Entrepreneurship education in humanities and social sciences: are students qualified to start a business?/Verslumo ugdymas humanitariniu ir socialiniu mokslu studijose: ar studentai yra pasirenge pradeti savo versla?

Vazquez-Burgete, Jose Luis ; Lanero, Ana ; Raisiene, Agota Giedre 等

1. Introduction

In the last few years, adaptation of university systems to the requirements of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are entailing significant transformations in surrounding countries, in an effort to deliver a better response to the social needs and expectations frequently assigned to these institutions. In this respect, it has been traditionally assumed that the educational level acquired must qualify college students to practice a professional activity, which in turn must satisfy the demands of human capital required by the productive sector, in order to contribute to socio-economic welfare. Nevertheless, the traditional flow of transactions between higher education and labor market has been proved to be insufficient in contemporary occidental societies, since unemployment, flexibility and over-qualification are considered the more representative descriptors of young people's work insertion over the last decade in Europe (Eurostat 2009; Garcia-Montalvo, Peiro 2009; OECD 2009a, 2009b).

For this reason, different academics and researchers agree that European universities face the challenge of orienting their academic programs to new social demands (Flavian, Lozano 2004; Michavila 2009; Zabalda 2009), in an attempt to close the gap between students' acquired knowledge and labor market exigencies, and provide full coverage of the needs of all university users and, by extension, those of society. Looking for this purpose, entrepreneurship can be seen as a promising option of work insertion and professional development of recent university graduates, at the service of broader objectives of sustainable socio-economic welfare.

Not in vain, in the context of the wide-ranging social and economic changes that have been occurring in industrialized countries over recent decades, new, small enterprises have become a key element in creating employment, innovation and social welfare in all modern, competitive economies (Acs et al. 1994; Thurik 1999; Audretsch et al. 2002; Bosma et al. 2008). This is true to such an extent that encouragement for entrepreneurship is currently at the heart of a host of requirements and public standards in the countries of the European Union (EU), in an effort that has reached out to affect economic, social, educational and employment policies (COM 2000, 2003, 2008).

From this general framework, this paper reviews the concept of entrepreneurial competence and uses it to analyze differences in entrepreneurship education across various Social and Humanities disciplines. In doing that, we first review the guidelines marked by the European common policy with regard to the inclusion of entrepreneurship education as part of the university academic mission and provide a global description of the current state of the matter in European and Spanish institutions of higher education. Next, we review previous literature on entrepreneurship education and define the construct of entrepreneurial competence in terms of specific knowledge, skills and attitudes. According to that, we present an empirical study carried out in two Spanish universities aimed to validate the model proposed and analyze differences in entrepreneurship education between students in the various Social and Humanities areas. Finally, conclusions and implications of the study are discussed.

2. Entrepreneurship education in the European Higher Education Area

Encouragement for entrepreneurship education is currently at the heart of a host of political requirements in the countries of the European Union (EU), in an effort to develop a dynamic enterprising culture and foster new firm creation as a source of sustainable competitiveness in the continent (European Parliament 2000; COM 2010). An outcome of that has been the inclusion of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in a European Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Recommendation 2006). From this view, it is recognized that entrepreneurship acts as a source of personal and professional self-realization, active citizenship and social inclusion for individuals, and that's why entrepreneurial competences should be developed by the end of compulsory school or training, acting as a foundation for further lifelong learning.

In this context, contemporary educational systems are seeing their training missions expanded by the assignment of a further responsibility to provide a socio-economic boost, taking the form of the channeling of future generations of the working population towards entrepreneurial goals in accordance with the new needs of the productive sector. Among all educational institutions, the universities' response to this aim is of particular relevance, as they are the principal agents for generating and disseminating specialized knowledge in the context of a social reality in which access to higher education is more and more generalized in developed countries.

