Abstract:

As UNESCO (2002, p. 2) states, “education is not an end in itself. It is a key instrument for bringing about the changes in the knowledge, values, behaviors and lifestyles required to achieve sustainability and stability within and among countries, democracy, human security and peace”. Developing these basic essentials, the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) works with a new learning framework where university students must achieve several generic and specific competences during their studies.

Taking into account that University students will be the decision-makers of the future, we need to build this future on strong ethical basis and a great support of entrepreneurship to make possible sustainable growth and socio-economic welfare. Thus, among the above mentioned generic competences we focus this paper on “initiative and entrepreneurial spirit” (systemic) and “ethical commitment” (interpersonal). According to Dunham (2010, p. 513), “entrepreneurship is a particularly rich context in which to examine the role of ethics (e.g., Dees and Starr, 1992; Hannafey, 2003) given the many ethical tensions that can arise during the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities”.

The aim of this study is twofold. First, to analyze the generic competences “initiative and entrepreneurial spirit” and “ethical commitment” from a triple perspective: comparing students’ self-assessment on these competences, to the relevance they place to these competences for accessing the labor market, and to the role of the University for helping them to acquire and improve these two competences. Second, to explore if there exist significant differences between students’ self-assessment in these two competences, between the relevance they give to these two competences for accessing the labor market, and between the role University plays in helping them to acquire and improve these two competences.

Keywords:

Initiative and Entrepreneurial Spirit, Ethical Commitment, Higher Education, Generic Competences, Business Studies.