Handbook of Research in Entrepreneurship Education: Volume 2

Citation

Ratten, V. (2008), "Handbook of Research in Entrepreneurship Education: Volume 2", Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 88-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506200810861276

This edited book on entrepreneurship education is a timely addition to the literature on entrepreneurship. Given the increased attention by business schools on entrepreneurship studies, this book provides a comprehensive examination of different perspectives by a number of scholars on entrepreneurship education. Whilst the first volume of this book took a general perspective to entrepreneurship education, the second volume takes a contextual perspective. As entrepreneurship throughout the world is diverse depending on the context, this book provides a number of illuminating chapters that discuss the different contexts. The contextual perspective is examined through culture, geography, institutions, ethics, and politics. The book is divided into four main contexts: cultural, institutional, national, and political. The first part discusses the cultural context in Brazil and The Netherlands. In addition, Chapter 3 by Sylvia Maxfield discusses the entrepreneurship gender gap, which provides an interesting insight into the implications for entrepreneurship education. Veronique Bouchard in Chapter 5 discusses how the entrepreneurship curriculum is emerging in terms of teaching corporate entrepreneurship. Part two of the book discusses the institutional context and includes four chapters written by a number of different authors in various geographical contexts. Michael Schaper and Gian Casimir discuss how entrepreneurship studies have affected Australian students. In addition, the section includes chapters that discuss large and multidisciplinary universities that teach entrepreneurship. The third part on the national context provides for very interesting reading. The four chapters in part three of the book include work on Belgium, Canada, New Zealand and Norway. The diversity of countries and authors in part three and elsewhere in the book make the book essential reading for those wanting a holistic and current debate on entrepreneurship education. Part four of the book is on the political context, which includes four chapters. This part of the book provides an illuminating evidence of policy implications stemming from entrepreneurship research. For those developing their entrepreneurship curriculum, the chapter by Norbert Kailer is useful as it discusses planning problems and concepts for evaluation design. The link between entrepreneurship studies and students starting in their professional careers is examined in Chapter 17 by Jean‐Pierre Boissin, Barthelemy Chollet and Sandrine Emin. Also included in many of the chapters of the book are useful figures and tables that provide good examples of concepts in entrepreneurship education. For example, Figure 2.4 on page 24 of the book shows the six steps of the dreaming process and the entrepreneurial learning cycle. Overall, this book is a fabulous, thought provoking and idea generating book on entrepreneurship education. For academics in business schools this book provides a great foundation for the diverse issues in entrepreneurship education. Public policy practitioners will also find the book very useful for analyzing the flow on effects of entrepreneurship studies on mainstream business education. The editor Alain Fayolle is commended for his high‐quality work in composing this delightful book on entrepreneurship education. The book is definitely a compulsory read for people interested in entrepreneurship.