Status of Art Entrepreneurship Education in Iran: An Empirical Survey among Art Professors and Students

The arts industry is a tool to help create new economic foundation for future economic growth that attracts many creative people in the knowledge-based economy to create new ideas and products through entrepreneurship. Universities are considered as a stimulus and an important factor in teaching entrepreneurship to students. The purpose of this study was to present a report on the current state of art entrepreneurship education among Iranian universities of arts. The statistical population of this study consisted of 11 art professors in 3 universities of art (Isfahan / Tehran / Yazd) in the qualitative stage selected by convenience sampling. In the quantitative stage, 120 Master of Arts students were selected as a statistical sample. To gain a deeper understanding of the current educational status of art students from the perspective of professors, an exploratory and inductive research approach with a survey strategy was used and the data obtained from semi-structured interviews was analyzed using coding and manual analysis. Entrepreneurial skills were also ranked from the perspective of 120 art students using the fuzzy TOPSIS technique. The findings of this study showed evidence that art entrepreneurship education, although considered very important and necessary by professors for the professional preparation and entrepreneurship of art graduates has received less attention in universities. Finally, the practical implications of this research encourage discussions in the field of entrepreneurship in art and redesign of the curriculum.