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The present research aimed to analyze the effects of different dimensions of the entrepreneurship ecosystem on the agricultural students' entrepreneurial skills mediated by social and emotional intelligence. The research was conducted among the agricultural students at Zabol University (N = 893) of whom 269 students were sampled by the stratified randomization technique with proportional allocation. The measurement instrument was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of entrepreneurship experts and its reliability was determined by calculating the ordinal coefficient theta (0.81–0.92) in a pilot study. The results showed that the indicators used to measure the research variables were consistent with the factor structure and theoretical framework of the research. The entrepreneurship ecosystem was found to have a positive and significant effect on the students' social intelligence and emotional intelligence. Also, the students' entrepreneurial skills were found to be influenced by the entrepreneurship ecosystem, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence positively and significantly. It can be concluded that higher social and emotional intelligence in students and the improvement of the entrepreneurship ecosystem can provide the conditions for the students to acquire and reinforce entrepreneurial skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship brings wealth to nations and contributes to their economic growth. People can take many paths to become entrepreneurs. Some join the family business, whilst others are born entrepreneurs, letting their innate intuition lead them into firm creation. For many, though, being able to learn and acquire the right skills is critical for a successful career as an entrepreneur. Like other human capital factors, entrepreneurial skills can be acquired. In today's fast-changing society, it is of utmost importance for entrepreneurs not only to gain these skills but also to be surrounded by a supportive environment that will (1) guide them in the creation of their business idea and (2) help them succeed and keep their business alive. Taking the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as an initial theoretical framework, this paper studies the pathways that lead newly established entrepreneurs to successful firm performance. In this paper, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to study a sample of 49 entrepreneurs who responded to an online survey. The results reveal different pathways leading to successful firm performance. This study fills a theoretical and empirical gap and makes a valuable contribution to the literature on entrepreneurial behaviour by exploring the combinations of factors that best explain entrepreneurs' success in achieving high firm performance. Examining the entrepreneurial process and the factors that guide entrepreneurs towards new firm success provides valuable insights that can help universities, policymakers and prospective entrepreneurs take better decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article emphasizes entrepreneurial skills in adolescents, in order to determine the relationship between entrepreneurial skills (dependent variable) and the key factors for their development: personal, social, and educational (independent variables). It has an empirical‒analytical design which is explanatory in nature. After the design, validation, and application of the evaluation instrument, the estimation was carried out using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results show great impact of potential entrepreneurial capacity on effective entrepreneurial capacity, determined by the direct effect of personal traits and life skills, the family as a moderating element, as well as the mediating role of entrepreneurship training processes. The complex nature of entrepreneurship is highlighted, which is influenced by multiple factors as possible boosters for the success of entrepreneurial initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of the mass media on entrepreneurial intention has received little attention thus far. In addressing this gap, this study explores the influence on entrepreneurial intention of perceived social legitimacy of famous entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in the media as well as perceived entrepreneurial skills learned through the media. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior, this influence is tested among 320 Spanish participants both directly and indirectly through the three components posited by this theory (i.e., attitudes toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy). The results of partial least squares structural modeling revealed that positive attitudes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediated the social legitimacy – entrepreneurial intention and skills – entrepreneurial intention relationships, although subjective norms were not significant. Thus, while previous empirical evidence has indicated a direct link between these variables and entrepreneurial intention, the study of social legitimacy and perceived entrepreneurial skills may benefit from considering this robust theoretical framework. This study also offers practical implications. Television programs and other formats can be useful in entrepreneurship education as pedagogical materials. Additionally, when these programs are broadcast to the general public, it is advisable to test how they influence attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent rise of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) is changing markets, politics, organizations, and societies. It also affects the domain of research. Supported by new statistical methods that rely on computational power and computer science—data science methods—we are now able to analyze data sets that can be huge, multidimensional, and unstructured and are diversely sourced. In this paper, we describe the most prominent data science methods suitable for entrepreneurship research and provide links to literature and Internet resources for self-starters. We survey how data science methods have been applied in the entrepreneurship research literature. As a showcase of data science techniques, based on a dataset of 95% of all job vacancies in the Netherlands over a 6-year period with 7.7 million data points, we provide an original analysis of the demand dynamics for entrepreneurial skills in the Netherlands. We show which entrepreneurial skills are particularly important for which type of profession. Moreover, we find that