A Qualitative Study of the Inclusion of Social Enterprise in the Entrepreneurial Education Curriculum

Abstract

Despite rising interest amongst students and the general public in social enterprise, it is often taught as an add-on along with sustainability in more general entrepreneurship courses. This has led to under-equipping students with the skills and knowledge they need to start a business in this area. We spoke to both academics and students, using semi-structured interviews, about their views of current social enterprise inclusion and what could be improved. The research found that entrepreneurship academics included social issues in their courses as part of entrepreneurial education, however, this was at introductory level and students were frustrated there was little opportunity to follow up on this interest, especially those in their final year, with no clear path for those interested. Focus varied between institutions and it was suggested that the institutional focus on employability statistics could be harmful for social entrepreneurship education. We suggest that more institutions have social enterprise modules which are able to be accessed university wide to allow multidisciplinarity, and separated out from general entrepreneurship at a higher level to fully focus on these issues to fully prepare those who are interested in starting or joining a social enterprise.