The Role of Business Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention and Technology Preparedness in the Digital Age

Isabelle Biclesanu (), Marco Savastano (), Cătălina Chinie and Sorin Anagnoste
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Isabelle Biclesanu: Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Languages, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 010731 Bucharest, Romania
Marco Savastano: Management Department, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy
Cătălina Chinie: Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Languages, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 010731 Bucharest, Romania
Sorin Anagnoste: Faculty of Business Administration in Foreign Languages, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 010731 Bucharest, Romania

Administrative Sciences, 2023, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-13

Abstract: Innovative digital technologies, together with new sustainable practices, push for new business models and skillsets, pressuring companies to adapt to external change in order to gain competitive advantage. Higher education institutions could offer support. More than 20% of university graduates in the European Union study “business, administration or law”, with some of them being future top-level managers and entrepreneurs. This paper aims to provide an understanding of the factors shaping business students’ perspectives and decisions in the modern business landscape. It reunites their career preferences, personality characteristics and knowledge regarding technology’s utility for business and compares them between two cohorts (i.e., first year bachelor students and second year master students). The results of an online survey with a sample of 154 respondents show that business students’ entrepreneurial intention is influenced by their entrepreneurial confidence, their boldness when considering risks, as well as by being further along their educational journey. While almost 80% of business students are daring, oriented toward results and confident in their entrepreneurial abilities, and around 50% would feel most comfortable having their own business, approximately half of first year bachelor students and 14% of second year master students tend to be “not sure” regarding how eight out of ten modern technologies mentioned in this paper (i.e., robotic process automation, big data, artificial intelligence, computer vision, industrial robots, internet of things, virtual reality, enterprise resource planning) could improve a company’s innovation and performance.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; entrepreneur; student; university; education; skill; personality; business; digital; technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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