Abstract:

In 2013, the European Commission has designed and implemented the “Entrepreneurship 2020 action plan” aimed at helping countries to overcome the 2008 economic crisis, which at the time was labelled as the “gravest economic crisis in the last 50 years” . In this case, the aim was to reinforce the entrepreneurial spirit among Europeans while educating the young generation about entrepreneurship. Currently, we are perhaps experiencing an even more overwhelming crisis, whose impact on the economy and on society is still only apparent. However, and similarly to the 2008 crisis, entrepreneurship can play a fundamental role in economic recovery, through the creation of new companies that, in turn, will generate jobs and wealth.

As a mean to promote entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education (EE) has been widely disseminated and is now part of higher education curricula in an increasing number of higher education institution worldwide. As argued by Maryam and Schøtt (1), EE and training are essential in the development of competencies during the different stages of a person’s career, since it can equip students with entrepreneurial skills and behaviors. Nevertheless, there is still a debate about which competences are more relevant, as well as what learning methodologies and pedagogical tools can be more effective in promoting those competences (2,3). Several authors agree that the entrepreneurial process and its success is highly associated with the identification of existing or overlooked opportunities (4).

Due to the relevancy of the entrepreneurial process to society and economic growth, especially in times of crisis, it is relevant to understand how EE practices and methods could be improved to equip students with the right skills to initiate a new company. Our theoretical model explores the relationship between EA, opportunity recognition (OR), and entrepreneurial behavior (EB), in a sample of 1290 higher education students from three Portuguese universities. In this case, we hypothesize that ceteris paribus, stronger EA epitomizes the aspiring students’ entrepreneurial capabilities which allow them to successfully leverage opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention which in turn, will increase their tendency to engage in new venture creation activities. To test the hypothesis, we used already validated measuring instruments drawn from the literature, and data was analyzed using SPSS-25 and AMOS-24. The results obtained show that all relationships are positive and significant, which imply that EA is at the heart of the entrepreneurial process, and should be considered a key competence in the 21st century. As an implication, it is advised that EE to focus on the development of students’ EA.

References:
[1] Maryam C, Schøtt T. Education and training benefiting a career as entrepreneur. Int J Gend Entrep. 2015;7(3):321–43.
[2] Daniel AD. Fostering an entrepreneurial mind-set by using a Design Thinking approach in Entrepreneurship Education. J Ind High Educ [Internet]. 2016;30(3):215–23. Available from: http://ihe.sagepub.com/content/30/3/215.full.pdf+html
[3] Fayolle A. Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education. Entrep Reg Dev [Internet]. 2013;25(7–8):692–701. Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08985626.2013.821318
[4] Kirzner IM. Perception, opportunity and profit: Studies in the Theory of Entrepreneurship. New York: University of Chicago Press; 1979. 274 p.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurship education, opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial behaviour.