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The purpose of this study is to test the impact of entrepreneurship education on business, engineering and arts and science students using the theory of planned behaviour. The study adopted a pre-test–post-test (time 1, t₁ and time 2, t₂) to measure the change of attitudes and intentions over a period of six months. The participants who took entrepreneurship as a compulsory or elective course within their curriculum are 450 in total. To measure attitude, the subjective norm and perceived behavioural control, the study adopted a measure proposed by Kolvereid (1996b). For the intention to become self-employed, the study adopted a three-item measure of career intention, proposed by Kolvereid (1996b), which captures the intention of an individual to start a business. The results showed that the post-programme mean values of subjective norm, attitude towards self-employment, perceived behavioural control and intention towards self-employment increased in relation to the pre-programme ones. But the mean difference value in all four variables is higher for business students when compared to the other two student groups. Also, t-tests indicated no significant differences between respondents and “incomplete” non-respondents (students who filled the t₁ questionnaire but failed to respond at t₂).

The study adopted a pre-test–post-test (time 1, t₁ and time 2, t₂) to measure the change of attitudes and intentions over a period of six months – one semester. A convenient sample technique has been used. The participants who took entrepreneurship as a compulsory or elective course within their curriculum are 450 in total – 100 (Bharathidasan University, Trichy) from business, 100 (National Institute of Technology, Trichy) from engineering and 250 (Bharathidasan University, Trichy) from art and science). The total 250 arts and science students were selected from four reputed art and science colleges in India where entrepreneurship course is offered either as compulsory or elective course, and due share of 60 was given to each college where the total number of students in the final year was 1,000 to 1,500 in each college. The 100 engineering students were selected from one reputed engineering college where the total number of final year students was 750. Finally, 100 business students were selected from two reputed business schools where the number of final year students was 600. All the students from arts and science and engineering were soon-to-graduate undergraduates and business students were soon-to-graduate postgraduates. It was clearly explained to the surveyed students that the questionnaires were for research purposes only, participation was voluntary and their views would not affect their grades. Both time 1 (t₁) and time 2 (t₂) questionnaires were reviewed by three academics and five non-participating students to ensure clarity of wording and face validity of the constructs.

The overall response rate was 55.3 per cent. The mean and standard deviation of variables, attitude towards self-employment, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and intention towards self-employment for the samples of business students, engineering students and arts and science students are presented in . To test the hypothesis, the present study used the following tests: Correlation (Tables III-V) and regression (Table VI) to test the relationship between attitudes and intention at t₁ and t₂. To test the effect of the programme on the change of attitudes and intentions, the current study used one-way ANOVA on the difference scores (for sample of business, engineering and arts and science) with the group membership (programme) as the independent variable. The “difference scores” method is preferable to split-plot repeated measures ANOVA for pre-test–post-test designs, because it gives equivalent results in a simpler and less confusing way (Girden, 1992). No significant violations of the assumptions for t-test, repeated measured ANOVA and regression were identified. Specifically, the common problem of multicollinearity was not evident for all the three majors of students, as the correlations between independent variables were moderate and the tolerance values were all higher than 0.70 for business group, 0.72 for engineering group and 0.73 for arts and science group.

The study aimed to address the attitudes and intentions among business, engineering students and art and science students, but not actual behaviour, and therefore, the study echoes the suggestion that longitudinal studies following the subjects for years after graduation are the only way to prove with accuracy the intention–behaviour link (Kolvereid, 1996b). The study is a comparative study on the effect of entrepreneurship education through the Azjen’s theory of planned behaviour on the scores of variable attitudes towards self-employment, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and intention towards self-employment and has not made any attempt to find out the causes for such scores.

Using the theory of planned behaviour, the study tested the impact of entrepreneurship education on business, engineering and arts and science students. The study adopted a pre-test–post-test (time 1, t₁ and time 2, t₂) to measure the change of attitudes and intentions over a period of six months. The participants who took entrepreneurship as a compulsory or elective course within their curriculum are in total 450. To measure attitude, the subjective norm and perceived behavioural control, the study adopted a measure proposed by Kolvereid (1996b). For the intention of becoming self-employed, the study adopted a three-item measure of career intention, proposed by Kolvereid (1996b), which captures the intention of an individual to start a business. The results showed that the post-programme mean values of subjective norm, attitude towards self-employment, perceived behavioural control and intention towards self-employment increased in relation to the pre-programme ones. But the mean difference value in all four variables is higher for business students when compared to the other two student groups.

Drawing on the human capital theory and the dual model of passion, this study aims to explore the mediating role of passion on the relationship between entrepreneurship education programme and students’ attitude towards self-employment (SE).

The proposed research framework was tested on a sample of 445 higher education students in four universities in North-Central Nigeria.

The results indicated that learning and inspiration account for the variation in students’ attitude towards SE. Furthermore, the study revealed that harmonious and obsessive passion largely mediate the relationship between entrepreneurship education programme and attitude towards SE.

