Fostering an Entrepreneurial Mindset: A Comparative Study of Systemic Integration in Higher Education

This study examines the systemic integration of entrepreneurship education and the culture of self employment within higher education as a component of sustainable institutional reform. Using a comparative analytical approach, it analyzes international practices across five higher education systems. Finland, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Korea were selected to represent diverse yet mature models of entrepreneurship education integration. The findings reveal significant variation in the depth and coherence of integration across national contexts. Rather than identifying a single transferable model, the study shows that effective integration depends on the interaction of key institutional dimensions, including policy alignment, curricular embedding, faculty capacity, infrastructure, external partnerships, and impact evaluation. Finland demonstrates the most coherent configuration, while other systems exhibit partial or fragmented integration shaped by contextual factors. The study concludes that entrepreneurship education is most sustainable when embedded as a system-level institutional strategy rather than implemented through isolated initiatives. It offers an analytical framework, supported by an adapted ADKAR change model, to guide context-sensitive reform. For Arab higher education systems, the primary implication is diagnostic, emphasizing contextual adaptation over direct replication.