demand for both entrepreneurial and digital skills has increased for managerial positions, but not for others. We also find that entrepreneurial skills were significantly more demanded than digital skills over the entire period 2012–2017 and that the absolute importance of entrepreneurial skills has even increased more than digital skills for managers, despite the impact of datafication on the labor market. We conclude that further studies of entrepreneurial skills in the general population—outside the domain of entrepreneurs—is a rewarding subject for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the introduction of quasi-markets into publicly funded healthcare systems, nurse intrapreneurs who create innovations within these systems have become increasingly important to improving healthcare outputs. This study sought to examine how self-motivation and managerial skills mediate the influence of entrepreneurial traits on nurses' intrapreneurial intentions in the Portuguese National Health Service. A structural equation model was assessed using primary data collected from a sample of 536 nurses working at seven public hospitals in Portugal. The results suggest that nurses who are more determined to become intrapreneurs are more likely to take risks, more self-confident about their managerial skills and slightly more self-motivated. In addition, while innovativeness has no significant effect, proactivity contributes to increasing nurses' self-confidence in their own skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine what sort of ability expectations university students have about the requirements of working life, and how the perception of these expectations relate to students' perceptions of their own employability. The participants comprised a sample of students (N = 1819) from two Finnish universities, representing diverse fields of study. They were asked to describe themselves according to a set of abilities and to then indicate those abilities that would be particularly important for them in the labour market. It was found that being stable and getting along with others were the most commonly considered generic capabilities for coping in working life. Furthermore, those university students who identified entrepreneurial skills and extroversion as predominant ability requirements were prone to have relatively pessimistic perceptions of their employability possibilities. Accordingly, the results of the study suggest that students' views of their expected abilities tend to shape their perceptions of their employment prospects, particularly with regard to entrepreneurial skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting entrepreneurship has become an important policy strategy in Europe in the hope to stimulate the crisis-shaken economy. In this paper, we caution against undue expectations. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 17 European countries, we find that a considerable proportion of the new entrepreneurs have started a business despite a negative perception of business opportunities as well as lack of confidence in their own entrepreneurial skills. This proportion has increased during the economic crisis, especially in those countries which were particularly affected by economic downturn and rising unemployment. We extend existing entrepreneurship theories to account for this phenomenon, which we call “nons-entrepreneurship”. Testing the hypotheses derived from our model, we find that the primary motivation for these people to turn to entrepreneurship is the lack of other options to enter the labour market during the economic crisis. Still, this sort of “desperate” entrepreneurship does not equal necessity based entrepreneurship, warranting further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We intend to see how interventions during a business plan competition workshop impact the relationship between the personality, intellectual capital, entrepreneurial skills of the participants and their entrepreneur identity aspiration. INVENT is a nation-wide business plan competition in which university students from all over Pakistan (around 3000) participate. This is a 5 month process which involves a lot of training and mentoring during the various rounds. The interventions to promote entrepreneurship take place in the form of lectures, workshops, case studies, and mentoring sessions. The survey was conducted in two phases; the baseline survey was conducted during the initial workshops and the second survey was conducted towards the end of the competition and finals. In this paper, we evaluate the results of the baseline survey conducted during the initial workshops. To test the model, the constructs of entrepreneurial personality, intellectual capital, entrepreneurial skills and business program inputs were validated followed by factor analysis and structural equation modeling. We found out that the entrepreneurial interventions carried out in the workshops led to positive relationships between the variables and had a positive impact on the Entrepreneur Identity Aspiration of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sub-Saharan Africa, manufacturers operating in spontaneously developed industrial clusters are very small in size, have low productivity, and, except when they are at a young stage, become stagnant. The literature has related the preponderance of such enterprises to their socioeconomic surroundings. This paper reconsiders the issue by looking at the way small entrepreneurs engage in business in a car repair and metalworking industrial cluster in Ghana. We hypothesize that these entrepreneurs are unaware of or unskilled in basic techniques in marketing, management, and accounting, which are necessary for enterprise growth. Evidence suggests that small entrepreneurs in the cluster are in dire need of such techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Important factors that determine the emergence of new start-ups are the existence of the individuals' entrepreneurial motivation, knowledge and skills. Entrepreneurship education (EE) seems to play an important role in developing these attributes. However, a fundamental question still remains: is entrepreneurship really teachable? The article, conceptual in nature, offers a survey about the scientific discussion on the teachability of entrepreneurship and comes out with a phenomenon, which we call 'Teachability Dilemma'. The insights lead us to claim that future EE should desist from simply teaching knowledge on business creation and rather focus on experiencing entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]