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Many policy makers and educational institutions hope to boost their economies by stimulating the students’ entrepreneurial intentions. So far, most research has concluded that entrepreneurship training could reinforce these intentions by improving students’ image of entrepreneurship as a career option and how those around them can help them become entrepreneurs or their confidence in them to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills. However, recent studies show that even when these goals are met, students’ entrepreneurial intentions often do not grow.
Anne van Ewijk, Lecturer in Management at the University of Abu Dhabi, and Wiebke Weber, Deputy Director of the Research and Competence Center for Survey Methodology (RECSM) at the UPF Institute for Political and Social Sciences, started an international project in which several universities were involved in nine countries on six continents: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates and the United States. The article was recently published in the online edition of the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, which specializes in research related to entrepreneurial phenomena.
As part of the results of this project, the researchers confirmed an alternative dynamic to entrepreneurship intent in education: “Students make more decisive decisions for or against entrepreneurship when they are very aware of what they want in life,” they say. And they add: “Unfortunately, the entrepreneurship courses included in the study did not, on average, help students better understand their life goals.” This ability has not increased significantly with age or with a higher level of study.
According to the authors, when they facilitate the understanding of these life goals, trainers improve the ‘sorting effect’ (which makes students more convinced whether entrepreneurship is right for them or not): ‘Thus, business training will help select emerging entrepreneurs who are more motivated, “they assure.
This study is a first step towards a new idea of what to measure in studies of entrepreneurship education in entrepreneurship education in addition to the variables from dominant intention models. Future studies with larger samples could complement these results with more information about what is happening inside and outside the classroom, or investigate the resolution of potential trade-offs for future entrepreneurs.
The college can nurture innovative entrepreneurial intent
More information:
Anne R. van Ewijk et al., The Value of Knowing What You Want: Goal Hierarchy and Business Intentions, Journal of Business Venturing Insights (2020). DOI: 10.1016 / j.jbvi.2020.e00215
Provided by Pompeu Fabra University – Barcelona
Quote: Instead of engaging students in entrepreneurship, help them understand personal priorities (2021, Jan 11) posted on Jan 31, 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-01-students- entrepreneurship-personal-priorities.html
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