ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION OF STUDENTS

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurial orientation of university students and whether their nationalities and level of education influence their entrepreneurial intentions. The investigated sample included students from 6 countries (Romania, Germany, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom and France) and the entrepreneurial traits were risk-taking propensity, innovativeness, locus of control, self-esteem, need for achievement and proactiveness. The findings indicate that, overall, only in the case of locus of control there are statistically significant differences between the different nationalities. The need for achievement and proactiveness differ significantly only in the case of Germans, on one hand, and Romanians and Russians on the other. The other entrepreneurial dimensions were not influenced by students’ nationality. Our results show that only self-esteem and proactiveness were influenced by the level of studies. JEL Classification: L26

Keywords

• personality traits, entrepreneurial orientation, students, education level.