Developing Entrepreneurial Skills through the Use of Behavioural Simulations

Characteristics and Effects of Entrepreneurship Education Programs: a Systematic Review

In recent decades, due to the unprecedented enthusiasm for processes related to teaching entrepreneurship, the subject of “entrepreneurship education” has been widely investigated. Several entrepreneurship education programs have been developed and tested under the hypothesis that it is possible to teach entrepreneurship and that such training is effective to develop both entrepreneurs and their ventures. Several studies, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, have sought to understand the relationship between the interventions proposed in entrepreneurship education programs and their potential outcomes, such as the acquisition of different behavioral repertoires and business growth. In contrast, the content developed in different programs has not received attention. The aim of this systematic review is to describe aspects related to the interventions proposed in entrepreneurship education programs; specifically, this review aimed at determining what the interventions intended to develop, the characteristics of pedagogical strategies employed in these interventions, and the types of outcomes of such interventions. The results of the review showed that some important aspects, such as personalized learning in some stages of the interventions, the target audience, the formal preparation of mentors, and the development of specific content for achieving intended goals, need better consideration for the improvement of entrepreneurship education programs.

A Study on Complexity and Uncertainty Perception and Solution Strategies for the Time/Cost Trade-Off Problem

In this article, the Discrete Time/Cost Tradeoff Problem (DTCTP) is revisited in light of a student experiment. Two solution strategies are distilled from the data of 444 participants and are structured by means of five building blocks: focus, activity criticality, ranking, intensity, and action. The impact of complexity and uncertainty on the cost objective is quantified in a large computational experiment. Specific attention is allocated to the influence of the actual and perceived complexity and uncertainty and the cost repercussions when reality and perception do not coincide.

The mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial intentions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of students' intentions to become entrepreneurs. The authors used structural equation modeling with a sample of 265 master of business administration students across 5 universities to test their hypotheses. The results showed that the effects of perceived learning from entrepreneurship-related courses, previous entrepreneurial experience, and risk propensity on entrepreneurial intentions were fully mediated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Contrary to expectations, gender was not mediated by self-efficacy but had a direct effect such that women reported lower entrepreneurial career intentions. The authors discuss practical implications and directions for future research.