Utilising Enterprise Education to Prepare Healthcare Professional Graduates for the Real-world

Objectives: Every year, HEIs around the world provide an increasing number of graduates with professional degrees in various areas of healthcare including for example medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and podiatry. In most cases, these graduates will get the opportunity to develop a range of generic transferable skills during their HE. Yet, many of these become self-employed or responsible for managing a business, but are not always exposed to curricula that develop their awareness of the concepts of enterprise and entrepreneurship and their role in developing economies and societies, and, thus, do not have the necessary range of enterprise skills that they will need in the real-world, whether employed or self-employed. This paper investigates the extent to which Enterprise Education (EE) is applied at professional schools at HEI to develop graduates’ ‘soft’ and ‘functional’ enterprise skills, and how effective the process of delivering this education is. Prior work: Previous literature mainly deals with the application of enterprise education through business and management schools, rather than professional ones. Yet, there is a call for researching enterprise education and skills with more focus on exploring the methods and objectives of specific disciplines. At the same time, research investigating learning in professional degrees focuses almost entirely on the development of technical skills related to the discipline, without a general perspective on developing a wider range of enterprise skills. Approach: The study draws on, but develops a PhD in the pharmacy education context. Personal interviews with pharmacy employers and academics were carried out, and thematic analysis was applied to identify themes and codes. Results: Despite that experiential and interactive learning approaches, which can support the development of graduates’ enterprise skills, are applied quite often at pharmacy schools, the application of these approaches is focused on discipline-related material and, therefore, can only support the development of graduates’ ‘soft’ enterprise skills. However, there appears to be resistance against developing graduates’ ‘functional’ enterprise skills in pharmacy disciplines, especially in light of the lack of awareness of the concept of enterprise education among academics. The study offers some possible opportunities/propositions that could facilitate the development of more enterprising healthcare graduates, while highlighting the importance of raising the awareness of academics in this regard and embedding enterprise education as part of schools’ philosophies. Implication: This study should help professional schools at HEIs decide more accurately on how to develop their graduates’ ‘soft’ and ‘functional’ enterprise skills, and address the needs of the real-world. Value: This study directs the attention of HEIs to support developing professional graduates who are ready for the real-world, and who can support the growth and success of any organisation whether employed or self-employed

A Gestalt model of entrepreneurial learning

In this chapter we propose a learner-focussed, teaching model appropriate for entrepreneurship and enterprise that aims to trigger change in the way educators and senior managers in Further and Higher Education think about enterprise and entrepreneurship. We use Wenger’s (2009) social theory of learning, which consists of four dimensions: learning as doing; learning as experiencing; learning as becoming; and learning as belonging and combine these dimensions with seven guiding educational design principles: Who learns what, how, why, with whom, where and when. We propose that these seven guiding principles influence the impact and quality of entrepreneurship education and also students’ motivation for studying and learning

Enterprise Education in Pharmacy Schools: Experiential Learning in Institutionally Constrained Contexts

Purpose: This paper investigates implementation of enterprise education (EE) through experiential learning, and its relevance to pharmacy education in the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Design/methodology/approach: The paper characterises the state of pharmacy EE using Fayolle’s (2013) generic teaching model in EE and Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory as underlying conceptual and theoretical frameworks. The paper focuses on how EE takes place through approaches employed within experiential learning to develop graduates’ enterprise skills, and investigate the challenges faced within institutional contexts. The paper draws on qualitative empirical approach using the social constructionist paradigm to investigate experiences of pharmacy academics. Findings: The study identifies four Aspects of Experiential Learning in the context of EE (AELEE), which extend both Fayolle’s and Kolb’s frameworks. Research limitations/implications: The research focuses solely on views of academics in UK pharmacy schools, and is of qualitative nature. This could limit the generalizability of results, yet also offer deeper sector-specific insight into EE. Practical implications: Findings provide insights into the difficulty of positioning EE in non-business schools and the hurdles academics face. Findings are expected to encourage enterprise educators to design EE programmes that consider the institutional context. Originality/value: The research makes a significant contribution to existing EE literature with its non-business sector specificity and its focus on academics. Hence, the study responds to Fayolle’s (2013) call for more research into EE with focus on the educator, and deeper connections between EE and education literature

Contextualising rural entrepreneurship - A strong structuration perspective on gendered-local agency

This article employs Stones’ (2005) Strong Structuration Theory (SST) to contextualise rural entrepreneurship. Through shadowing a single case study of a woman entrepreneur from rural Sweden, we propose gendered-local agency as operationalisation of active agency in practice. While SST positions active agency as a property of agents, we demonstrate it is as a property that is intertwined with both agents and structure. Simultaneously enabled and constrained, gendered-local agency itself becomes contextualised within gender-related and locality-related rural-specific interplay that modifies, preserves and challenges rural structures. The article contributes to the literature on contextualising entrepreneurship through a structuration lens by signifying gendered-local agency as a manifestation of rural-specific interplay between contexts as environments (out there) and context as constructed (through entrepreneurs). This conceptualisation proposes everyday entrepreneurship as a demonstration of agency in action, thus setting a foundation for exploring entrepreneurship through the context-specific agent-structure interplay in the rural context and others

Refugee Subentrepreneurship – The Emergence of a Liquid Cage.