In fact, the advisability of promoting entrepreneurial mindsets has extended to the current Bologna Process aimed to build a modern degree structure adapted to the professional profiles required by the current EU society through the establishment of a common European Higher Education Area (EHEA). In this context, the project Tuning educational structures in Europe (Gonzalez, Wagenaar 2003), devoted to the identification of learning results and desirable competences by thematic area, has included entrepreneurship into the group of systemic transversal competences to be trained along all levels of university higher education.

Despite this political commitment, it is estimated that more than half of university students in Europe do not have access to entrepreneurial education, some differences existing by country (EIDG 2008b). Based on the results of the Survey of entrepreneurship in higher education in Europe, whereas more and more European universities have nowadays some institutional system to disseminate the entrepreneurial culture and give support to new venture creation, entrepreneurship education at a curricular level seems to be influenced by type of institution, years of experience and geographic location.

As expected, European students are more likely to obtain access to entrepreneurial education if they attend a business school or a multidisciplinary institution with a business department. Moreover, the way in which these institutions conduct entrepreneurial education seems to be also different and more elaborate. This can be explained, to some degree, by the fact that these types of institutions have been frontrunners in taking on entrepreneurial education and have therefore worked with it for a longer period of time.

In the same line, time is a factor for implementing entrepreneurship in higher education in Europe, in the sense that the longer an institution has been engaged in entrepreneurial education, the more elaborate it is.

And with regard to geographic location, the survey also points to a difference in access to entrepreneurship education depending on students' country of residence. In general, students in the countries members of the EU have better access to entrepreneurial education than students in nonmember countries or in those which have recently joined the EU. In short, more institutions in Western Europe offer entrepreneurship education compared to Eastern Europe. However, the study doesn't support the assumption that entrepreneurial education in the last countries is less elaborate than in the former. In fact, more institutions in Eastern Europe have a broader model of entrepreneurial education, with more institutions having specialized professors and degrees and providing recognition for achievements in entrepreneurial competences. However, more resources seem to be allocated to entrepreneurship education in Western institutions (EIDG 2008a).

Particularly in Spain, most universities have developed and implemented specific extracurricular actions to give support to potential entrepreneurial initiatives of students, in the form of University-Enterprise foundations, business chairs, spin-off programs or specific institutional programs and centers on entrepreneurship (Directorate General of SME Policy 2006; ANECA 2007). However, the specific impact of those institutional initiatives on the entrepreneurial projections of Spanish graduates seem to be largely unknown, when not some disappointing. In this regard, previous evidence point to the general conclusion that students perceive a scarce consideration of entrepreneurship topics within university programs (Vazquez et al. 2010b), and since academic courses focus on the wage-employment paradigm, the transit through university has a poor effect on the entrepreneurial vocations of students (Vazquez et al. 2009, 2010a).

Further, formal instruction in knowledge and abilities concerning new venture creation is usually limited to academic programs within Business and Economics disciplines, it being practically absent in the curriculum of other academic fields, especially within Humanities and Non-Business Social areas (Vazquez et al. 2010a, 2010b). In these cases, starting a new firm isn't even considered as possible labour option for students, thus there is no awareness of the need of teaching basic entrepreneurial competences in the lecture hall, neither a structured action which allows students to learn them in a regulated way. All of these leads to a lack of receptivity and support to potential entrepreneurial initiatives of students, and lots of brilliant business ideas are forced to oblivion.

This lack of entrepreneurship education in Spanish universities is due to many factors affecting most institutions of higher education in the European countries, particularly the shortage of human and financial resources available for such a kind of pursuits, the rigid organizational structure of higher education institutions, the poor multidisciplinary tradition in the organization of academic programs, and the low motivation and training of the academic staff in entrepreneurship issues (EIDG 2008a, 2008b).

