Edinburgh Napier University

  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.