Entrepreneurial Competences of Management Students

Abstract

Purpose: There are many different approaches to the concept of entrepreneurial competences. Therefore, it is not easy to choose one universal set of these competences (for example: Rivera-Kempis et al., 2021). In order to make an attempt to measure the level of entrepreneurial competences in students, it was necessary to conduct a literature review. Design/methodology/approach: As a result of this review, a concept was selected that seems to be the most similar to the majority of contemporary concepts describing entrepreneurial competences. Based on the description of this concept, a research tool was developed to measure the level of entrepreneurial competences. Using this tool, a study of the level of entrepreneurial competences was conducted among management students of three leading universities in Warsaw – the University of Warsaw, the Warsaw School of Economics and the Kozminski University. Findings: The study shows that the most significant differences in the level of entrepreneurial competences were observed between students planning to start their own enterprise in the future and students who do not intend to start their own enterprise in the future and people who do not know yet whether they want to start their own enterprise in the future. Gender, university and year of study did not significantly differentiate the level of entrepreneurial competences in the respondents. Research limitations/implications: The study is a pilot study, so it was conducted on a small, unrepresentative sample. In order to generalize the results, it should be repeated on a larger, representative sample. Moreover, due to the variety of concepts of entrepreneurial competences, it is not possible to measure the level of all entrepreneurial competences. Originality/value: This article contributes to the literature in that it checks which entrepreneurial competences are present in management students. The level of entrepreneurial competences was verified on the basis of a new and pre-validated tool for measuring the level of entrepreneurial competences.