Developing entrepreneurial capabilities for the global labour market: A cross national study of IT students in the UK and Australia

Hamilton, Margaret; Gribble, Cate; Smith, Sally

Abstract

In Australia and the UK there is growing emphasis on ‘entrepreneurship’ in response to challenging economic circumstances. The current focus on developing ‘entrepreneurial’ capabilities in graduates is largely driven by stakeholder and societal desire to equip students with employability skills and attributes that will prepare them for the realities of rapidly shifting labour markets and more complex and uncertain career paths. In this paper, the extent to which IT students are engaging with the push towards innovation is explored with ‘entrepreneurship’ as a career pathway. The study adopted a mixed methods approach of an online survey and selected interviews to examine barriers and enablers to pursuing an entrepreneurial career. A key focus of the study was how sociocultural differences (gender, class, culture) influence the development of entrepreneurial capabilities. Finally, universities are providing incubators to balance requirements of students, employers and Government and students’ perceptions of this initiative are reported.

Citation

Hamilton, M., Gribble, C., & Smith, S. (2017, December). Developing entrepreneurial capabilities for the global labour market: A cross national study of IT students in the UK and Australia. Paper presented at Society for Research in Higher Education SRHE

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: Society for Research in Higher Education SRHE
• Start Date: Dec 6, 2017
• End Date: Dec 8, 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 11, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 11, 2017
• Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Gender, Sociocultural, Career, Incubator
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1018402
• Contract Date: Dec 11, 2017