3. The entrepreneurship competence

In terms of curricular design, a competence can be defined as a dynamic combination of attributes that together permit a competent performance in a field, as the result of an educational process (Gonzalez, Wagenaar 2003). From this view, three components are often identified in any competence: i) a conceptual component referred to the acquisition Verslas: teorija ir praktika, 2012, 13(1): 27-35 29 of theoretical knowledge about a specific academic field; ii) a procedural component, based on the development of practical skills to apply the conceptual knowledge acquired; and iii) an attitudinal component of learned values, rules and personal attributes (Bolivar 1996; Gonzalez, Wagenaar 2003; Biggs 2005).

According to this specification, European guidelines remark three fundamental objectives of entrepreneurship teaching programs at the university (EIDG 2008a, COM 2003): i) developing entrepreneurial drive among students and raising their awareness of self-employment as a career option; ii) providing the technical and business skills that are needed to identify and exploit business opportunities, set up a new firm and manage its growth; and iii) promoting the development of personal qualities such as creativity, risk-taking and responsibility.

In the same line, specialized literature is full of attempts for determining the more appropriate contents to be included in entrepreneurship training programs (Cotton, Gibb 1992; Gibb 1993; Hood, Young 1993; Kourilsky 1995; Hisrich, Peters 1998; Smith et al. 2006; Soutaris et al. 2007; Linan 2007; Pittaway et al. 2009). As a point of reference for all these divergent approaches, the European Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Recommendation 2006) specifies the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes related to the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as a competence, as it is summarized in Table 1. In short, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is defined as "an individual ability to turn ideas into action. It includes creativity, innovation, and risk taking, as well as the ability to plan and manage projects in order to achieve objectives" (Recommendation 2006: 17).

Beyond that specification, there is a growing awareness of the need of orientating entrepreneurship education according to the needs of students with different academic background (COM 2010; Anderson, Jack 2008; Hofer, Potter 2010). For instance, within Business schools and Economic studies it is assumed that, since many business contents are offered separately (i.e., marketing, management, etc.), entrepreneurship programs should have a very narrow focus, stressing the start-up phase and the growth of small enterprises. Otherwise, experts agree that students in other Social and Humanities areas are usually good in technical aspects and frequently have very strong business ideas, their weaknesses concentrating in the development of specific business knowledge and abilities. From this view, the focus could be on social entrepreneurship as emerging area of growth which provides the opportunity to make a difference in community contexts. However, very little is known about entrepreneurship education in Non-Business Social and Humanities disciplines in European universities. To fill this gap, we next describe an empirical study in two Spanish universities to analyze the perceptions and experiences of students in the various Social disciplines.

4. Sampling and measures

To make it possible the generalization of results to different institutional contexts, the study sample consisted of undergraduates in Social and Legal Sciences at two Spanish universities: the Complutesian University of Madrid and the University of Leon. Participants were registered from the final year of their academic programs, in order to provide evidence in undergraduates with enough previous university experience.

The total sample comprised a total of 448 university students, ensuring a criterion of representativeness of 95% (being e = [+ or -] 5%; p = q = 0.50). By gender, this sample was composed of 337 females (75.2%) and 111 males (24.8%), aged 20 to 47 years old (M = 23.10, DT = 2.95). On the other hand, 21.7% of respondents indicated a main academic background in Business areas, 21.9% in Public Administration and Law, 40.8% in Human Sciences, and 15.6% in Humanities.

Data collection was based on a procedure of collective voluntary self-administration of a questionnaire in scheduled university classes randomly selected, in the presence of a researcher trained for this end. The questionnaire administered comprised three scales for measuring perceived education of entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes. Particularly, students were asked to report their academic experiences in learning ten conceptual contents (e.g., "economic contribution of entrepreneurship", "business structure and functioning", "business start-up as a career choice", etc.), eleven skills (e.g., "planning and organization", "management", "risk taking and assessment", etc.), and eight attitudes (e.g., "initiative", "pro-activeness", "creativity", etc.) specified according to the European Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Recommendation 2006). Respondents were asked to rate the perceived importance assigned to each content in their respective academic programs, on a eleven-point Likert-type scale from 0 ("not important at all") to 10 ("very important").

