Entrepreneurial intentions within business and nonbusiness studies

Riste Mishe1, Jaka Vadnjal2

1

Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Cabinet of the Minister for Foreign Investments V.Samak, Skopje, Macedonia, riste.mishe@gs.gov.mk 2 GEA College of Entrepreneurship, Ljubljana, Slovenia, jaka.vadnjal@gea-college.si
Conference topic: Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial intentions within business and nonbusiness studies

Riste Mishe
Introduction Although extensive research evidence has been available on different scopes of entrepreneurship in Macedonia, not much has been revealed about the entrepreneurial intentions of the senior students and their interest and ambitions in the field of entrepreneurship as a possible future career. Furthermore, some anecdotic evidence would propose, that there would be more ambitions for traditional jobs in larger industries and public sector rather than pursuing entrepreneurial career. More specific emphasis will be given to the entrepreneurial intentions of the students from the technical colleges apart from the students of economics and business colleges. Methodology The essential part of the research is focused on the student's entrepreneurial intentions towards establishing new companies and the assessment of the quality of educational system and entrepreneurship teaching programs towards supporting entrepreneurial culture among the student population. Research was preformed through a survey carried out among the students Republic of Macedonia from both technical and economic colleges in which students will be asked whether they will establish their own company after graduation. More than 700 students are expected to participate in the research. Results Preliminary results show that the economic and business students are more likely to start their own company and have more knowledge for starting a new business rather than the students from technical faculties which is due the fact that students from the economic faculties usually attend more economic and business courses during their studies. It is very likely to be confirmed that the student entrepreneurial intentions are less the case of their personal characteristics but they lay in their knowledge and abilities acquired through their education and also working experience. Thus, greater interest for entrepreneurship career is more likely to be associated with higher level of knowledge on how to run a business rather than level of innovativeness and other entrepreneurial prerequisites. Discussion The implications of the study are on two levels. It will provide the first overview of the students entrepreneurial knowledge and abilities towards establishing their own company. The other way of implications is expected to arouse in the field of the quality of educational system and entrepreneurship teaching programs towards supporting entrepreneurial culture among the students from the technical faculties apart from the students of economic and business faculties.

Abstract book of International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development ICEIRD 2011

5-7 May 2011 Ohrid Macedonia www.iceird.org