The policy implication is the scaling of policies targeted at encouraging the development of passion given its significant role in the entrepreneurship education programme and attitude towards SE link.

The study has established the importance of human capital theory in explaining the attitude towards SE phenomenon using a multi-theoretical approach and has advanced the theoretical field of affect and its relevance in the field of entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitudes and intentions of individuals towards entrepreneurship with the support of theory of planned behaivour (TPB). This research may contribute to the growing body of knowledge that has begun to explore attitudes and intentions of individuals for self-employment in a developing country.

This is an initial part of a longitudinal study in which survey instrument has been adapted for data collection. A random sampling was applied to the students of public and private higher educational institutions of a developing country. For data analysis, Statistical Package for Social Science 20 versions for Windows were used to test the hypotheses through descriptive, Pearson’s correlations and multiple regression analysis techniques.

Results of the study showed that all variables are reliable and valid. However, internal consistency among the variables has been found. By using Pearson’s correlations, entrepreneurship intention was found to be significantly and positively correlated to attitudes towards entrepreneurship. A high correlation was found between entrepreneurship intentions and attitudes towards behaviour and low correlation was between innovation and attitudes towards behaivour. However, all independent variables were found positively and significantly related to dependent variable except personal control.

This study possess limitations such as only quantitative data were obtained for educational institutions. Second limitation is collecting data from small number of samples. Third limitation is use of few variables with direct relationship approach. This study may support the management and practitioners of human resources management and organisational behaviour in assessing and evaluating employee attitudes and behaviours in the organisation.

Based on real facts, this study provides empirical considerable evidence of individuals’ attitudes and intentions towards the entrepreneurship. Results indicate that that TPB theory factors such as attitudes towards the behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control and personal and social attitudinal characteristic like achievement, self-esteem, and innovation are important for the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions

One of the key causes of the attitude-behavior gap is inconsistency in established entrepreneurial attitude in entrepreneurship-driven educational programmes. The purpose of this research is to look at the factors that contribute to the development of sustainable entrepreneurial attitude in educational institutions.

The multi-criteria decision-making approach has been utilized for this purpose. During the study, eight factors are extracted through experts' opinions that altogether develop the sustainable entrepreneurial attitude. Extracted factors are also classified in cause-and-effect groups for better understanding. To foster sustainability through identified factors, a structured process is also suggested through the analysis.

The outcome of the study has extracted eight factors that altogether develop and upgrade general attitude into sustainable entrepreneurial attitude; systematic execution of identified factors also ensure the sustainability of evolved entrepreneurial attitude.

The outcome of the study can be used by educational institutions while designing curriculum and teaching-learning pedagogy to develop sustainable entrepreneurial attitude among future entrepreneurs; concluded factors can also be used for the screening purpose while admitting potential students for the program.

Given the different manifestations of the unemployment crisis, the main purpose of this study was to identify what characteristics influence the participation of youth in key self-employment business options.

The study has used both probability and nonprobability sampling techniques. Purposive sampling methods were used to identify target study areas (districts and Kebeles) while the systematic random sampling method was used to locate sample respondents. A total of 424 sample respondents were interviewed through interview scheduled questionnaires. Statistical data analysis was carried out using STATA 14 software.

Agriculture, local value-added business activities, food-related services, petty trade and local transportation were common business choices where unemployed youths were engaged in. The findings of the study also showed that sex, loan size, loan repayment period and training gap were predictors of youth engagement in various self-employment career choices.

Increasing loan size has a positive and significant influence on youth engagement in all self-employment business choices and has reminded us the need to revise or lift up loan size celling to assist youths in engaging in productive sectors. Similarly, the favourable correlation between female youths and value-added activities necessitates a well-designed female-specific intervention.

An understanding of the key determinants of youth preference to engage in specific self-employment career choices enables practitioners to intervene where necessary in supporting youth self-employment engagement. A combination of skill training, relaxed loan size and relaxed repayment is likely to gain sustainable business, which would benefit the local economy by transforming small businesses to a higher level and creating more job opportunities.

This study aims to examine the association between apprenticeship training and self-employment and how gender moderates the association.

Secondary data from the World Bank’s Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey on Ghana were analysed using a binary choice (logit regression) model. The STEP survey drew its nationally representative sample from the working-age population (15–64 years) in urban areas.

After controlling for several factors identified in the literature as determinants of self-employment, the results indicate that completing apprenticeship training increases the likelihood of being self-employed. However, women who have completed apprenticeship training are more likely to be self-employed than men.

By examining the moderating effect of gender on the association between apprenticeship training and self-employment, this study has offered new evidence that policymakers can use to promote self-employment, especially among women, to reduce the entrepreneurial gap between men and women.

