Entrepreneurship implied: Sociology students and teachers navigating ambiguous environments in Austrian Higher Education

The fostering of entrepreneurial mindsets in higher education (HE) has become a central goal over the last three decades. This paper investigates how universities’ focus on entrepreneurship impacts Austrian sociology students and teachers by analyzing 24 policy documents and 18 in-depth qualitative interviews. While entrepreneurship as defined and recommended by the European Commission is present in Austrian policy documents, its implementation in the social sciences is not clearly defined. Nevertheless, this study shows that entrepreneurial values are evident in the daily lives of sociology students and teachers. This is despite sociology being a traditionally non-businesslike discipline. Consequently, students embrace entrepreneurial values while sociologically critiquing them. Meanwhile, teachers adapt their teaching practices in response to the growing importance of entrepreneurship in HE, while also attempting to counteract this by teaching what matters in sociology. Despite entrepreneurship (con)figuring the habitus of both teachers and students in this study, entrepreneurial values remain implied instead of being openly discussed in Austrian sociology. This limits meaningful responses to the growing importance of entrepreneurship across social science disciplines and points to the need for clearer definitions of entrepreneurship in HE, especially in disciplines where its implementation seems counterintuitive, such as sociology.