Maximizing K-12 Entrepreneurial Leadership Through Community Partnerships

• In Event: Examining School-Community Intersections

Abstract

The literature on entrepreneurship in education emphasizes leadership coming from without K-12 schooling, rather than from within the schools. The purpose of this study was to better understand how community partnerships could support and promote entrepreneurial leadership within K-12 schooling. In this case study, the researcher used interviews, observations and transcribed meeting notes to follow two entrepreneurial educators in the design and creation of a unique early college high school program. The author found that collaboration contributed to creativity as well as courage to overcome impediments and that sustained support could move merely opportunistic (Kirnerian) entrepreneurial activity toward a more inventive, innovative (Schumpeterian) kind of leadership. An unexpected finding was a strong link between boundary spanning and entrepreneurial leadership.

Author

• Jack Leonard, University of Massachusetts - Boston