The question arises whether entrepreneurship education will be able to facilitate the entrepreneurial attitude in the near future. Unfortunately, the decisive role of compulsory schooling has long been neglected in this context. Until recently it was considered sufficient to provide education in entrepreneurship in universities (especially in the area of Business Administration) or in the form of special courses for people who consider starting their own business. Picking up the discussion at this point, the purpose of this paper is to analyse to what extent compulsory school education in Germany and Sweden facilitates a more entrepreneurial way of thinking among pupils.

First, the paper briefly summarises the relevant research literature and specify important components of entrepreneurship education. Second, it discusses what exactly is to be understood by entrepreneurial qualities and present a holistic approach based on a model by Dahlgren. Third, it describes the unique data and presents some empirical results. The empirical analysis concentrates on Germany. Yet, for reasons of comparison, it additionally analyses the situation in Sweden. Finally, the paper summarises the results and discusses the policy implications.

The results presented clearly suggest that German schools do not succeed very well in presenting self‐employment as an attractive alternative to dependent work. Swedish pupils generally show a higher preference for self‐employment than their German counterparts. Furthermore, the results suggest that German schools diminish rather than encourage pupils' ambitions to become self‐employed as the pupils become older.

To the authors' knowledge this is the first empirical study which compares the effect of different school systems on entrepreneurial attitude simultaneously (i.e. with the same questionnaire and at the same point of time).

The COVID-19 pandemic created not only a public health crisis but also the largest disruption to the global economies. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the adverse impacts of the pandemic on self-employment including job loss, income reduction and cut back in work hours and how these impacts were related to the well-being the self-employed. The authors also examine how self-employers responded to adversity in different cultural settings.

The main sample was obtained the Gallup World Poll that covers more than 39,000 individuals across 55 countries over the period from October 2020 to June 2021. The ordinary least square was the main choice of methodology. The paper employs the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique to quantify the gap in financial loss between self-employed and employed individuals. Finally, the moderated mediation analysis allows the authors to examine how financial loss mediates the reduction in well-being of self-employers.

The paper finds that self-employers were 29% more likely to lose their businesses than paid individuals to lose their jobs and perhaps as a result, they were 50% more likely to experience lower work hours and less income. The findings suggest that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic varied across countries. The financial gap between self-employment and full-time employment was narrower in countries with individualism, low uncertainty avoidance and propensity for long-term future. Finally, the paper shows that although financial loss associated with the coronavirus situation mediated the relationship between self-employment and reduced wellbeing, the positive relationship between self-employment and life satisfaction (wellbeing) held amid the pandemic. Despite all the pecuniary setbacks relative to full-time employment, self-employers report higher subjective wellbeing than regular wage earners during difficult times.

The earnings gap between self-employers and employees persists (and increase) during adverse conditions may cast into doubt the efficiency of the economic system that ensures no one is left behind. In addition, contextual factors such as cultural values should also be taken into consideration in reducing the earning gap between self-employment and regular employment. It is also implied that the self-employed choose to engage in self-employment due to psychological and emotion benefits rather than material achievements.

This study has quantified the income gap between self-employment and employed individuals in the context of adverse economic conditions. This study also highlights the fact that despite all the financial setbacks, self-employers are happier than employed individuals and they engage in self-employment as an important way to pursue happiness. This highlights well-being as the critical non-pecuniary benefits of the career choice of and transition into self-employment that have been confirmed in extant entrepreneurship literature.

This paper examines the impact of government taxation policy on self‐employment as the preferred form of job tenure in the British construction industry. It analyses the rapid growth in self‐employment over the period 1970‐1996 in the context of a very benign tax regime. It shows how self‐employment has grown far more rapidly in construction than in other economic sectors and also how British construction has more self‐employment than its European counterparts. The role of financial factors, especially taxation, in the decisions of companies to use self‐employed workers and in workers themselves opting for self‐employed status, is identified. Recent changes in the approach of taxation authorities towards construction workers are described and the broad impact of such measures on the propensity to self‐employment is outlined. An economic model is specified for explaining construction self‐employment in terms of taxation and other economic determinants and the empirical results of applying the model to annual data for the period 1970 to 1999 are reported.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the gender differences of self-employment in Spain.

A binary choice model is specified and estimated, using information from the Continuous Working Life Sample drawn from the registers of the Spanish Social Security. Moreover, the differences in self-employment between men and women are also analysed, through the decomposition proposed by Yun (2004).

The results indicate that the differences between both groups in the probability of being entrepreneurs stem from unobservable factors. The difference explained by the unobservable component is 84.12 per cent, whereas the rest, 15.88 per cent, is explained by the characteristics component. The explanatory factors of being an entrepreneur affect men and women in the same way, but to a different extent, explained mainly by factors related to gender.

This paper sets out to identify whether there are gender differences in the probability of becoming self-employed and, if there are, to quantify what part of the difference in entrepreneurship between men and women is explained by the characteristics of each gender group and what part is because of unobservable factors. From the perspective of the public authority, knowing the determinants that explain why the entrepreneurial activity is different depending on gender is fundamental in being able to reduce the entrepreneurial gap between men and women.