How do universities shape founding teams? Social proximity and informal mechanisms of knowledge transfer in student entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial intention: An analysis of the role of Student-Led Entrepreneurial Organizations

“…Therefore, several researchers (e.g. Fonseca et al 2001;Hoppe 2016;Wright et al 2017;Siivonen et al 2019;Barbini et al 2020) have started to study which activities are able to stimulate entrepreneurship. Numerous studies have examined the role played by specific entrepreneurship education programs in influencing students' entrepreneurial intention (Raffo et al 2000;Peterman and Kennedy 2003;Souitaris .…”

“…JEE has recently attracted a great deal of attention from political leaders, who have expressed interest in its activities (JADE 2017). This is due to the fact that policy makers want to foster an entrepreneurial culture and to increase students' entrepreneurial abilities (Lewis and Llewellyn 2004;O'Connor 2013;Wright et al 2017;Siivonen et al 2019;Varano et al 2019;Barbini et al 2020). Entrepreneurial abilities have in fact been recognized as being useful for personal, professional and/or business activities, but also for the opportunities and challenges that an employer or an organization has to face (EC 2006).…”

“…Governments are currently fostering the creation and promotion of an entrepreneurial culture and ecosystem (Cavallo et al 2020) by involving universities in order to enhance students' entrepreneurial abilities and intention (Lewis and Llewellyn 2004;O'Connor 2013;Wright et al 2017;Siivonen et al 2019;Barbini et al 2020). Accordingly, a remarkable expansion in the number of programs devoted to entrepreneurship education, aimed at introducing a cultural change of entrepreneurship, to all levels of education, has been realized throughout the world (Katz 2003;Kuratko 2005;EC 2012;Blenker et al 2012;Fretschner and Weber 2013;Martin et al 2013;O'Connor 2013).…”

“…First, it augments and complements the current research on SLEOs by examining the domain of entrepreneurial intention formation, which has surprisingly received very little attention so far. Although there is still a need for a greater understanding of the factors that can shape the willingness of students to become entrepreneurs (Wright et al 2017;Siivonen et al 2019;Barbini et al 2020), there is also considerable debate surrounding which factors affect their entrepreneurial intention the most. Moreover, the role played by SLEOs in this process has not been taken into consideration so far.…”

Entrepreneurship in the Long-Run: Empirical Evidence and Historical Mechanisms

“…14 Spin-off entrepreneurship may be also promoted via education of graduates, as human capital is a highly important factor for identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and for running a firm successfully (Davidsson and Honig, 2003;Unger et al, 2011). In this respect, the identification of high-quality opportunities may be promoted by cross-faculty information spillover and by shaping founding teams to the extent that students and co-workers with different specialization team up, which helps identifying opportunities (Goethner and Wyrwich, 2020;Barbini et al, 2021).…”