The Role of Students,Educators,and Educational Institutes in Entrepreneurship Education: A Systematic Literature Review and Directions for Future Research

Conceptualization of EE Outcome

Following the logic of stakeholder theory, different stakeholders in EE show different expectations and follow different objectives. Thus, depending on the stakeholder perspective taken, EE effectiveness should be investigated differently and different EE outcomes should be applied. Thus, we investigate whether there is a category system of EE outcomes in articles on the who in EE (see Table 1). Across all sampled articles, we find that researchers focus on cognitive, affective, conative or behavioral EE outcomes. However, with regard to these categories, different studies apply different outcome variables. Further, we realize that, even though based on stakeholder theory, different stakeholders follow different objectives with EE, the sampled articles do not show differences with regard to the general assessment of EE effectiveness.

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Table 1.

List of EE Outcome(s) Across All Sampled Articles.

Stakeholder Group Focus	EE outcomes investigated
Student	– Cognitive outcomes: business ideas generated (e.g., Ulla et al., 2010), entrepreneurial capabilities (e.g., Kirkwood et al., 2014), entrepreneurial feasibility (e.g., Peterman & Kennedy, 2003), entrepreneurial knowledge (e.g., Hahn et al., 2017), entrepreneurial skills (e.g., Edokpolor & Somorin, 2017), entrepreneurial self-efficacy (e.g., Wilson et al., 2009), perceived entrepreneurial behavior control (e.g., Fayolle & Gailly, 2015). – Affective outcomes: entrepreneurial attitude (e.g., Hatten & Ruhland, 1995), entrepreneurial desirability (e.g., Peterman & Kennedy, 2003), entrepreneurial inspiration (e.g., Ahmed et al., 2017). – Conative outcome: entrepreneurial intention (e.g., Lans et al., 2010). – Behavioral outcomes: business ownership (e.g., Fairlie et al., 2015), entrepreneurial activity (e.g., Lyons & Zhang, 2017), likelihood of owning a business (e.g., Johansen, 2017).
Educator	– Cognitive outcomes: entrepreneurial self-efficacy (e.g., Abaho et al., 2015). – Conative outcome: entrepreneurial intention (e.g., Diegoli et al., 2018). – Behavioral outcomes: entrepreneurial activity (e.g., Toumi & Smida, 2018)
Educational institute	– Cognitive outcomes: entrepreneurial self-efficacy (e.g., Saeed et al., 2015), entrepreneurial capabilities (e.g., Duval-Couetil et al., 2016), perceived entrepreneurial behavior control (e.g., Souitaris et al., 2007). – Affective outcomes: entrepreneurial attitude (e.g., Souitaris et al., 2007). – Conative outcome: entrepreneurial intention (e.g., Jansen et al., 2015). – Behavioral outcomes: actual venture created (e.g., Fayolle, 2000), entrepreneurial success (e.g., Jansen et al., 2015).

Role of Student-Related Factors

Roles of Educator-Related Factors

In total, four empirical studies investigate the role of educators on the EE – EE outcome relation, all at HE level (see Appendix F), showing the relevance of educators for effective EE. Specifically, Otache (2019) finds that EE taught by educators who are more entrepreneurially minded generates a greater impact on students ‘entrepreneurial intention. In a similar vein, research shows that educator’ business experience as well as their entrepreneurial experience drives students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Abaho et al., 2015) or entrepreneurial intention (Diegoli et al., 2018) and even assist students in solving practical problems in the transition to become entrepreneurs (Toumi & Smida, 2018).

Roles of Institute-Related Factors

Overall, we find that EE studies investigating factors related to educational institutes focus on three institute-related factors: incubation support, characteristics of educational institutes, and program models to deliver EE (see Appendix G).

