Opportunities to Improve Entrepreneurship Education: Contributions Considering Brazilian Challenges

Abstract

This paper identifies challenges and opportunities for enhancing higher education in entrepreneurship considering student perceptions concerning both their demand for entrepreneurship education and their entrepreneurial intention as well as previous studies that present the points of view of experts. The main focus is Brazilian higher education, but the results address challenges that cross borders, such as the need for a practical approach. The study analyzed the data from the Brazilian version of the 2011 Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students' Survey (GUESSS) obtained with an online questionnaire answered by 25,751 Brazilian students from 37 colleges and universities. To give a reference for a better understanding of Brazilian statistics, data were compared to those of the 2011 international GUESSS involving also 25 other countries and 64,079 responses from them. Three hypotheses were tested. The results show that entrepreneurship education has a significant negative effect on student entrepreneurial intention and also on self‐efficacy. The same occurs between entrepreneurial intention and students' demand for entrepreneurship education. Brazilian students present higher levels of entrepreneurial intention and are significantly more motivated to take courses and activities in entrepreneurship than those students in the international sample. Approximately 50 percent of Brazilian students are potential entrepreneurs. One of the opportunities identified is to take advantage of students' positive attitudes and their high demand. The opportunities could play an important role in overcoming the challenges recognized, among which are the need for a more practical approach and the need for larger and diversified educational offerings beyond business planning. The challenges make Neck and Greene's recommendations, presented in a 2011 issue of JSBM, particularly important for Brazil. The last three sections propose different explanations, suggestions for more research, and practical recommendations.

Valores Pessoais, Atitudes E Intenção Empreendedora: Um Estudo Com Estudantes De Graduação Em Administração

“…Conforme já acenou Ajzen (2011), as atitudes são os melhores preditores da intenção empreendedora, a qual, por sua vez, pode ser considerada como o estágio inicial no processo de criação de uma empresa, ou também uma definição pessoal do objetivo de se tornar um empreendedor, aliado a um plano para alcançar este objetivo (ALMEIDA, 2013). Instituições de ensino que buscam promover uma educação empreendedora devem, portanto, intensificar conteúdos e atividades práticas que reforcem o desenvolvimento dessas características (OKUDAN; RZASA, 2006;LIMA et. al., 2015;SCHAEFER;MINELLO, 2016).…”

“…Por meio do ensino e fomento do empreendedorismo, as universidades desempenham um importante papel no surgimento e desenvolvimento de novos empreendedores (OCTÍCIO, 2012;TSCHÁ;CRUZ NETO, 2014;LIMA et. al., 2015;BALCONI, 2016).…”

Entrepreneurial potential in less innovative regions: the impact of social and cultural environment

“…For this, the most used theoretical foundation is Ajzen's (1991) TPB. TPB has consolidated as the most used perspective in recent research to explain the entrepreneurial process from the combined influence of personal and social factors (Lima et al, 2015;Shirokova et al, 2016;Entrialgo and Iglesias, 2016). According to TPB, entrepreneurial intention depends on three independent factors: personal attitude, perceived behavior control and subjective norms (Ajzen, 1991).…”

Teoria da Aprendizagem Experiencial no Ensino de Empreendedorismo: Um Estudo Exploratório

“…Acredita-se que um dos pontos de partida para tal entendimento seja o uso da experiência concreta no aprendizado empreendedor, sendo este o destaque dado por autores como Corbett (2005), Lima et al (2015), Rae e Carswell (2000) Kolb (1984) como uma possibilidade para tal processo.…”

“…(Katz, 2003;Lima et al, 2015) e a discussão sobre metodologias específicas para o seu ensino (Honig, 2004;Neck & Greene, 2011 Muitos desafios ainda existentes na educação empreendedora, como metodologias, práticas, treinamento de docentes e particularidades da temática, advém do fato de o tema ser multidisciplinar e complexo, influenciado pelos valores tanto da cultura do país quanto da aptidão de docentes e discentes (Lima et al, 2015).…”