Abstract:

As digital technology becomes more accessible to people, innovation and the entrepreneurial process accelerate. In Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), this phenomenon is referred to as digital academic entrepreneurship and is a result of the combination of traditional academic entrepreneurship and digital technologies. From this perspective, Garcez et al. (2022) developed a theoretical model for measuring the hard skills of higher education students; this model considers the following factors:
(1) Inspiration/management tool, which sets up the beginning of the entrepreneurial process, where new business ideas emerge from the combination of theory and practice;
(2) Prototyping, a phase in which a business plan is implemented on a small scale, and the market is evaluated based on a test product;
(3) Incubation, the moment when the future entrepreneur goes to the market directly in search of investments and in which legal obligations become important to protect the idea.

In this process, the university can be extremely relevant by allowing the students to develop the skills required for entrepreneurship. In this context and considering the factors mentioned above, this study aims to answer the following question: How can the hard skills factors - Inspiration, prototyping, and incubation, be measured, considering the context of digital entrepreneurship education in HEIs? This investigation aimed to adapt and validate a measurement scale to measure the factors of hard skills considering the context of digital entrepreneurial education in HEIs. For this purpose, an approach was realized based on an empirical survey of 761 college students from two countries to validate the hard skills factors; the survey instrument was adapted from the scale proposed by Rauch & Hulsink (2015). It used the theoretical measurement model mentioned above as a basis for analysis; an exploratory factor analysis was performed, which allowed the variance of the observable variables to be distributed among the three factors. The results validated the proposed adapted model with high reliability and predictive validity. Moreover, the main variables to be considered in developing entrepreneurial education are the definition of market opportunities, the investment of own resources in the business, and the registration with the tax authorities. In conclusion, the validated scale could be used to support models for measuring the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students. In addition, a deeper understanding of the aspects that lead university students to become entrepreneurs can contribute to an adequate design of the entrepreneurial training programs that are taking place in many universities and other institutions.

Keywords:

Hard Skills, Entrepreneurship Education, Digital Transformation.