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Entrepreneurship educators (EEs) are critical in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation in emerging economies, as they play a vital part in developing talent, which further contributes to a knowledge-based economy. The value of EEs is in promoting entrepreneurship education and highlighting the significance of developing an entrepreneurial mindset among students. Primary data was collected by conducting indepth, semi-structured interviews involving educators affiliated with public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UAE. Participants were selected by adopting random sampling and snowballing techniques. Our findings not only shed light on the challenges faced by EEs but also underscore the urgent need for better support from institutions. This support is crucial for EEs to make an effective contribution to developing a professional workforce that can significantly impact students and the community. We also advocate strategies for fostering experiential learning, which include giving EEs more autonomy and support by establishing dedicated entrepreneurship centers. This work is a call to action, contributing to the further development of the literature on EE, which has received much lesser academic attention than it deserves. It also lays a foundation for further cross-country studies.

Purpose: Despite the considerable increase in research on entrepreneurship education, few studies examine the role of entrepreneurship educators. Similarly, most frameworks from entrepreneurship education recognize the educator’s importance in facilitating instruction and assessment, but the factors influencing the educator role are not well understood. According to the identity theory, personal factors including self-efficacy, job satisfaction and personal values influence the perspective of self, significance and anticipations that an individual in this role associates with it, determining their planning and actions. The stronger the role identity the more likely entrepreneurship educators will be in effectively developing their entrepreneurial skills as well as the overall learning experience of their students. The objective of this study is to pinpoint the factors that affect entrepreneurial role identity. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing upon the identity theory, this study developed a theoretical framework and carried out an empirical investigation involving a survey of 289 entrepreneurship educators across the globe. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was applied to analyze and explore the factors that impact the identity of the educators in their role as entrepreneurship teachers. Findings: The findings show that the role identity of entrepreneurship educators is significantly influenced by their self-efficacy, job satisfaction and personal values. Among these factors, self-efficacy and job satisfaction have the most significant impacts on how educators perceive their role. The implications of these results and directions for future research are also discussed. Originality/value: The novelty of the current study is derived from its conceptualization of the antecedents of role perception among entrepreneurship educators. This study stands out as one of the earliest attempts to investigate the factors that shape an individual’s scene of self a, Responsible Marketing and Consumer Behavior

Significant research explores effectiveness of entrepreneurial curriculum, teaching innovations and programs, but less often studied is the role of entrepreneurship educators. The way that the educator sees his or her role relative to the students is of critical importance because this directly influences pedagogy choices, expectations for students and learning outcomes, as well as job satisfaction. While recent studies propose typologies characterizing pedagogical approaches of educators, few of these are based on the data from entrepreneurship educators. Framed within role identity theory, we conducted 13 in–depth interviews to examine how entrepreneurship educators perceive their role. Using the qualitative data analysis tool (NVivo), we analyzed how the relationship between their perceptions of their role and core value orientation is connected to teaching approaches. Results show that these educators view their roles as teacher-focused, network-focused, or student-focused and that these perspectives are associated with different perceptions of students’ role and learning objectives. Further, we find different levels of emphasis on roles and that personal core values are differentially linked to these roles. Implications and future research directions are discussed.