Attitudes and motivations of Polish students towards entrepreneurial activity

Abstract

PurposeThe Polish economy is continuing its expansion through the adoption of free market economics in the post‐communist era. To encourage this growth in a future where difficult global economic conditions are likely to persist, it is essential that entrepreneurial activity is encouraged within the next generation of graduates. This study aims to explore the attitudes and motivations of Polish students towards an entrepreneurship education programme.Design/methodology/approachTo achieve the research objectives the methodological approach adopted for this study involved semi‐structured interviews undertaken with 122 Polish students. Each student undertook an interview within which they were asked to reflect on the impact of an entrepreneurship education programme on their entrepreneurial attitudes and motivations.FindingsThis study builds on Jones et al., whose “snapshot” study found that Polish students had limited prior entrepreneurial experiences and expectations and welcomed the opportunity to undertake entrepreneurship education. The findings here confirmed the results of the prior study, but also provided greater insight regarding the reasons underpinning respondent behaviour.Research limitations/implicationsThe data collected within this study are limited to the experience of Polish students. It is questionable whether the results are generalisable to different nationalities. Additional research must be undertaken to explore this further.Practical implicationsThe results have implications for the construction and delivery of entrepreneurship education to student groups.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the extant knowledge in the context of the experience of enterprise education in a developing country. The paper will be of value to enterprise education providers in aiding the construction and delivery of such programmes.

The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy And Risk Preference on The Relationship Between Entrepreneurship Education And Entrepreneurial Career Option: A Conceptual Perspective

“…Similarly, entrepreneurship education is considered as the most effective means of embedding an entrepreneurial culture in higher educational institutions (HEIs) by fostering students" entrepreneurial selfconfidence and developing the supply of future graduate entrepreneurs (Jones, Miller, Jones, Packham, Pickenell, &Zbierowski, 2011;Sesen, 2013). However, Ogundeji (2014) identified entrepreneurial self-efficacy as the major driving factor stimulating entrepreneurial career among graduates; hence need to be carefully considered in entrepreneurial training.…”

In Search of Alignment: A Review of Impact Studies in Entrepreneurship Education

“…Our focus on entrepreneurship education interventions in a university setting is governed by a fast-growing body of empirical research on entrepreneurship education outcomes that need to be studied [6]. We built our search and selection strategy on the established method of systematic literature review [18,23], which has been recognized within the entrepreneurship field in general (e.g., [24][25][26]) and within the field of entrepreneurship education in particular (e.g., [4,5]). Following Henry et al [11] we started by compiling a list of corresponding journals within which to do our literature search.…”

“…With regard to methodological approaches, the absolute majority of the studies are quantitative ( = 12). There are only four notable exceptions with one qualitative article [25], and three others which employ a mixed method approach [28,31,32]. Among all the studies, questionnaire is the most common instrument for data collection, while researchers also used interviews as a data collection method [25].…”

“…Second, our analysis also reveals that the interventions vary greatly in duration and at times do not match what one would consider a program or course. For instance, a bundle of studies did not report on the time period for the intervention [25,29,30]. Yet, others define a course that may last between three days or twenty-four hours of class in total [1] to one semester [31].…”

The effect of entrepreneurial personality traits of undergraduates in the area of education of physical education and sports on the entrepreneurship tendency

“…Studies have shown that entrepreneurship education programs contribute to the development of entrepreneurial intentions (Küttim et al, 2014). It is seen that many countries including England (Jones & Iredale, 2010), French (Klapper, 2004), German, Poland (Jones et al, 2011;Packham et al, 2010), Spain (Lanero et al, 2011), Italy (Dubbini & Iacobucci, 2004), Indonesia (Utami, 2017), Ghana (Dzisi & Odoom 2017) are trying to pursue entrepreneurship education especially at the level of bachelor's degree. Because, universities are considered as institutions playing a big role in obtaining both economic and social benefits thanks to their great capacity in both obtaining and disseminating knowledge (Vazquez et al, 2010).…”