Fostering Entrepreneurship on Campus -- Case VAMK
Ou, Jianyu (2022)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022081819508
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022081819508
Tiivistelmä
This thesis uses VAMK as a case to recognize the intervenable factors on a university campus that foster entrepreneurship among students, how these factors create an impact on students’ entrepreneurial behavior, and how the current situation is regarding VAMK’s engagement with these factors in entrepreneurship promotion from the students’ perspectives. The thesis takes the background profiles, needs and expectations of the students in VAMK into consideration in order to map out the possible gaps between students’ expectations and experiences regarding how entrepreneurship has been fostered in VAMK. In the end, this thesis seeks improvement suggestions and identifies the best practices by constructing an operational model for VAMK to foster entrepreneurship.
This thesis bases the model construction and survey design on the relevant entrepreneurship theories and findings from previous researches on universities and entrepreneurship. A quantitative research approach was adopted in this research.
Four factors that are important for students’ potential entrepreneurial behaviors are identified for the model - the first factor is the core mental and psychological factor, the second factor is entrepreneurial competence, the third factor is entrepreneurial experience and the fourth factor is resource and support provided by VAMK.
Out of the four factors, entrepreneurial competence is the most important factor needed for students to perform entrepreneurial tasks. Male and female students consider the importance of the four factors for initiating their entrepreneurial behavior differently. Female students might need more support in building entrepreneurial competence. The factor of entrepreneurial experience seems to be much more important to the students from the school of health care and social services than from other study units. The factors of entrepreneurial competence, experience, and resource/support seem to be much more important to the students with strong entrepreneurial personality.
In general, VAMK’s performance in fostering entrepreneurship seems to be on a middle level, meaning that VAMK would need to improve all areas regarding fostering entrepreneurship. Although its impact on the students’ attitude and self-efficacy towards entrepreneurship are meeting the students’ expectations, significant gaps for improvement have been identified in regards to students’ perception of entrepreneurship, their motivation for entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial competence and experience, as well as resource/support provided in VAMK. In particular, resource/support turns out to be the area that has the biggest gap between reality and expectation, and hence, one of the most critical areas for improvement.
This thesis contributes to the research of fostering entrepreneurship in universities by extending the range and the depth of the previous studies of VAMK. The results are only applicable to VAMK with a limited valid time frame, but the methodology could be reused on VAMK and other AMKs in future research for follow-ups or exploration regarding fostering entrepreneurship on campus. A larger sample size representing the population structure could have improved higher reliability and validity of this thesis.
This thesis bases the model construction and survey design on the relevant entrepreneurship theories and findings from previous researches on universities and entrepreneurship. A quantitative research approach was adopted in this research.
Four factors that are important for students’ potential entrepreneurial behaviors are identified for the model - the first factor is the core mental and psychological factor, the second factor is entrepreneurial competence, the third factor is entrepreneurial experience and the fourth factor is resource and support provided by VAMK.
Out of the four factors, entrepreneurial competence is the most important factor needed for students to perform entrepreneurial tasks. Male and female students consider the importance of the four factors for initiating their entrepreneurial behavior differently. Female students might need more support in building entrepreneurial competence. The factor of entrepreneurial experience seems to be much more important to the students from the school of health care and social services than from other study units. The factors of entrepreneurial competence, experience, and resource/support seem to be much more important to the students with strong entrepreneurial personality.
In general, VAMK’s performance in fostering entrepreneurship seems to be on a middle level, meaning that VAMK would need to improve all areas regarding fostering entrepreneurship. Although its impact on the students’ attitude and self-efficacy towards entrepreneurship are meeting the students’ expectations, significant gaps for improvement have been identified in regards to students’ perception of entrepreneurship, their motivation for entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial competence and experience, as well as resource/support provided in VAMK. In particular, resource/support turns out to be the area that has the biggest gap between reality and expectation, and hence, one of the most critical areas for improvement.
This thesis contributes to the research of fostering entrepreneurship in universities by extending the range and the depth of the previous studies of VAMK. The results are only applicable to VAMK with a limited valid time frame, but the methodology could be reused on VAMK and other AMKs in future research for follow-ups or exploration regarding fostering entrepreneurship on campus. A larger sample size representing the population structure could have improved higher reliability and validity of this thesis.