First, incubation support refers to additional support for students to engage in entrepreneurship by educational institutes, e.g., incubation resources (Jansen et al., 2015; Souitaris et al., 2007). Extant findings on the role of incubation support in EE are contradictory. On the one hand, we find evidence that incubation support can enable a positive EE impact on entrepreneurial intention (Jansen et al., 2015) or on entrepreneurial activity (Napolitano & Riviezzo, 2008). On the other hand, extant studies point out that incubation support neither influences EE impact on students’ entrepreneurial intentions (Souitaris et al., 2007) nor shows an impact on students’ entrepreneurial activities (Guerrero et al., 2018). These contradictory findings might be result of this research stream lacking a common theoretical foundation to explain the role of incubation support in EE context. We propose to integrate stakeholder theory and the entrepreneurial process perspective (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) to shed light on the role of incubation support for effective EE. Stakeholder theory (Freeman, 2010) posits that to reach its potential and sustain its success, every organization has to (1) make its best effort to properly manage key stakeholders’ needs and expectations, and (2) establish an effective communication system within an organization so that every stakeholder’s need could be timely recognized and properly addressed. Logically, students’ needs for specific incubation support are likely to vary across different groups (e.g., female vs. male students, students with vs. those without prior exposure to entrepreneurship). For students, who engage in entrepreneurial projects during participating in EE, their needs and expectations should vary considerably along the entrepreneurial process. Thus, incubation support plays a supportive role for effective EE if such support is delivered at the right time and to the right groups.

Second, with regard to the characteristics of educational institutes hosting EE, researchers study different aspects. One aspect investigated is the ranking of educational institutes. For example, Fayolle (2000) shows that EE impact on actual ventures is stronger in less prestigious institutes than in highly prestigious institutes. Further, Walter et al. (2013) examine the research orientation of an educational institute measured by the average research budget per researcher through third-party grant, and report a negative effect on students’ entrepreneurial intention. Another aspect explored is the organizational culture of education institutes. For example, Jansen et al. (2015) find that a university culture of supporting entrepreneurship stimulates students to become entrepreneurs. Overall, extant findings on the role of characteristics of educational institutes are still fragmented and thus cannot be aggregated due to differing research foci and outcomes examined.

Third, there is little effort in searching for an effective model to deliver EE. There are only two studies investigating the relevance of the EE delivery models at HE institutes. Duval-Couetil et al. (2016) compare three different models to offer EE for engineering students and Karimi et al. (2016) zoom in on the status of EE by comparing the impact of elective EE with that of compulsive EE (see Appendix G for key findings).

General Research Topics Across the Three Stakeholder Groups

Our analysis reveals that extant knowledge on stakeholder-related aspects in EE research focuses mainly in the context of developed countries. However, grounding on institutional theory (e.g., North, 1990), Walter and Block (2016) reveal that national context plays an important role for effective EE, e.g., EE has a stronger positive impact on entrepreneurial activity in less developed countries compared to well-developed countries. Following this position, we propose that institutional structures are different between developing and developed countries and students as well as educators show different cultural backgrounds resulting in potentially different effects of stakeholder-related factors on EE effectiveness.

Next, across all sampled articles we find a focus of research on EE at the HE level. However, unlike university students, students at primary or secondary education levels have lower levels of human capital but more time to prepare for their future career. Accordingly, EE offered at lower school levels should aim for different objectives and foci, for example, getting students to know about the career option of being an entrepreneur rather than stimulating their entrepreneurial behaviors. Thus, different variables should play a role for different school levels and thus, factors contributing to effective EE should differ across school levels.

Following the logic of stakeholder theory (Freeman, 2010), EE outcomes should differ considerably because different stakeholders have different objectives with regard to EE. First, educators may aim at improving students’ entrepreneurial attitude. Second, educational institutes may be driven by stimulating students’ entrepreneurial behavior or by promoting an entrepreneurial culture at HE institutes (Bergmann et al., 2018). Third, students may feel satisfied if EE does improve their employability in the labor market. Fourth, from an industrial perspective, EE should stimulate people to become intrapreneurs in established firms (Hynes & Richardson, 2007). Fifth, from a governmental perspective, the economic benefit of EE, e.g., the number of start-ups or nascent entrepreneurs created because of EE, is of utmost importance (O’Connor, 2013). Taken together, grounding on stakeholder theory, future research needs to take a broader network of stakeholders into account, view effective EE from a more inclusive perspective. Specifically, we call for a more comprehensive study design using multiple outcome variables to reflect the inclusive value of EE for different stakeholder groups.

Further, we find little evidence on stakeholder interactions. Specifically, there is little research on how the interaction between different stakeholders and their characteristics leads to effective EE. In total, only four studies investigate some relationship. There is no study accounting for the educator-institute or for the student-educator-institute relation. We propose that because of different forms of education at different school levels, different qualification of educators at different educational institutes and different life stages of students, EE effectiveness is shaped specifically in the interaction of all three stakeholders. In this regard, following the logic by Matlay and Jones (2011), research needs to account for the interplay of stakeholders in EE and their role for EE to be effective.

