Exploring entrepreneurship personality and entrepreneurial potential in male and female spanish university students

Resumo

The current economic situation in Spain is, although slowly progressing from its 2008´s recession, in need of a further push to speed its improvement. Arguing that entrepreneurship is a viable catalyst for this, and that certain entrepreneurial personality traits can be developed, universities are thought as prospects of future entrepreneurial activity. This dissertation explores the entrepreneurial potential of university students in Spain, looking into their entrepreneurial personality and the degree of intentions to establish future startups. Instead of focusing on entrepreneurial education programs or student with a pre-determined interest for business, this study focuses on looking into a wide population of students from multiple fields, as well in the variability of their traits by gender. This study, explored the entrepreneurial potential in a sample of 677 Spanish university students, and then used Structured Equation Modeling to analyze the relationship between perceived behavioral control and perceived entrepreneurial skills with entrepreneurial intentions. Other variables where also included in this model, such as the mediation effects of motivations for business and risk taking propensity, and control variables that included necessity-driven motives. Variables within the model were compared by gender using t-Test, and all multivariate analysis were done by each separately as well in order to better gauge their perceptions. Results showed that entrepreneurial potential is somewhat moderate, mostly hampered by lack of control and low perceived support, but perceived entrepreneurial skills are fair, even when the sample is not based exclusively on business students. Mean differences between males and females are not abundant, and come only from intentions, perceived behavioral control and subjective norm, which are higher in males; and motives for business higher in females. Multivariate analysis shows gender differences at the mediation level and that necessity-driven motives are a confounding factor, more so in males, and it hampers the significance of subjective norm. Results are discussed and future alternatives to improve students’ entrepreneurial potential are presented.