University context matter

Abstract

Purpose How university context (UC) enhances students’ entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition is an emerging topic. It is known that students learn, not only from educational programmes, but also from the context in which they are embedded. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of such context on student’s entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a three-dimensional institutional framework to describe UC including regulative, normative and cognitive structures. Regulative structures refer to rules and regulations, support initiatives in relation to entrepreneurship; normative structures include shared values and norms; while cognitive structures apply to knowledge among students and faculty. A heterogeneous sample of 196 respondents from five countries was used to create reliable measures of UC and to test the hypotheses with the help of regression analysis. Findings The findings indicate that two dimensions of UC in particular (regulative and normative) were shown to be of great importance in increasing entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity recognition among students. Originality/value The study contributes to this further by suggesting a reliable and theory-grounded scale of UC. Furthermore, this study adds to the discussion on entrepreneurship education by proving evidence of the importance of UC on entrepreneurial intentions. The important contribution is acknowledgement of the fact that social systems both constrain and enable entrepreneurs in their discovery, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities. The authors have established that “would-be student entrepreneurs” do not exist separately from their structural context. Attempts to understand them outside of this context cannot, therefore, fully capture their nature.

Antecedents of Entrepreneurial Intention among Young People: Model and Regional Evidence

“…Taking into account the scores of the items, it can be affirmed that the results of the descriptive analysis confirm the GEM reports and the affirmations of numerous authors about the importance that entrepreneurship has for young people, as well as the relevance that university students give to the creation of a company as a work alternative [37]. Likewise, the data from the GEM reports on the differences between Poland and Spain regarding entrepreneurship are also confirmed: Young people in Poland declare that they have a greater entrepreneurial intention, are more motivated, attach more importance to values and have a more favorable to entrepreneurship than young Spaniards.…”

“…In the educational context, some authors have also found a positive and significant causal relationship between intention and entrepreneurial behavior [60,62,63]. On the other hand, the intention is a measure of the will and effort that the entrepreneur is ready to make to establish a company [37,64,65].…”

“…Additionally, in the 2018 Global Student Entrepreneurship report (www.guesssurvey.org) special emphasis is placed on the crucial impact of student entrepreneurship, both economically and socially, making the study of entrepreneurial intention an even more relevant topic. At the university stage, students define their future perspectives in the short and medium terms, with entrepreneurship becoming a job option that is increasingly valued by them [37]. Likewise, it has been verified that education favors the learning of entrepreneurship and allows to distinguish the people who become entrepreneurs from those who do not.…”

Students Entrepreneurship Intention in Metropolitan and Indonesia Free Trade Zone: Is It Different?

“…Ajzen's model of planned behavior may have been refined by means of measuring identification -in place of attitudes toward entrepreneurship (Jarvis, 2016). Oftedal, Iakovleva, & Foss (2018) also examined entrepreneurial intentions in 5 countries. The findings show that the 2 dimensions of the university context influence the intention of student entrepreneurship both relatively and normatively.…”

Betydningen av innovasjon og entreprenørskap i norsk arbeidsliv – kunnskapsstatus og veien videre

“…Kolvereid og Moen (1997) viste at egne kurs i entreprenørskap i økonomiutdanningen øker sjansen for at studentene etablerer bedrift senere i karrie-ren. Universitetene spiller altså en rolle utover det rene utdanningsoppdraget, blant annet gjennom å påvirke studenters intensjoner om å starte bedrift (Oftedal, Iakovleva & Foss 2017).…”