Role of Student-Related Factors

In general, our SLR insights open several avenues for future research with regard to student-related factors. First, our insights on the role of gender addresses a research call raised by Nabi et al. (2017), i.e. how EE impact on different entrepreneurial outcomes is gender-specific. Nevertheless, as mentioned before, extant findings on EE effectiveness for female compared to male students are inconclusive. Hence, additional moderators might explain the differing results, for the same EE outcome. Here, institutional theory (e.g., North, 1990) emphasizes the institutional context as the causal force to explain the difference of economic structure and performance across different countries. Researchers may ground on institutional theory to dive deeper into gender stereotypes in different institutional settings (e.g., cultural, religious, political, economic and national settings) for a better understanding on the role of students’ gender on EE effectiveness.

Second, with regard to students’ age, extant studies focus on an age range from 15 (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003) to 36 years (Ahmed et al., 2017). However, from entrepreneurship research we know that the likelihood of entrepreneurial success increases for older entrepreneurs, i.e., above the age of 50 as “key entrepreneurial resources (such as human capital, financial capital, and social capital) accumulate with age” (Azoulay et al., 2018, p. 29). Here, we argue that also older people with great industry and functional experience can benefit from EE. Research should dive into this specific group and investigate how to design EE for the elder. Furthermore, we call for further research to cover a wider range of students’ age, thereby develop a more profound answer to the question: What is the best age at which to expose students to EE and to what kind of EE? (Galvão et al., 2018, p. 728). For example, at the lower level of the age range, researchers should investigate the concept of effective EE at primary or secondary schools. At the medium and upper level of the age range, researchers should move beyond classical educational institutes towards programs such as incubators or accelerators, where people of different age participate. Here, researchers need to also account for the entrepreneurial stage, for which students seek or need EE for. Specifically, studies could account for EE’s relevance depending on (1) future time perspective, (2) level of entrepreneurship-related human capital, and (3) different phases of the entrepreneurial process (i.e., opportunity identification, opportunity evaluation, and opportunity exploitation).

Regarding the role of students' prior entrepreneurial exposure, extant literature has not explored the positivity dimension of having entrepreneurial family members nor analyzed this dimension of having entrepreneurial experience. Consequently, future research should use a more comprehensive research design by considering both dimensions, the breadth and the positivity related to students’ prior experiences.

Role of Educator-Related Factors

Clearly, based on the limited number of EE studies investigating the role of educators for effective EE, current literature is far from providing a conclusive picture on the relevance of educator-related factors. As EE is essential for developing successful entrepreneurs (Martin et al., 2013), we need to pay more attention to the critical role and impact of those who design and deliver EE (i.e., the educators). In general, education research highlights the decisive role of educators for students’ career choices and development (Kotrlik & Harrison, 1989). In fact, also in EE, educators serve as role models to shape students’ future career choices (San-Martín, 2019). Thus, we need research identifying relevant educators’ biographical and personal characteristics that help stimulate participants’ entrepreneurial behavior.

According to social learning theory (Bandura, 1977, p. 22), “most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed”. Furthermore, social learning theory contends, “not all models are equally effective in eliciting the types of behavior they themselves exemplify” because “responsiveness to modeling cues” partly depends on the characteristics of models (Bandura, 1977, p. 88). From our SLR, we know that educators’ professional background serves effective EE at HE level. Still, we do not know if this factor plays a similar role for effective EE at primary or secondary education levels or at other educational institutes such as accelerator programs. Furthermore, EE is increasingly offered outside of business schools, and even outside universities. In turn, this trend leads to differing educational backgrounds of educators. Thus, we need insights on the relevance of educators’ educational background or teaching experience and how these translate in educators’ entrepreneurship teaching approach and how this ultimately leads to effective EE.

