infrastructure has led to the emergence of the term ‘Smart City’. Smart cities incorporate technology based solutions in their planning development and operation. This paper explores the organizational issues and challenges facing a post-industrial agglomeration in the North West of England as it attempted to become a ‘Smart City’. In particular the paper identifies and discusses the factors that posed significant challenges for the dynamic relationships residents, policymakers and public and private sector organizations and as a result aims to use these micro-level issues to inform the macro-debate and context of wider Smart City discussions. In order to achieve this, the paper develops a range of recommendations that are designed to inform Smart City design, planning and implementation strategies

Dissecting the Shared Genetic Architecture of Suicide Attempt, Psychiatric Disorders, and Known Risk Factors

Background Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, and nonfatal suicide attempts, which occur far more frequently, are a major source of disability and social and economic burden. Both have substantial genetic etiology, which is partially shared and partially distinct from that of related psychiatric disorders. Methods We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 29,782 suicide attempt (SA) cases and 519,961 controls in the International Suicide Genetics Consortium (ISGC). The GWAS of SA was conditioned on psychiatric disorders using GWAS summary statistics via multitrait-based conditional and joint analysis, to remove genetic effects on SA mediated by psychiatric disorders. We investigated the shared and divergent genetic architectures of SA, psychiatric disorders, and other known risk factors. Results Two loci reached genome-wide significance for SA: the major histocompatibility complex and an intergenic locus on chromosome 7, the latter of which remained associated with SA after conditioning on psychiatric disorders and replicated in an independent cohort from the Million Veteran Program. This locus has been implicated in risk-taking behavior, smoking, and insomnia. SA showed strong genetic correlation with psychiatric disorders, particularly major depression, and also with smoking, pain, risk-taking behavior, sleep disturbances, lower educational attainment, reproductive traits, lower socioeconomic status, and poorer general health. After conditioning on psychiatric disorders, the genetic correlations between SA and psychiatric disorders decreased, whereas those with nonpsychiatric traits remained largely unchanged. Conclusions Our results identify a risk locus that contributes more strongly to SA than other phenotypes and suggest a shared underlying biology between SA and known risk factors that is not mediated by psychiatric disorders.Peer reviewe

Bleisure: motivations and typologies

The theme of motivation in travel and tourism research has been largely dominated by a leisure focus and has consequently failed to reflect the changing landscape of business travel. This paper focuses on exploring the motivations of different types of “bleisure travelers”: individuals who combine leisure with professional business obligations when abroad. We employ a multi-disciplinary mixed-methods approach, using photo-elicitation to identify and describe five types of bleisure. As existing theories of tourist motivations have mainly been developed in a leisure context, they fail to fully capture the nuanced scope and subtle context of business and leisure motives. We therefore draw upon experiential learning, boundary-less career theory, expectancy theory, and social capital theory in order to put forward contemporary insights on the nexus between business and leisure tourism

The Digital Generation Reaches Maturity: Brave New World Wide Web.

Based on a selection of scholarly investigations undertaken during the past decade, this book provides an outline of the changing landscape of international business and consumer behaviour, in the light of ongoing disruption caused by digital disruption and the post-pandemic conditions. It highlights a number of key factors that have shaped (and continue to do so) the business world and society as a whole. The focus here is on identifying and explaining emerging trends in the field of business management and consumer behaviour, paying attention to the influence of context (both national and co.Intro -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3 -- Concluding section -- Post-scriptum -- Appendices -- References1 online resource (117 p.

The driving trends of international business in the 21st century/ edited by Jessica Lichy.

Includes bibliographical references.1 online resource