Entrepreneurship Education and Business Opportunity Exploitation: Positive Emotion as Mediator

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education can facilitate students’ competency development and enhance their self-employment potential. Students’ involvement in entrepreneurship is influenced by their emotions, especially in the early stages of business start-ups. Without exploiting potential business opportunities, entrepreneurship will not occur. This study aims to determine positive emotion effects on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and business opportunity exploitation. The study’s sample comprise of 152 final year university students. A questionnaire-based survey was the main instrument employed and the hypotheses developed were tested using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling. The findings show that the students’ action to exploit opportunities is significant, and is affected by the exposure to entrepreneurial learning and anticipated effect of positive emotion on entrepreneurship. This finding confirms that anticipated positive emotions are important throughout the entrepreneurial process and form a motivating factor to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Furthermore, the result shows that positive emotions partially mediate the relationship between entrepreneurship education and opportunity exploitation. This study is important for students to experience a paradigm shift towards entrepreneurship and to encourage them to select entrepreneurship as a career option. Future studies could explore the effect of anticipated negative emotions among tertiary education students, and potential entrepreneurs.

What Do They Like and Dislike From Game-Based Entrepreneurship Learning? A Qualitative Study

“…Many scholars attempt to ensure to build entrepreneur through education. Some studies show that entrepreneurial education has contributed to entrepreneurial interest (Hutasuhut, Irwansyah, Rahmadsyah, & Aditia, 2020;Izquierdo & Buelens, 2011;Souitaris, Zerbinati, & Al-Laham, 2007;Fayolle, Gailly, & Lassas-Clerc, 2006;Lüthje & Franke, 2003;Peterman & Kennedy, 2003;Kolvereid & Moen, 1997); intention and mindset (Ndou, Secundo, Schiuma, & Passiante, 2018) and motivation (Othman, Othman, & Juhdi, 2020;Mahendra, Djatmika, & Hermawan, 2017). The studies' findings confirm the opinion that entrepreneurship evidently can be taught.…”

Does Entrepreneurship Education Affect Pre-start-up Behavior in Malaysia? A Multi-Group Analysis Approach

“…Indeed, this research demonstrates the importance of government support, family support, and entrepreneurship development programmes in influencing student behavior. Othman et al, 2020 2020 Students The findings show that students’ actions to seize opportunities are important and are influenced by their exposure to entrepreneurial learning. Saenz et al, 2019 2019 Students Students with high entrepreneurial abilities on four dimensions (capacity, planning, creativity, dedication, and responsibility), as well as those with good entrepreneurial potential, are more likely to engage in entrepreneurship, according to the findings.…”

“…Besides, entrepreneurship education or programs can help students to develop entrepreneurial skills and become job creators by creating graduates with entrepreneurial qualities ( Lee et al, 2018 ; Middleton et al, 2019 ; Ward et al, 2019 ; Othman et al, 2020 ). This view is in line with Sequeira et al (2007) and Bandura (1997) that the perception of self-efficacy, that is, aspects of vocational skills and entrepreneurial knowledge, is fundamental in starting a business.…”

Does Entrepreneurship Education Matter for Islamic Higher Education Students’ Entrepreneurial Readiness?

“…Entrepreneurship education increase awareness of business opportunities (Othman et al, 2020) and tolerance for uncertainty, which are dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset (Guerrero et al, 2020). In addition, entrepreneurship education improves the entrepreneurial mindset based on indicators of opportunity recognition, critical thinking, communication and collaboration, and problem-solving (Rodriguez & Lieber, 2020).…”

“…Entrepreneurship education programs can improve the entrepreneurial mindset of engineering students in the form of extracurricular activities (De Hoyos-Ruperto et al, 2017). Entrepreneurship education can increase awareness of business opportunities (Othman, Othman & Juhdi, 2020) and tolerance for uncertainty (Guerrero, Urbano & Gajón, 2020), which are dimensions of the entrepreneurial mindset.…”