Embedding the entrepreneurial mindset at a liberal arts university

Abstract

ABSTRACT While technology-based universities have long established entrepreneurial education as a means to convert invention into entrepreneurial activity, there are fewer examples of developing a thriving entrepreneurial environment in a liberal arts context. This article showcases the experience of John Cabot University, an accredited American liberal arts university in Italy, in developing entrepreneurship education, promoting a widespread entrepreneurial mindset, and leveraging the curiosity, spirit of enquiry, and openness to interdisciplinarity that characterize a liberal arts education to overcome financial constraints and the lack of in-house technology. The experience provides practitioners with a tested approach to creating a thriving entrepreneurial environment starting with a tabula rasa: it highlights the process and the overall strategy, it reflects on the key conditions necessary for success, and offers selected examples of implementation, measurement, and growth that are applicable to similar institutions.