5. Results

Once data was collected and processed, we used principal components factor analysis with program SPSS 15.0 to test the construct validity of the variables included in the model.

Prior to performing factor analysis, the suitability of data was assessed. Inspection of the correlation matrix revealed the presence of many coefficients of .30 and above. Also, the Kaiser-Meyer-Oklin value was .946, exceeding the recommended value of .60 (Kaiser 1970, 1974) and the Barlett's Test of Sphericity (Barlett 1954) reached statistical significance, supporting the factorability of the correlation matrix.

Principal components analysis revealed the presence of four factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1, explaining a 64.88% of the total variance. Nevertheless, using Catell's scree test (Catell 1966), it was decided to retain only three components for further investigation.

To aid in the interpretation of the three components identified and its discriminant validity, Varimax rotation was performed. The rotated solution presented in Table 2 revealed the multidimensionality of the scales, according to the three dimensions of knowledge, skills and attitudes adopted in the European Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Recommendation 2006). In this sense, every item had a loading above .40 in its respective construct, explaining the 22.66%, 20.12%, and 18.02% of the variance. Moreover, all the scales retained were associated to Cronbach's a values of reliability over the recommended .70 (Nunnally 1978).

Table 2 also displays the mean scores obtained by the total sample in the components of the three factors identified. In short, students reported a poor experience of education of entrepreneurship contents, with mean scores under the intermediate 5 in the ten-point scale, with the only exception of communication abilities (M = 5.06) and responsibility (M = 5.68). In aggregate terms, mean scores were higher for the skills (M = 4.36) and attitudes scales (M = 4.58) than in the knowledge scale (M = 4.58).

In order to analyze the usefulness of the three factors previously identified to discriminate between groups of undergraduate students with different entrepreneurship learning experiences, we performed a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) with academic background as independent variable categorized in the four groups of Business Sciences, Public Administration and Law, Human Sciences, and Humanities.

Results displayed in Table 3 showed a statistically significant difference between students within the academic disciplines considered on the combined dependent variables: F (9, 1075) = 16.53, p < .001; Wilks' Lambda = .730; partial eta squared = .100.

When the results for the dependent variables were considered separately, differences in perceived teaching of entrepreneurship knowledge (F (3, 444) = 34.51; partial eta squared = .189), skills (F (3, 444) = 10.03; partial eta squared = .063), and attitudes (F (3, 444) = 6.45; partial eta squared = .042) were statistically significant according to a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level of .017 (.05/3).

HSD Tukey post hoc test was performed to analyze the differences between students in specific academic areas more in deep. Statistically significant differences obtained by using an alpha level of .05 are shown in Table 4. In a general way, students within Business-related areas reported higher scores than their partners in other fields in the three dimensions analyzed. Undergraduates within Public Administration and Law also reported moderated learning experiences of entrepreneurship knowledge, while displayed the lowest mean scores in the attitudes scale. Opposite, Human Sciences students had relatively high perceptions of education of skills and attitudes when compared to other academic fields. Finally, students in Humanities obtained the lowest punctuations in most scales. These results are also summarized in Figure 1.

6. Discussion and conclusions

Entrepreneurial activities act as one main driving force for economic and social development world around. European governments have gained awareness of that in the last decade and a great amount of political measures have been suggested to include entrepreneurship education as part of academic curricula in higher education institutions. However, most high level programs seem to be much more centred on training wage-earner managers or technicians than offering qualified and responsible entrepreneurs and enterprises to society. Given this relatively early stage of development of entrepreneurship education in European universities, this paper has reviewed the construct of entrepreneurship competence to analyze differences in entrepreneurship education between groups of students in the various Social and Humanities disciplines.

