Fragility and Projectivity: How Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) Affect Future-Oriented Sensemaking of New Venture Ideas

Research examining the relationship between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and entrepreneurial regional development has provided rich insights [2]. By privileging spatial proximity, studies have examined the territorial impact of HEI’s upon entrepreneurship (e.g., knowledge spillover; collocation; incubators, social networks etc.). As research into the spatial territoriality of entrepreneurship continues to grow, the influence of temporality is less well researched. This article seeks to contribute to growing interest in incorporating temporality into entrepreneurship theory development [3] by addressing the question of how the temporal affects HEIs impact upon the development of students’ fragile and projective ‘new venture ideas’[4]. The study draws upon the concept of future-oriented sensemaking to examine the micro-processes through which four cases of student venture ideas were developed. Using material gathered through a longitudinal study, a typology is developed to explain how future sensemaking exchanges unfold as participants’ projected imagined future trajectories of possible entrepreneurial action and then engaged in transactions to convert their new venture ideas into plausible ventures. The article aims to contribute to debate about the entrepreneurial regional development by drawing attention to how HEIs have a vital role to play in developing students’ temporal awareness [5]. Student enterprise is examined here as an opportunity to gain experience of ‘inter-temporal coordination’ [6]. The article concludes by considering the potential relevance of developing an entrepreneurial temporal imagination for policy designers seeking to enhance the impact of HEIs upon regional development.