The Entrepreneurship Educator: Understanding Role Identity

Significant research explores effectiveness of entrepreneurial curriculum, teaching innovations and programs, but less often studied is the role of entrepreneurship educators. The way that the educator sees his or her role relative to the students is of critical importance because this directly influences pedagogy choices, expectations for students and learning outcomes, as well as job satisfaction. While recent studies propose typologies characterizing pedagogical approaches of educators, few of these are based on the data from entrepreneurship educators. Framed within role identity theory, we conducted 13 in–depth interviews to examine how entrepreneurship educators perceive their role. Using the qualitative data analysis tool (NVivo), we analyzed how the relationship between their perceptions of their role and core value orientation is connected to teaching approaches. Results show that these educators view their roles as teacher-focused, network-focused, or student-focused and that these perspectives are associated with different perceptions of students’ role and learning objectives. Further, we find different levels of emphasis on roles and that personal core values are differentially linked to these roles. Implications and future research directions are discussed.