Further, we know that teaching entrepreneurship is especially challenging as EE generally focuses on “a set of more challenging human characteristics that are difficult to teach or learn” (e.g., creativity, risk-taking, or leadership) (Neck & Corbett, 2018, p. 22). Thus, one educator might not be qualified enough to teach it all and co-teaching or even team-teaching may be a more appropriate and effective way in EE. In addition, educators’ social and professional network could play an important role. In fact, we observe a trend in EE that educators invite multiple guest speakers with different professional and social backgrounds to the classroom or even that two educators jointly host a course (Hägg & Gabrielsson, 2019). So far, research does neglect the question on the effectiveness of one vs. several EE educators in an entrepreneurship module and in a next step, the relevance of the diversity of guest speakers. Here, we encourage scholars to not only ground their future research on existing theoretical frameworks but also follow a grounded theory approach (e.g., Charmaz, 2006) and conduct exploratory research to develop new insights on the effects of having multiple educators and/or guest speakers in EE classrooms.

Gender role theory (e.g., Eagly, 1987) suggests that social expectations for appropriate behaviors of individuals differ between women and men, thereby leading to gender influencing a person’s career choice and development. On the one hand, based on gender role theory, we could argue that students look for equal gender role models (e.g., a female EE educator may be a better role model for female students). On the other hand, based on entrepreneurship research, we know that an entrepreneurial career is generally associated with masculine characteristics (Gupta et al., 2009). Consequently, one could argue that the educators’ gender should match (e.g., a male entrepreneurship educator is a more effective EE educator). Hence, future research should zoom in on the impact of educators’ gender on EE effectiveness.

Role of Institute-Related Factors

Overall, by synthesizing extant findings on the role of factors related to educational institutes hosting EE, our SLR reveals fruitful avenues for future research. First, we still do not know sufficiently whether providing incubation support and what kind of incubation support leads to effective EE. There is a pause in research on how to optimize the supportive role of incubation support for effective EE. We suggest future research to integrate stakeholder theory and the entrepreneurial process perspective (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) for further investigation of the conditions and channels through which incubation support plays a supportive role in EE. It would be worthwhile to conduct research with the aim to develop an effective communication model between and among students, educators and educational institutes hosting EE also with other stakeholders (e.g., government officials, entrepreneurs, firms, professional associations, university alumni). Such research ensures that the right type of incubation support is delivered at the right time, to the right groups during an entrepreneurship course or program, thereby meeting the needs of students and educators.

With regard to the delivery model of EE, Duval-Couetil et al. (2016) zooms in on models to offer EE for engineering students. Future research needs to develop this young research focus and dive further into the design of the EE delivery model across different academic majors. We need to avoid the “one size fits all” approach and design EE “through a thorough understanding of the profile and background of the audience” (Fayolle & Gailly, 2008, p. 577). Here, researchers can apply the EE teaching model framework by Fayolle and Gailly (2008) to study the issue of EE design by “taking into account both the institutional constraints and the characteristics of learning as a personal process” (p.586). Building on this position could help researchers dive deeper into the relevance of EE delivery models for different academic majors, year of enrolment (e.g., freshman vs. senior or undergraduate vs. graduate), or education level. In addition, Karimi et al. (2016) highlight the role of elective EE vs. compulsive EE in raising students’ entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, we should not undervalue the compulsory design of EE, because apart from promoting entrepreneurship, EE also helps students to decide on the career path to follow, i.e., being employed vs. self-employed (Graevenitz et al., 2010) or improve their employability in the labor market (Dominguinhos & Carvalho, 2009). Thus, research should also account for career-related benefits in general as EE outcomes.

In addition, EE - as well as incubation support - may not only benefit students but also provide a range of benefits to other stakeholders (e.g., employees at the institute). Offering incubation support and entrepreneurship courses to other institutional members can result in benefits that go beyond students’ entrepreneurial activities, e.g. promoting an entrepreneurial culture and/or establishing a positive climate for entrepreneurship at educational institutes (Bergmann et al., 2018). However, the literature has paid little attention to such aspects. Thus, we emphasize again the need to consider a broader perspective on EE impact and take additional groups of stakeholders into account to reach a conclusive understanding of effective EE.

While we are aware that our SLR offers a variety of very different research gaps rich for future research, following the stakeholder theory some topics should have higher investigation priority than others. Stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984, 2010) posits that to be effective one has to take into account all key stakeholders. Hence, we ask researchers to concentrate on future research propositions that point at using multiple outcome variables to reflect the inclusive value of EE for different stakeholder groups and/or investigating the interaction between different stakeholders, their characteristics and their relevance for effective EE.