Digital transformation in entrepreneurship education centres: preliminary evidence from the Italian Contamination Labs network

Purpose: This paper analyses whether the entrepreneurship education centres introduced by the Italian Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2012 (the Italian Contamination Labs – CLabs) are effectively adopting the emergent digital technologies for nurturing their entrepreneurship education activities and dissemination of knowledge contamination practices among university students. Design/methodology/approach: An in-depth analysis of italian entrepreneurship education centres provides evidence about the direct role played by digital technologies in supporting and enhancing the entrepreneurial processes, as well as on their indirect role in stimulating entrepreneurship activities of nascent student entrepreneurs. Findings: Findings provide some insights into the strategic role of some categories of digital technologies inside the CLabs. The main results show still a weak use of digital technologies in CLabs except for social media and digital platforms, mainly used for promotion scope and communication of the entrepreneurial outputs achieved by the students. Research limitations/implications: Limitations of the study consist of the need to expand the study to all the other CLabs belonging to the CLabs Italian Network and to derive a set of “invariance” among the cases in terms of digital technologies support for student entrepreneurship. Practical implications: New ways of managing entrepreneurship centres will involve a more massive adoption of digital technologies to support and transform some processes realized inside the CLabs, even if the governance of such centres must develop new digital skills. Originality/value: The originality of the work regards the contribution to the emerging role of digital technologies on the student's entrepreneurship.