The online entrepreneurship program effect on young people's self-efficacy and intention: an experiment in Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, China and Romania
Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies
ISSN: 2053-4604
Article publication date: 12 October 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurship can help tackle economic problems, such as unemployment. It is often promoted through education programs. There is a limited comprehensive and rigorous understanding of how entrepreneurship education programs and their ubiquitous distance delivery affect young people's entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention, particularly in non-formal settings. The purpose of this study is to address this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
Underpinned by the Social Cognitive Theory, this paper investigates the effects of one entrepreneurship education program in a study with 145 young people from five countries aged 18 to 25 years, 62 Intervention and 83 Control participants. The program's impact on the participants' entrepreneurial intention and self-efficacy (across six sub-dimensions) was assessed in a one-off two-week quasi-experiment. Ex-ante and ex-post self-reported data were collected about the participants.
Findings
One-way analyses of covariance were performed to assess separately for changes in the Intervention participants' answers, relative to the Control group. The results of this study suggest the program significantly affected all measures.
Originality/value
These findings contribute to the discussions on the education programs’ effectiveness in promoting entrepreneurship. As a result, they may contribute to entrepreneurship education overcoming geographical and socio-economic hurdles (cost, time and entry barriers) to advance the development of industry, economy and community worldwide.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to QUT Entrepreneurship for arranging a dedicated delivery of the Spark and Fuel modules for the young people participating in the “Youth Employment and Social Entrepreneurship” (YES) project. Authors are also thankful to the trainers, Peta Ellis and Aaron Birkby, for sacrificing their late (Australian) evenings to share their knowledge and experience as entrepreneurs with those young people. This article is an output of the YES project (number: 617207-EPP-1-2020-1-RO-EPPKA2-CBY-ACPALA), implemented with the support of the EU Erasmus+ programme, Grant decision (agreement number: 2020-617207) of the European Commission Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The article reflects the views only of its authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Citation
Vankov, D., Kozma, D., Vankov, B., Chiers, J., Galanternik, M. and Wang, L. (2023), "The online entrepreneurship program effect on young people's self-efficacy and intention: an experiment in Argentina, Belgium, Bulgaria, China and Romania", Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEEE-12-2022-0385
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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