"Mindsets" is a blog series featuring short posts that showcase interesting people, research, and innovation associated with the E-lab.

The name "Mindsets" reflects a key concept: entrepreneurship should be understood not just as a specific activity, but as a mindset. These mindsets shape how we perceive the world and approach challenges.

“Mindsets” aim to capture the energy and depth of the thrilling environment that E-lab is creating—one that brings together individuals from various fields and fosters collaboration between academia and industry.

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

The Ingredients for a Magical Partnership (Hint: It’s not pixie dust)

The formation of corporate partnerships is driving innovation, especially in the TMT (technology, media, and telecommunications) industries. Over 80% of US CEOs are either implementing, or plan to incorporate partnerships to grow their businesses, or move into new markets, and maximise resources. A PwC survey from 2014, indicates that deals are 53% more likely to close when corporations join together in a partnership. Given the importance of these relationships, what do the experts say about how to establish and maintain partnerships that endure and create impact?

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

How Empathic Leadership and Employee Ownership Can Change Work for the Better

On Wednesday 22nd May, the King’s E-Lab hosted Pete Stavros, Co-Head of Global Private Equity at KKR, in conversation with King’s College Provost, Gillian Tett. As an investor, Stavros has helped lead several successful investments across sectors and sizes and has a pioneered an innovative employee engagement and ownership model. He is a firm believer in the power and benefit of employee ownership. Read his reflections on the model, a rare opportunity for a “win-win” in business, and the kind of leaders that can make it happen.

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

Hope Is Everywhere I Go

Ernst Bloch was a 20th century German philosopher whose magnum opus is a three-volumed ode to hope. While the worlds of start-ups and philosophical endeavor can seem to sit at odds with one another, a closer look at Blochian thinking shows what we stand to learn from bridging the two. What we do and how we do it should be infused with a particular kind of hope.

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

Inclusive luxury: An Oxymoron or a Catalyst for Social Change?

The Luxury industry is a highly influential sector owing to its immense cultural capital, global customer awareness and high visibility. Against a backdrop of rising socio-economic, gender and racial inequalities, however, luxury brand exclusivity may risk alienating large segments of society, thus creating social tensions which puts the industry under mounting pressure to become more inclusive. By working together, and with fashion social enterprises, strategies can be explored to reconcile luxury and inequality within a framework and set of partnerships that contributes to a fairer, more sustainable world.

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Advice, Opinion Živa Priimek Advice, Opinion Živa Priimek

What we can learn from the Arts: Leveraging the Power of Aesthetics for Businesses

In the past, aesthetics has featured primarily in philosophical study but, understanding the influence of aesthetics can be a powerful tool for entrepreneurs. As the business world becomes increasingly homogenised, it is imperative for a business to ‘differentiate’ itself. Creating a brand, however, is about more than just putting together different visual elements. We need to look closely at the meaning denoted by these elements and how this generates ‘coherence’. Why? Because when something is coherent, it becomes convincing.

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

Reflecting on Poetry and Entrepreneurship

On the face of it, poetry and entrepreneurship make for odd bedfellows, but traditional perceptions were challenged by the presentation on ‘Xu Zhimo - poetic innovator’ at the King’s E-Lab on 22 February, when the award-winning translator and King’s alumnus Stuart Lyons gave a slide presentation and poetry reading to an audience of 150 at the college’s Keynes Lecture Theatre. The message, underlined by the Provost Dr Gillian Tett OBE in her introduction, was that entrepreneurial thinking is not just the preserve of the hard disciplines of maths, science, economics and engineering.

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Opinion Živa Priimek Opinion Živa Priimek

Religion and Enterprise

On the 15th of February 2023, Malcolm McKenzie gave an address at a special Evensong, sung by the King’s Voices and hosted by the Dean of King's College, Cambridge. The address, ‘Religion and Enterprise’, explores what the Entrepreneur can learn from Religion and what the Religious can learn from Enterprise. Touching on these valuable lessons, it reflects on ethical issues for entrepreneurs.

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Advice, Opinion Živa Priimek Advice, Opinion Živa Priimek

An Entrepreneurial Mindset for Teachers

Entrepreneurship starts from seeing an opportunity that is not currently available to you because you do not ‘control’ sufficient resources. An entrepreneurial headteacher is one who works out how to get additional resources to achieve, for their pupils and families, more than is normally possible.

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How can I submit a piece?

Submissions for the "Mindsets" blog series can be made as follows:

  • Send short posts (approximately 800 words) to seh220@cam.ac.uk

  • Content should relate to entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial mindset, though the brief is flexible. The organizers especially welcome critical perspectives that raise questions and prompt responses, as well as thought-provoking reflections and innovative ideas.

  • When submitting, please specify a category that best fits your piece:

    1. Entrepreneurship advice,

    2. Reflections on E-lab events and activities,

    3. Opinion pieces on entrepreneurship and its societal impact,

    4. Research by E-lab community members.

Looking forward to reading your piece,

Sophie