مدیریت و چشم انداز آموزش (Aug 2024)
Investigating causal relationships between entrepreneurial education and sustainable employment generation in Islamic Azad Universities in Tehran
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to examine the causal relationships between entrepreneurial education and sustainable employment generation in Islamic Azad Universities in Tehran. The current research is applicable in terms of purpose, and descriptive-survey in terms of nature and method. The statistical population of the present study includes 272 members of the Faculty of Humanities of the Islamic Azad University of Tehran. Sampling was done by random cluster. The collection tool in this research includes a researcher-made questionnaire derived from the qualitative method; entrepreneurial education variable includes 3 dimensions (goal, structure and method), and sustainable employment creation variable includes 2 dimensions (organizational and environmental). The reliability of the research was checked and confirmed by Cronbach's alpha criterion in SPSS software. Lisrel software was used to fit the conceptual model of the research. The findings of the research showed that according to the values of the standard coefficients and the significant coefficients of T (above 2.58), it can be said that there are direct relationships between the factors. Extended abstract Introduction The research-oriented nature of education in universities is due to the creation of sustainable employment. In fact, one of the important goals of education in universities is to create sustainable employment. Employment is always considered one of the important and fundamental issues of every society and trade, because employment is the main way to earn a living and indirectly affects human life; therefore, in the fast-paced world, the issue of employment has attracted the attention of many policymakers, statesmen and business experts. Today, the cost situation is such that a real worker has to work several tens of hours a week to cover his expenses. But in the meantime, what is sustainable employment? Sustainable employment is a concept that is directly related to job security. In general, sustainable employment can be considered as a job that has a fixed and specific average income and at the level of household expenses (Nam, 2019). When the expenses of the household or the individual are more than the income from his employment, the person is involved in poverty. In other words, when a person cannot simply meet his needs based on his income, he is practically considered poor (Ahangari & Askaripour Lahiji, 2018). Sustainable employment should have the possibility to have a suitable distance from the poverty line. Of course, with the occurrence of inflation in the economy, costs will increase. Income in sustainable employment should increase in proportion to these costs so that the person is under less pressure from inflation (Moktarband, 2021). Due to the importance of sustainable employment, we should look for sustainable employment; one of the factors affecting sustainable employment is the issue of the educational system. In an efficient and targeted educational system, the trainings are conducted in such a way that these trainings ultimately lead to job creation and income generation. Today, in almost all developed and developing countries, education and promotion of entrepreneurship has a special place at all levels of education, so that innovation in various dimensions of the educational system is the basis for raising a creative and multidimensional generation. Entrepreneurial education is the process of recognizing and discovering opportunities in which a person tries to turn his creativity, risk-taking and ideas into action. Entrepreneurial education means education for the future that is unknown, but this education provides the ability to create investment; however, Most of the studies on entrepreneurship education focus on the fact that entrepreneurial education is the promotion of entrepreneurial attitude, skills and managerial characteristics (Mukesh et al, 2018). Therefore, the researcher tries to answer the question of whether there is a causal relationship between entrepreneurial education and sustainable job creation in the Islamic Azad Universities of Tehran. Theoretical Framework Entrepreneurship education For years, the subject of entrepreneurship in developed countries has attracted the attention of scientists, officials and people, and it has become one of the most popular academic fields. The importance of using entrepreneurship has reached the point where some recognize it as one of the effective factors of production, such as working capital (apart from human power) and introduce it as an economic engine (Suryaman et al, 2023). Entrepreneurial action refers to the conceptualization and implementation of an idea, process, product, service or a new business. An entrepreneurial agent is a person or a group that takes responsibility for flourishing and starting an entrepreneurial activity. The entrepreneurial process has attitudinal and behavioral components. In terms of attitude, the entrepreneurial process refers to the desire of an individual or organization to exploit and use new opportunities and create creative change (Loi et al, 2022). Sustainable employment generation Job creation was first noticed by economists, and all economic schools have described job creation in their theories since the 16th century. Joseph Schumpeter presented his theory of economic development in 1934, which coincided with the great economic depression, and his opinion about the central role of workers in creating profits was noticed, and for this reason, he was called the "Father of Work". According to him, "the worker is the main driving force in economic development" and the worker's role is "to innovate or create new combinations of materials" (Cohen et al, 2016). Henry (2023) conducted a research titled "The role of entrepreneurship education among pharmacy students". The results of the study showed that entrepreneurship training for pharmacy students has consequences such as skill improvement, job search, stable employment and self-efficacy. Norouzzadeh & Vazifeh Damirchi (2022) conducted a research titled "Presenting an ecotourism model with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and sustainable rural employment with a mixed approach". Based on the results of the research, 40 indicators identified for the model, classified in 7 dimensions; Natural potentials, social and cultural factors, ecotourism and facilities infrastructure, educational and promotion factors, economic growth, policy and tourism potentials. The value of Kendall's coordination coefficient in the third round indicated a favorable consensus among the panel members. Confirmatory factor analysis using Amos software showed that all indicators of the ecotourism construct had a high factor loading and were confirmed. Research methodology The current research is applicable in terms of purpose, and descriptive-survey in terms of nature and method. The statistical population of the present study includes 272 members of the Faculty of Humanities of the Islamic Azad University of Tehran. Sampling was done by random cluster. The collection tool in this research includes a researcher-made questionnaire derived from the qualitative method, which includes the variable of entrepreneurial education including 3 dimensions (goal, structure and method), and the variable of sustainable employment creation including 2 dimensions (organizational and environmental). Research findings SPSS software was used for data analysis and Lisrel software was used to fit the research conceptual model. The findings of the research showed that according to the values of the standard coefficients and the significant coefficients of T (above 2.58), it can be said that there are direct relationships between the factors. Conclusion The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the causal relationships between entrepreneurial education and sustainable employment generation in Islamic Azad Universities in Tehran. The results of this research are in agreement with the results of Henry (2023), Norouzzadeh & Vazifeh Damirchi (2022), Bauman & Lucy (2021), Mohammadzadeh & Yousefi (2021), Boldureanu et al, (2020), Bedragh Nezhad et al, (2022). Bedragh Nezhad et al, (2022) showed in a research that first, entrepreneurship with a break period has a positive and significant effect on employment. Second, economic growth also leads to an increase in the employment rate with a lag period and vice versa. Third, there is a two-way Granger causality between entrepreneurial activity and employment rate, which indicates a dynamic interaction between entrepreneurship and employment. According to the present research, the following suggestions are presented: Improving the knowledge of professors' talent search in order to understand the entrepreneurship characteristics of students by providing training classes for professors Improving the knowledge of the entrepreneurship ecosystem by inviting prominent entrepreneurship professors and having the professors participate in these classes Improving the knowledge of the work production of university professors with the supervision of professors in various industries and the job market related to the field of study.
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