Chasing shadows: enterprise culture as an educational phenomenon

Abstract

The already chequered history of the culture concept in both the social sciences (Archer 1988) and educational studies (Burtonwood 1986) took yet another turn when recently coupled with ‘enterprise’. Moreover those shadowy ideas about enterprise culture that resulted sometimes claimed simple and straightforward links from education, through into economic performance, towards supposed new national capabilities and well‐being which were rarely that clearly proven in practice. Nevertheless, in chasing these shadows, educational institutions now host a plethora of schemes and initiatives, ranging from the likes of the Mini‐Enterprise in Schools Project (MESP), through Enterprise in YTS, to Enterprise in Higher Education (EHE), Enterprise Awareness in Teacher Education (EATE), Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), and various others with no clear end in sight. Not only that but, very much under the shadow of ‘the’ enterprise culture as government and state would have it, many such institutions’ own organization and management now also appear increasingly ‘entrepreneurial’ wherever possible. So, vague, shadowy, ill‐defined, and rarely measured though enterprise culture outside might be, it is more of an educational phenomenon than sometimes realized, however faultily premised this might turn out to be. For that reason, more educationalists might hereafter carefully differentiate between several possible enterprise cultures, and clearly understand how variably each regards education per se, before engaging this phenomenon further.