Discussion: View Thread

Sunday, July 27, 2025

13:45 - 15:15 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B4-m6

Organizers: 
Ragnhild Nordeng Fauchald,
Lise Aaboen and
Roger Sørheim
Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Panelists: 
Ulla Hytti – University of Turku

Andrew C. Corbett – Babson College

Karen Williams-Middleton – Chalmers University of Technology

Mats A. Lundqvist – Chalmers University of Technology

Siri Ann Terjesen – Florida Atlantic U.

Torgeir Aadland – Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Marie Lowegren – Lund University

In this panel symposium, we deepen into the complex and challenging, yet opportunity-and value creating processes of legitimizing action-based entrepreneurship education (EE). Through the symposium, experiences from legitimization processes locally at various higher education institutions (HEIs) and on overarching political, systemic and cultural levels are addressed. Questions of how and why addressing critical perspectives to action-based EE are important for the purpose of legitimizing the approach will be addressed. Further, the panelists will discuss why and why measuring impact of action-based EE is important, but also how this should be done to obtain high-quality, valid and rigor research that are required for legitimacy of the field. In the spirit of AoM being organized in Copenhagen this year, the organizers have invited seven eminent scholars from the Nordics and U.S. for an engaging and interactive panel symposium. The panelists present various research -and experience-based perspectives on processes of legitimizing EE and how to research impact of EE. The panel will discuss challenges and opportunities in the processes of establishing and running action-based EE at universities today and aim to set a research agenda for the future of action-based EE worldwide. Further, as legitimacy calls for critical questions to be asked about the boundary conditions or understanding the potentially unintentional consequences of such programs (e.g. exclusion), critical perspectives will be one of the main topics of the panel discussion. The audience is encouraged to ask questions and engage in the session by providing their perspectives to the panel discussion.