NEW STUDY: Former students have important role in the ecosystem

Former entrepreneurship students often stay in the university ecosystem. Now researchers have studied what they contribute.

The main tasks of universities and colleges are to conduct research and education. But they also have a third task: to interact with the surrounding society – for example, organizations, companies, associations and individuals. Together with universities, these actors form a so-called ecosystem, in this case an entrepreneurial ecosystem. The idea of the third task is that knowledge should be widely disseminated and thus contribute to local, regional and national development.

– Our study shows that former students, so-called alumni, have a central role in this work,” says Ziad El-Awad at the Sten K Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship, Lund University.

He is one of the researchers who have studied how alumni engage in the entrepreneurial ecosystem around Lund University and how they influence the dynamics.

Three types of engagement

The study found three types of engagement among former entrepreneurship students. The exploratory engagement is expressed by the alumni focusing on building relationships to know who to contact when and where. The person researches, compares and compiles information about different collaborative events offered by the ecosystem.

The instrumental engagement is found in those alumni who have made some progress as an entrepreneur. They mainly interact strategically and purposefully with actors in the ecosystem that they believe can contribute to the development of their start-up.

A third commitment is the emotional one. It is found in those alumni who are keen to become part of the ecosystem. They want to contribute their knowledge and commitment to developing others and increasing their self-worth. They often have a social drive and tend to become mentors or coaches to new students.

– Some engagements are based on giving and others on taking. But both contribute to the effectiveness and viability of the entrepreneurial ecosystems around universities, explains Ziad El-Awad.

Contact ziad.el-awad@fek.lu.se

More about the study
The study is called Unpacking the early alumni engagement of entrepreneurship graduates (2022) and is published in the scientific journal Journal of Small Business Management. Researchers in the study are Ziad El-Awad, Jasna Pocek and Diamanto Politis at Sten K Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship, Lund University and Jonas Gabrielsson, Halmstad University.