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This study examines the roots of entrepreneurial career goals among today’s U.S. undergraduate engineering students. Extensive literature exists on entrepreneurship education and on students’ career decision making, yet little work connects the two. To address this gap, we explore a sample of 5,819 undergraduate engineering students from a survey administered in 2015 to a nationally representative set of twenty-seven U.S. engineering schools. We identify how individual background measures, occupational learning experiences, and socio-cognitive measures such as self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and interest in innovation and entrepreneurship affect students’ entrepreneurial career focus. Based on career focus, the sample is split into “Starters” and “Joiners” where Starters are students who wish to start a new venture and Joiners are those who wish to join an existing venture. Results show the demographic, behavioral, and socio-cognitive characteristics of each group. Findings suggest that relative to Joiners, Starters have stronger occupational self-efficacy beliefs which are driven by higher interests in innovation-related activities and ascribing greater importance to involvement in innovation practices early in their careers. Additionally, the significant influence of particular learning experiences is discussed. These results have implications for engineering and entrepreneurship education. (This paper earned Best Research Paper Award, 3rd Place, in the ENT division.)
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Entrepreneurial intent of engineering and business undergraduate students
Abstract BackgroundIn recent years, technological innovation and entrepreneurship have been emphasized in engineering education. There is a need to better understand which individual‐ and contextual‐level factors are related to engineering students' entrepreneurial intentions. Purpose/HypothesisThis study explores individual and contextual predictors of entrepreneurial intent among undergraduate women and men in engineering and business majors. Entrepreneurial intent is defined as the personal importance that students ascribe to starting a new business or organization. Design/MethodThe participants included 518 engineering and 471 business undergraduates from 51 U.S. colleges and universities. We examined relationships first by discipline and then by gender in each discipline using regression models with interaction terms. ResultsInnovation orientation and participation in entrepreneurship activities tied to intent more strongly for engineering students than for business students; in contrast, being at a research institution and selection of novel goals tied to intent more strongly for business students than for their engineering peers. Among engineering students only, being able to switch gears and apply alternative means for reaching one's goal in the face of setbacks was positively related with women's entrepreneurial intent but not with men's. ConclusionsEntrepreneurial intent is a function of individual‐level characteristics and academic and social contexts, with some degree of discipline‐specific effects. Diversifying the community of aspiring engineering entrepreneurs is a critical issue that merits attention by the engineering education community.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1636442
- PAR ID:
- 10127364
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Engineering Education
- Volume:
- 108
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1069-4730
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 316-336
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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