The Relationship between Entrepreneurial Skills and Intentions

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to find out relationships between different business skills, as well as how they relate to the students’ intentions of becoming entrepreneurs. The research data was gathered to help aid government programs that aim to contribute to local, regional, national and transnational economic development, by stimulating entrepreneurial abilities among young peo-ple. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 111 students who had attended the Rural Youth and Entrepreneurship program in the Kajaani University of Applied Sciences. The survey asked participants to rate themselves based on their creativity, ambiguity, marshalling, finance and self-efficacy skills. Additionally, they were asked to rate their attitude towards starting a busi-ness. The data was organized to find the relationship between each skill and to which extent that skill was related to the intentions to start a business. The outcomes of this study showed that financial skills had very little connection to the students’ intentions to start a business, whereas creativity and self-efficacy had a much higher positive relationship. The conclusions of the thesis can be used by government training programs to ed-ucate students more effectively in the future.