How Enterprising Are Non-Business Students?
How Enterprising Are Non-Business Students?

Author(s): Marian Holienka, Jana Holienkova, Péter Gál
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Economy
Published by: Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze
Keywords: Student entrepreneurship; non-business fields of study; enterprising tendency; personality traits; entrepreneurship education
Summary/Abstract: Purpose: Nowadays, majority of attention in entrepreneurship education is still devoted tobusiness students. However, they are quite far from being the most enterprising, showinggreatest business appetite or having the domain substance to build their businesses upon. Thus,we call for a shift of this paradigm. In this paper, we support this suggestion by analysing howenterprising are students in selected non-business fields and what are the factors behind. Design/methodology/approach: We investigate for differences between students in selectednon-business disciplines in enterprising tendency and entrepreneurial characteristics,entrepreneurial propensity and its potential drivers. Our sample, obtained through own datacollection in years 2017 and 2018, comprises of 288 university students from four disciplines(engineering, sports, arts, and pedagogy) studying at four universities in Slovakia. Findings: Our analysis yielded findings on entrepreneurial propensity, enterprising tendencyand personality and entrepreneurship education background of students of sports, arts,engineering and pedagogy. We constructed the hypothetical profiles of the analysed groups ofstudents with respect to the above-mentioned attributes. We suggest that entrepreneurship is anintegral phenomenon in non-business student populations. Research/practical implications: Entrepreneurship is an integral phenomenon in non-businessstudent populations. We suggest further elaboration building on the presented work, includingmore extensive examination, comparisons with business students, extending the scope ofanalysis to other disciplines, or employing more sophisticated statistical methods. Originality/value: Research on entrepreneurship among non-business students is still ratherscarce, especially in case of Slovakia. More importantly, there is a clear lack of systematicattention to entrepreneurship education, training and support in non-business fields. We call forshifting the cliché that entrepreneurship education and support is meant for business students.

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