Student entrepreneurial propensities in the individual-organisational-environmental nexus

Abstract

While there is a consensus that universities contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation, it is not clear how different educational environments contribute to different students’ desires to start up a business, and it is even less clear how different universities contribute to entrepreneurship activities in a particular place. This study improves understanding of entrepreneurship education and the university-based entrepreneurship ecosystem at the individual, organisational and environmental levels by examining organisational contexts and individual students’ social contexts, including motivations towards and perceptions of graduate start-ups. Applications of logit and ordered logit regression analyses to a unique student-level dataset across two universities in one city-region demonstrates the importance of the university, gender and a series of home and employment experiences as determinants of the propensity to start up a business, while economic factors change attitudes towards setting up a business.