Career Impacts of Entrepreneurship Education: How and When Students Intend to Utilize Entrepreneurship in their Professional Lives

INTRODUCTIONIn a recent opinion piece in Wall Street Journal, Carl Schramm, former President and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation said that despite colleges churning out entrepreneurially-minded students, the "teaching of entrepreneurship gets an incomplete" due to a lack of evidence of benefits (Schramm, 2014). Schramm highlights the growth in entrepreneurship educators, yet a decline in new businesses created. He also points to the lack of meaningful metrics to measure the value of entrepreneurship education stating that "there is no employer demand for people trained in the 'art' of entrepreneurship, nor does the training offer any recognized value in other jobs. " During Schramm's tenure at Kauffman, the Foundation invested millions of dollars in programs designed to catalyze the growth of entrepreneurship education across campuses and academic disciplines.From an outcome standpoint, it is fair to say that the jury is still out on the value of entrepreneurship education if the metric is short-term new venture creation. While economic development is the premise for the creation of many entrepreneurship education programs, research suggests that venture development may not be a representative outcome in the near term, particularly for undergraduates. In general, limited research has explored how entrepreneurship is constructed as a career goal or professional identity among the increasingly diverse students studying entrepreneurship. The purpose of this study to is to examine career goals through narratives written by entrepreneurship students to understand their motivations for studying entrepreneurship, the manner in which they expect to utilize it during the course of their careers, and their timelines associated with doing so.LITERATURE REVIEWThe growth in entrepreneurship education across the country and increasingly around the world has been well recognized (Katz, 2003; Kuratko, 2005; Torrance, 2013). Over the past two decades, a proliferation of entrepreneurship programs, credentials, experiential and co-curricular activities have been made accessible to undergraduate students in a wide variety of academic disciplines beyond those enrolled in business schools. Programs vary widely, emerging from various academic units; employing tenured faculty, nontenured faculty, or practitioners; and taking the form of majors, minors, and certificates (Duval, Shartrand, & Reed-Rhoads, in press; Shartrand, Weilerstein, Besterfield-Sacre, & Golding, 2010). Engaging students from a wide variety of academic disciplines has expanded the discourse surrounding the value of entrepreneurship education beyond that of venture creation. Recognizing that starting a company is not an immediate goal for many students, today entrepreneurship programs tout associated benefits, including the development of leadership, communication, business literacy and intrapreneurial skills, in order to draw a broader audience to programs.Schramm's comments highlight the ambiguity around what meaningful outcomes should be for contemporary entrepreneurship programs, as well as how and when they should be measured. These challenges have been discussed extensively in the literature (Duval-Couetil, 2013; Fayolle, Gailly, & LassasClerc, 2006; Pittaway, Hannon, Gibb, & Thompson, 2009; Rideout, 2012) and the topic continues to stimulate active debate at meetings of entrepreneurship educators. Within the academic field there is a lack of consensus in defining the knowledge domain of entrepreneurship or how it should be taught - ranging from a set of terms, skills and competencies that students acquire, to the development of an "entrepreneurial mindset" enabling them to identify opportunities and be more proactive (Haynie, Shepherd, Mosakowski, & Earley, 2010; Neck & Greene, 2011). Varied pedagogical approaches lead to ambiguity related to how outcomes should be measured. A broad array of measures for entrepreneurship education have been proposed, ranging from student awareness and interest, to skills and knowledge, entrepreneurial intention, venture creation innovation, growth and development of enterprises, and community impact (Falkang & Alberti, 2000; Fayolle et al, 2006; Pittaway et al, 2009; Vesper & Gartner, 1997; Wyckham, 1989). …