Dissonance alleviation work: Exploring the role of students in shaping entrepreneurship education outcomes

An important yet underexamined issue in the entrepreneurship education (EE) literature concerns the role of students in shaping EE outcomes. Through a qualitative study of an EE program, I investigate how students construct their desired role identities and how their pre-program aspirations and the resultant framing of the program shape this process. Students joined the program with either entrepreneurial or managerial aspirations. During the program, both groups faced dissonance due to misalignments between program content and their framing, prompting them to engage in what I term “dissonance alleviation work.” Through this process, students with entrepreneurial aspirations developed entrepreneurial identities, those with managerial aspirations developed managerial identities, and a few developed intrapreneurial identities. By highlighting the recursive interaction between student agency and the program environment, this research contributes a more nuanced understanding of how students actively shape their learning outcomes, extending EE research that has predominantly focused on program design and structure.