A critical review of EE programmes and intrapreneurialism in business: cases and cross-sector collaborations within a Scottish University

This working paper is part of a wider PhD project into the social and commercial impact of entrepreneurial education within new and growing organisations post Covid-19. Conjecture supporting a direct linkage between the delivery and impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education and new venture creation (McMullan et al, 2001; Storey, 2000; Henry et al, 2004) and other economic growth measures is frequently proffered and not new. Evidence to support this supposition is, in fact, more limited (Smith, 2015; Bozward et al, 2022) with little research in evidence (Smith, 2020). What is of particular interest is the language used in these studies with the apparent absence of the phrase’s corporate entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship or intrapreneur being notable omissions. Indeed, recent studies tend to focus on student intentions rather than impact (Wardana et al, 2020; Jena, 2020; Ndofirepi, 2020). Burns in his book Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation quotes Drucker as saying “Today’s business, especially the large ones, will not survive in this period of rapid change and innovation unless they acquire entrepreneurial competence” (Burns, 2020: 13). With these considerations in mind, this paper investigates the intrapreneurial impact of intervening entrepreneurial education from universities and the UK context.