Abstract
The dynamic, service-intensive character of South Africa's retail sector necessitates graduates capable of entrepreneurial thinking and action; however, higher education curricula frequently prioritise theoretical knowledge over the cultivation of applied entrepreneurial capabilities. This study explores how four practice-based pedagogical interventions, strategic planning workshops, emotional intelligence training, workplace immersion, and retail simulation, facilitate entrepreneurial mindset development among advanced retail management students. Guided by experiential learning theory, social constructivism, and dynamic capabilities perspectives, the research adopts an interpretive phenomenological approach, employing thematic analysis of reflective accounts from 15 participants who participated in the four practice-based pedagogical interventions. Findings reveal that practice-based retail pedagogy cultivates several core entrepreneurial capabilities: emotional intelligence, customer-centric value creation, adaptive problem-solving, collaborative leadership, and emergent strategic thinking. These capabilities emerge through interrelated experiential, social, and adaptive learning mechanisms, including exposure to critical incidents, reflective sense-making, and situated participation within authentic retail communities. While each intervention generates distinctive developmental outcomes, capability growth follows a cumulative trajectory. Emotional intelligence training establishes intrapersonal foundations, workplace immersion deepens applied customer and operational competence, strategic planning workshops strengthen analytical and strategic reasoning, and simulation exercises integrate learning under conditions of complexity and ambiguity. Notably, proactive opportunity recognition remains comparatively underdeveloped, signalling a critical area for pedagogical refinement. The study advances three key contributions. First, it provides a better understanding of how entrepreneurial capabilities are activated and consolidated within retail-specific learning contexts. Second, it highlights the mechanisms by which practice-based experiences influence the development of an entrepreneurial mindset. Third, it proposes a capability– intervention framework that enables educators to intentionally scaffold entrepreneurial learning while addressing domain-specific capability gaps pertinent to contemporary retail entrepreneurship. These insights hold implications for curriculum design in professionally oriented business education programs seeking to bridge the theory-practice divide.