Abstract:

Higher education in business administration plays an important role in stimulating entrepreneurship as a job opportunity for students. The relationship between business incubators and students in their final university years can have a great impact on promoting entrepreneurship.

Accordingly, we will study the relationship between universities and incubators, for studies of business administration at a Spanish university, in order to analyse the aspects in which the interplay between them should be strengthened. Particularly, we will conduct a survey on four groups of students about their preferences as future professionals. In that survey, students are also asked to indicate their knowledge on specific sources of financing, namely, venture capital, crowdfunding and other networks useful to foster the creation of companies, such as business incubators. All data is collected by a questionnaire on a sample of 90 students.
This data will allow us to sort students into the three following categories, according to their professional preferences after finishing their studies:
(i) students that want to establish a business,
(ii) students that want to work in a company as employees, and
(iii) students that will continue their formation in order to become public employees.

Additionally, for those students that want to establish a business, we make a first approximation to diagnose whether their education in entrepreneurship allows them to assess different financing alternatives or, conversely, whether their training should deepen the relationship between universities and business incubators.
Our results show that the students under study mostly prefer to work as employees in a company. Additionally, these results suggest a poor knowledge from students regarding specific aspects related to entrepreneurship and, more specifically, business incubators.

These empirical results underline the need to bring the business world closer to the students, by establishing university programs in finance useful in entrepreneurship. Additionally, our results also draw attention to the need of fostering the relationship between business incubators and universities, so that students become aware of the support that these networks can provide to entrepreneurs, in early stages of business projects.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial ecosystem, career opportunity, business incubators, venture capital, crowdfunding, university-based incubators.