Preparing for a future career through entrepreneurship education: Towards a research agenda

Abstract

Although most students of entrepreneurship education find employment in established organizations after graduation, the employability of entrepreneurship education graduates remains largely overlooked in the education research literature. In this conceptual paper, the authors address this gap to motivate a future research agenda. The paper describes how entrepreneurship education may enable or impede the graduates’ entrance, development and transition in the labour market. To develop the theoretical arguments, the authors build on a processual conceptualization of employability. Seven propositions are presented to conceptually explore how competencies that are obtained through entrepreneurship education may influence the employability of graduates in a dynamic labour market. The propositions lay the groundwork for future studies on entrepreneurship education graduates’ employability and set a research agenda for how the employability of these graduates could be studied.