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1. Introduction
This paper explores the integrated processes of action learning, entrepreneurial learning and new venture creation by students and graduates in the context of the creative industries, using experience gained in the Student Placements for Entrepreneurs in Education (SPEED) programme. It provides significant new understanding of the learning process experienced during student and graduate creative venture formation, offering insights relevant to the debates on graduate entrepreneurship and employability in the creative industries, and the challenges of developing sustainable business ventures in this sector.
The SPEED project set out to enable university students to establish their own business ventures as work experience projects, and created a significant, innovative example of action learning applied to new venture formation and entrepreneurial development. It was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) under the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF Round 3), running in 13 Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in the UK between 2006 and 2008 and leading to successor projects. SPEED is of wider interest for pioneering action learning in a national student entrepreneurship project which connected a diverse group of HEIs and educator-practitioners in an action learning process. Its scale was significant, the target of supporting 750 student ventures over two years being exceeded with 770 ventures being created. Of these, some 43 per cent or 330 were in the creative and related industry sectors, forming the most numerous segment of the programme. Many more applied creative approaches in their development.
This paper explores two questions:
(1)] How do action learning and entrepreneurial learning connect with new venture creation in the context of the creative industries?
(2)] How does learning influence the types of creative enterprises developed by students?
It addresses these questions first, through a short critical review of the existing literature and knowledge in relation to action learning, new venture creation and creative enterprise. It summarises the SPEED programme using secondary data, then assesses the range of creative enterprises established by students and the sustainability of their business models using a business strategy framework. Based on their learning trajectories, it conceptualises the action learning process of new venture creation and suggests the models developed may be of use in supporting creative entrepreneurship in the challenging post-recessionary economic and employment environment.
2. Review...