In general, the results obtained support the distinction between the three components encompassed by entrepreneurship formal teaching as perceived by students, in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes specified in the European Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Recommendation 2006). According to that distinction, the climate of change characterizing the current establishment of new degree programs adapted to the EHEA offers an excellent opportunity to work on the design of teaching programs meeting the requirements to encourage entrepreneurship. To serve this curricular planning effort, and by way of suggestions for good practices, the empirical model arising from the work described above sets the adoption of a skill-based teaching model placing the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for an adequate development of entrepreneurship at the very heart of any educational intervention.

Furthermore, the structure of entrepreneurship education validated in this work can be taken as a prescriptive framework for evaluating the effectiveness of the programs implemented in European universities, from the personal experiences of undergraduate students with different learning experiences. In this regard, results from the study presented here state a clear underconsideration of entrepreneurship competences in the Spanish universities analyzed, as showed by the poor assessments of the last-year students interviewed in terms of entrepreneurship knowledge, skills and attitudes. However, this picture seems to be different for students with different academic background. As expected, students within Business, followed by Human sciences, reported the most positive perceptions of entrepreneurship education in the university, whereas undergraduates in Humanities disciplines were found to be the less satisfied with the learning experiences provided. From this pattern of results, it can be stressed the lack of attention paid to the entrepreneurial potential of students within non-Business areas, in the sense that promising patterns of non-traditional social business opportunities aren't being recognized as desirable and feasible work options for future graduates.

While the fact that the empirical study reported here was carried out in two different Spanish universities demonstrates that the conclusions drawn from it are sufficiently solid, further studies are required to allow generalization of the results to other Spanish or European institutions. It would be even appropriate to consider other models of higher education with the aim of gaining greater precision in the identification of the educational factors determining the effectiveness of academic programs to foster entrepreneurship in the youth.

doi: 10.3846/btp.2012.03

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Jose Luis Vazquez-Burgete (1), Ana Lanero (2), Agota Giedre Raisiene (3), Maria Purificacion Garcia (4)

(1,2,4) University of Leon, Campus de Veganzana s/n, 24071 Leon, Spain

(3) Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lithuania

E-mails: (1) [email protected]; (2) [email protected] (corresponding author); (3) [email protected]; [email protected]

Received 8 December 2011; accepted 30 December 2011

(1,2,4) Leono universitetas, Campus de Veganzana s/n, 24071 Leonas, Ispanija

(3) Mykolo Romerio universitetas, Ateities g. 20, LT-08303 Vilnius, Lietuva

El. pastas: (1) [email protected]; (2) [email protected]; (3) [email protected]; [email protected]

Iteikta 2011-12-8; priimta 2011-12-30

Jose Luis VAZQUEZ-BURGUETE (PhD, PhD HC) is a Titular Professor on Marketing in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Leon University, Spain; Holder of the Bancaja Chair on Young Entrepreneurship; President of the International Association on Public and Nonprofit Marketing (IAPNM/AIMPN).

Ana LANERO (PhD) is a Research Assistant on Marketing and Market Research in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at Leon University, Spain.

Agota Giedre RAISIENE (PhD) is an Associate Professor on Organizational Behaviour in the Faculty of Politics and Management at Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania; President of the Academical Management and Administration Association.

Maria PURIFICACION GARCIA (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Labor Sciences at Leon University, Spain.

Table 1. Entrepreneurship competence

Knowledge               Skills                  Attitudes

Available               Proactive project       Initiative
opportunities           management              Pro-activeness
for personal,           (ability to             Independence
professional            plan, organize,         Innovativeness
and/or business         manage, lead and        Motivation and
activities              delegate, analyze,      determination
Workings of the         communicate,            to meet
economy                 de-brief, evaluate      objectives ...
Organizational          and record)
opportunities and       Representation
challenges              and negotiation
Ethical position of     Autonomous
enterprises             and collaborative
Fair trade              work
and social              Self-knowledge
entrepreneurship ...    Risk taking and
                        assessment

Source: Adapted from Recommendation 2006/962/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council (Recommendation
2006)

