An analysis of government policy communication on entrepreneurship education in Australia: spanning macro and micro economic implications

This paper illustrates techniques of document analysis designed to support a theoretical inquiry into the relationship between entrepreneurship education and economic development outcomes. Specifically, it draws upon research that used publicly available text as data to analyse how key concepts in entrepreneurship education are portrayed in public policy on entrepreneurship education. Such analysis takes on a particular significance when policy is viewed as communication that both shapes and is shaped by social practices. The analysis adopted a little utilised approach in entrepreneurship research that was designed to explore how the communication of public education policy reflected assumed relationships between an individual entrepreneur and macro-economic outcomes. The texts were taken from an Australian government department's website purporting responsibility for leadership in national policy-making in Australian education. This paper exhibits how techniques derived from content and discourse analysis were applied to explore tensions and paradox around the term 'enterprise' as it was contextualized in the department's website. Through the analysis, layers of concepts were discovered that affected the meaning of 'enterprise', which in turn shaped policy. The product of this analysis highlighted the fact that effective entrepreneurship policy-making requires attention be paid to the meaning and roots of key terms in policy when it is intended to achieve focused economic outcomes. The implications for entrepreneurship education are briefly discussed.