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This paper investigates how academic teachers engage in identity work and make sense of entrepreneurship and academia in an entrepreneurship training programme.

By employing a sensemaking approach, the paper inductively analyses materials from a business idea development camp organised for academic teachers.

In collective sensemaking during the camp, non-academic facilitators strongly influenced the reflection-in-experience via normative ideas of entrepreneurship and their othering of entrepreneurship from academic work. In their post-camp individual essays, the academic teachers reflect-on-experience and draw parallels between entrepreneurship and academic work constructing sameness.

Longitudinal research is needed in identity work and sensemaking among academic teachers in relation to entrepreneurship.

Universities need to offer arenas for teachers and other faculty to support identity work and sensemaking.

This study generates new understanding of how academic teachers engage in identity work and make sense of entrepreneurship in training when interacting with others. It underscores the importance of time needed for reflection-on-action.

The purpose of this paper is to critically investigate how collective identity is constructed and regulated by board members and other active members of student entrepreneurship societies (ESs).

A discursive analysis focusing on collective identity construction and regulation based on focus group discussions in two student-led Finnish ESs affiliated with higher education institutions (HEIs).

ES members construct and regulate collective entrepreneurial identity based on a shared narrative of entrepreneurship and the affective state of positive energy and thinking, i.e. “positive buzz.” Being entrepreneurial was constructed as having the right kind of mentality to cope with uncertain and rapidly changing working life and to break free of old moulds of working. The shared narrative was coherent, and critical reflection on the values or risks of entrepreneurship was mainly silenced.

As ESs are a relatively new phenomenon future research could explore ESs in different cultural and regional contexts and compare the identity construction and regulation of ES student members and non-members.

Strong collective identity and sense of commitment to doing things together may mitigate the pressures of being entrepreneurial and taking charge of one’s life.

Educational practice and research could benefit from better understanding of the informal context in which entrepreneurship education takes place.

The paper contributes to the relatively new research stream on ESs as student-led entrepreneurial organizations in HEIs. The research demonstrates how ES members participate in constructing a collective and coherent identity that is regulated by shared values and a positive state of mind. This study extends the understanding of ESs from the functional perspective to viewing them as a social community. It contributes to the definition of ESs and the self-understanding of ES actors.

Existing research focuses on the role of planning in successful transfers of family business. From a bounded emotionality perspective, this paper aims to investigate the transfer of business processes and the underlying reasons for delayed or unplanned transfers despite the feasible succession plans.

A follow‐up case study in six small family firms was carried out between 2001 and 2008. The research material was collected primarily in interviews with firm representatives in 2001 and 2008. Further information was obtained through participant observation, and background data on the firms were also used.

The analysis enhances understanding of business‐transfer processes in the context of subjective limitations and relational feelings. Any divergence from the original conditions in the transfer plan may delay the process but the delays are tolerated by putting the transfer on hold in the daily activities and focusing on business routines instead. The results emphasise how individuals' goals and values change over time, and how decisions are weighed up from various identity positions questioning the basic assumptions and decisions set out in the plan. Despite the delays, however, transfers of business or the firm are not easily abandoned.

The results suggest that linear, goal‐oriented planning may not be sufficient for executing successful transfers, but further longitudinal research is needed to corroborate these qualitative findings.

The paper makes use of the bounded emotionality approach, which allows the analysis of both the rational and emotional aspects involved, and helps to explain delays or unplanned transfers.

This study aims to advance the understanding on individual variations in PhD candidates’ personal interest in their doctorate and supervisory and research community support, and several individual and structural attributes potentially having an impact on the profiles.

The authors explored the interrelationship between personal interest – social support profiles, and nationality, gender, research group and study status and the risk of dropping out. A total of 768 PhD candidates from a research-intensive university in Finland responded to a modified version of the cross-cultural doctoral experience survey. Latent profile analysis was used to explore the individual variations in PhD candidates’ interest and support from the supervisor and research community.

Three distinctive PhD interest-social support profiles were detected; the high interest–high support profile (74.4%, n = 570), the high interest–moderate support profile (18.2%, n = 140) and the moderate interest–moderate support profile (7.4%, n = 56). The profiles exhibited high to moderate levels of research, development and instrumental interest. Individuals in the high interest–moderate support and in the moderate interest–moderate support profiles were more prone to consider dropping out from their PhD than in the high interest–high support profile.

The results indicate that by cultivating PhD candidates’ interest and providing sufficient supervisory and the research community offers a means for preventing candidates from discontinuing their doctorate. Hence, building a supportive learning environment that cultivates a PhD candidate’s personal interest is likely to reduce high dropout rates among the candidates.