Table 2. Factor analysis

                                            Knowledge   Skills

Business start-up as a career choice        .807
Identification of business opportunities    .746
Steps to start a business                   .755
Entrepreneurship local resources            .715
Entrepreneurs' work functions               .713
Economic contribution of entrepreneurship   .704
Business structure and functioning          .702
Factors of business success                 .690
Business models by academic area            .673
Social contribution of entrepreneurship     .646
Planning and organization abilities                     .742
Executive abilities and leadership                      .679
Negotiation abilities                                   .670
Analysis and assessment abilities                       .648
Management abilities                                    .639
Communication abilities                                 .626
Delegation abilities                                    .614
Team work abilities                                     .606
Risk-taking and assessment                              .562
Self-knowledge abilities                                .530
Autonomous work abilities                               .446
Creativity
Independence
Innovativeness
Pro-activeness
Responsibility
Initiative
Goal self-direction
Change flexibility
% Variance explained                        22.66%      20.12%
Cronbach's [alpha] reliability              .921        .925

                                            Attitudes    Mean

Business start-up as a career choice                     2.95
Identification of business opportunities                 3.19
Steps to start a business                                2.64
Entrepreneurship local resources                         2.46
Entrepreneurs' work functions                            4.57
Economic contribution of entrepreneurship                4.30
Business structure and functioning                       4.02
Factors of business success                              4.53
Business models by academic area                         4.18
Social contribution of entrepreneurship                  4.01
Planning and organization abilities                      4.64
Executive abilities and leadership                       4.42
Negotiation abilities                                    4.00
Analysis and assessment abilities                        4.93
Management abilities                                     4.14
Communication abilities                                  5.06
Delegation abilities                                     3.55
Team work abilities                                      5.46
Risk-taking and assessment                               4.06
Self-knowledge abilities                                 3.93
Autonomous work abilities                                3.78
Creativity                                  .756         4.16
Independence                                .753         4.45
Innovativeness                              .750         4.14
Pro-activeness                              .741         4.52
Responsibility                              .739         5.68
Initiative                                  .738         4.49
Goal self-direction                         .704         4.95
Change flexibility                          .697         4.23
% Variance explained                        18.02%
Cronbach's [alpha] reliability              .921

Table 3. Results from MANOVA

                                   Partial               Partial
            Wilks'                 Eta                   Eta
Variable    Lambda    F            Squared    F          Squared

Knowledge                                     34.51 *    .189
Skills      .730      16.53 ***    .100       10.03 *    .063
Attitudes                                     6.45 *     .042

* p < .017 (Bonferroni adjusted alpha level); *** p < .001

Table 4. HSD Tukey post hoc analysis

            Independent variable

Dependent                                               Mean dif.
variable    Academic area (I)     Academic area (J)     (I-J)

Knowledge   Business Sciences     Public Adm. and Law   1.31
                                  Human Sciences        1.59
                                  Humanities            2.77
            Public Adm. and Law   Humanities            1.46
            Human Sciences        Humanities            1.17
Skills      Business Sciences     Public Adm. and Law   1.02
                                  Humanities            1.46
            Human Sciences        Humanities            1.05
Attitudes   Business Sciences     Public Adm. And Law   1.13
            Human Sciences        Public Adm. and Law   0.98

Dependent   Std.
variable    Error    Sig.

Knowledge   .255     .001
            .223     .001
            .279     .001
            .279     .001
            .250     .001
Skills      .274     .001
            .300     .001
            .269     .001
Attitudes   .292     .001
            .255     .001

Fig. 1. Mean differences by academic area

            Business   Publid Administration   Human      Humanities
            Sciences   and Law                 Sciences

Knowledge     5.05       3.74                    3.46       2.29
Skills        4.98       3.96                    4.57       3.52
Attitudes     4.97       3.84                    4.82       4.44

Note: Table made from bar graph.