Institutional strategies for developing enterprise education : A review of some concepts and models

Purpose – This paper aims to identify criteria for assessing the viability of institutional strategies for enterprise education and to develop models that describe methods of organising enterprise education. Design/methodology/approach – The paper identifies and explains a number of key criteria including: educational impact, financial sustainability, academic credibility, human capital, structural embeddedness, context and infrastructure, alignment with institutional strategy and policy, community engagement, and alignment with policy context and funding. The paper then considers a number of models. These models are separated into two clusters: single department‐led models and campus wide models. The evaluative criteria are applied to each model to explore the impact of particular strategies and the criteria are used to assess the long‐term viability of each model. The paper concludes by making judgements about each criteria and their usefulness for helping understand long‐term sustainability of enterprise education. Findings – The paper shows that different models may be valuable in different higher education contexts and illustrates the temporal nature of the relationships between the models. Research limitations/implications – This is principally a conceptual paper that can be developed further by the application of the evaluative criteria empirically. The models developed can be tested and analysed further through reference to observations of practice. Originality/value – The paper makes a valuable contribution to knowledge in this subject area by describing and analysing the various models of organisation that could be used to support enterprise education in higher education institutions.