This article conceptualises refugees’ endeavours for upward social mobility through subentrepreneurship. Subentrepreneurship refers to various self-employment forms that are undeclared to relevant authorities to escape superimposed historical, temporal, spatial, institutional and social contexts, which constrain actors’ entrepreneurial activities. Using a mixed theoretical underpinning combining Mixed Embeddedness (ME) with Weber’s Iron Cage of Rationality (ICR), we signify liquidity of refugee subentrepreneurship, which is neither linear nor long-term rational. A liquid cage is envisaged to allow more freedom as refugees become embedded within intersections between transformative journeys and Constrained Institutional Contexts (CICs). This new theorising signifies a pronounced emphasis on agency whereby refugees cleverly contemplate implicit skills (i.e. unrecognised or downgraded skills), opportunities and processes to escape CICs. The article adds clarity as to how contexts become part of the production of entrepreneurial actions through two-way interactions that promote liquidity, enabling a strong foundation for future research exploring subentrepreneurship

A Holistic Social Constructionist perspective to Enterprise Education

Purpose – Drawing on the Gestalt approach this article proposes a holistic framework for enterprise education (EE) research based on Social Constructionism, illustrating how the latter supports research into experiential learning in EE in 7 UK Higher Education (HE) pharmacy schools. Design/ Methodology/ Approach – This paper is based on a qualitative empirical study involving educators in UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) pharmacy schools in semi-structured interviews, and investigates the delivery of EE through experiential learning approaches. Social Constructionism is proposed as a suitable underlying philosophical paradigm. Findings – A Social Constructionism paradigm, which adopts relative realism ontology, transactional epistemology, and Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology, offers a relevant, multi-perspectival philosophical foundation for EE research, supporting transactional relationships within contexts of multiple possibilities. Research limitations/implications – Social Constructionism does not necessarily support the individualistic paradigm, as advocated by Constructivists; and the values associated with the former encourage a more collaborative and cooperative approach different from the latter. Practical implications –The paper supports the understanding that applying experiential learning through inter-disciplinary and inter-professional learning is regarded as an approach beneficial for educators, institutions and learners, within the context of EE. Originality/ value – This paper offers a holistic conceptual framework of Social Constructionism that draws on the ‘Gestalt Approach’, and highlights the harmony between the ontological, epistemological and methodological underpinnings of Social Constructionism. The paper demonstrates the relevance of the proposed framework in EE research within the context of an empirical study, which is different in that it focuses on the delivery aspect of EE by considering the views of the providers (educators), an hitherto under-researched area. Paper type – Research paper Key words: Enterprise education, research philosophy, Social Constructionism, relative realism ontology, transactional epistemology, Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Gestalt approach

The Influence of Entrepreneurial Role Model on Entrepreneurial Attitude in Higher Education Student

The purpose of this research is to firstly explore the difference in entrepreneurial attitude between students who has family member as entrepreneur and non-family member as entrepreneur. Secondly to know the influence of role models on entrepreneur attitude in higher education student. The study was conducted amongst sample of 100 student in Universitas Negeri Semarang, which consists of 18 male and 82 female. All of the sample has took entrepreneurship subject. The data collected through questioners. The findings of this study suggest that role model comes from families whether is their parents or any other family member has no significant effect in creating students’ entrepreneurial attitude. This can be noted from the hypothesis test on the difference in attitude between students with an entrepreneurial family member and students without. Keywords: entrepreneurial attitude, higher education student, role model, entrepreneurship educatio

Attitudes Toward Business Ethics in Different Contexts: a Cross-Cultural Comparison between professionals in Jordan and UK

Understanding the attitude and perception of business professionals towards ethics, in an era of dynamic globalisation is important for investors to make strategic decisions. We explore this manifestation of business ethics across cultures in terms of ethical perceptions, moral philosophies and ethical judgments, by focusing upon the attitudes of professionals towards ethics, in two culturally and institutionally different countries: Jordan and the UK. We base our theorisation on Hofstede's Theory of International Cultures, selected business philosophies and incorporate individual and situational factors influencing ethical perception to develop our hypotheses, which were then tested by applying ATBEQ and EPQ. Our findings show significant differences in between in professionals’ views to Social Darwinism and ethical relativism in Jordan and UK. This difference was detected in based on variations between Muslims in UK and Jordan in their views to business ethics. Collectively our study shows that but the culture and societal factors have the higher effect when compared to religion. Moreover, weighing the views toward Ethical Relativism by using of Attitudes Toward Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ) and Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) is inconsistent in the current research, which can be an opportunity to develop a new measures for attitude toward business ethics