Start-up education and training: current state and future challenges

Start-up education and training: current state and future challenges

Entrepreneurship has become a vital topic in research and practice due to its importance for economic growth, innovation, and employment throughout the world, yet has only received cursory attention in the career development and assessment literature, being most often observed from the economic point of view.
As employee societies and economies are, at a rapid pace, converting to entrepreneurial societies and economies, the question arises: are future generations ready to be entrepreneurial? Do they receive the proper training necessary to have an entrepreneurial mindset that would drive them to be opportunity/innovation-oriented in this new world of work? And if the answer is no, then what mechanisms should be put into place to educate them accordingly?
The main research question of the paper is to detect factors having impact on start-up creation in terms of education and training, subsequent (or subordinated) goals being how to enhance the attractiveness of the entrepreneurial career and how to best support individuals in their preparation of start-up creation. This aim will be articulated around the following streams:
•presentation of comparative statistics to situate Australia among its peers in terms of the efficiency of the Cultural support including education and training (as constituent of the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem)
•impact of contextual affordances (gender, age, level of education and entrepreneurial training environment, as well as societal perceptions of the status of the entrepreneur) impact entrepreneurial intentions
•delineation of the prevailing trends in education attainment levels for start-ups both in Australia and internationally
•canvassing prevailing trends that impact the future of start-up education
Consistent with Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), self-efficacy is enhanced by contextual variables (gender, age, level of education or learning environment, parents’ level of education, etc.), and this theory will be used to test the above correlations for the first time in large scale survey design (LSSD), as in the business literature entrepreneurial intentions, motivations and readiness are most frequently analysed in Ajzen’s Planned Behaviour theoretical framework. A further research gap in literature lies in the explanation of the status of the entrepreneur and its perception by society and media, and the extent to which this impacts entrepreneurial intentions.

Drawing on a large scale survey design, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Australian sample will be observed across various industries to point out the correlation between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. GEM is a global survey that was initiated in 2001 comprising of expert and individual adult surveys. Datasets of 2004-2010 will serve as the basis of this research paper. The methodology applied is structural equation modelling (SEM) which is one of the most up-to-date regression methods to demonstrate correlations between latent constructs of a model.
Research results will inform policy on how to best design and deliver programmes to make the entrepreneurial career more attractive, having regard to present and future trends affecting workforce.

File reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/author.