Abstract:

In the COVID-19 post-pandemic era, most universities have decided to redefine their relationship with the highly competitive industries since the needs of these industries have dramatically changed to meet the digitization demands in the global markets. Therefore, the active information technology (IT) based entrepreneurship education courses can play important roles in this period in preparing university students for their careers. At the same time, the small medium enterprises (SMEs), including the early-stage startups and unicorns, have urgently preferred formal and informal ways to recruit new human capital.

In this study, the quantitative research project has been conducted to improve Turkish universities’ IT-based entrepreneurship education courses. The primary goal of this quantitative study is to deeply understand how the Turkish universities’ IT-based entrepreneurship education courses should be actively redeveloped by considering the participants (n=486). Hence, universities’ professors, managers, and students participated, whereas early-stage startups’ and unicorns’ managers and owners also participated to define the needs of the competitive global markets. Furthermore, in this descriptive survey, the data collection procedure was developed to assess the participants’ perception about improving the Turkish universities’ IT-based entrepreneurship education courses. The data collection procedure consisted of a questionnaire having two questions: the first was about the market’s requirements to improve the Turkish universities’ IT-based entrepreneurship education courses, and the second was about the suggestions to improve them. The questionnaire was given to the universities’ professors, managers, and students and to early-stage startups’ and unicorns’ managers and owners at the SMEs. The collected data from the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics for the quantitative data.

The detailed data analyses showed that the universities’ professors, managers, and students were not aware of the requirements of the market to improve the IT-based entrepreneurship education courses. Even though the university management was ready for these courses, the professors pointed out that preparing for IT-based entrepreneurship education courses was challenging, particularly from the content standpoint. On the other hand, early-stage startups’ and unicorns’ managers and owners at the SMEs did not believe that the universities could handle the IT-based entrepreneurship education courses. However, they did not have any alternatives. They perceived these courses could meet their needs from the content, professors’ qualities, and organization standpoint. The data from the second question showed how to improve the IT-based entrepreneurship education courses by considering agile well-rounded planning for all the stakeholders. Since entrepreneurship is now considered the primary career in the global economy to recover from the adverse effects of the pandemic and economic crises, all the stakeholders are ready to collaborate.

Keywords:

IT, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Education, Universities, Higher Education Management, Economic Crises.