Title: Students' propensity to entrepreneurship: an exploratory study from Greece

Authors: Irene Fafaliou

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou Str., 185 34 Piraeus, Greece

Abstract: This paper seeks to provide evidence on the entrepreneurial propensity of a sample of 364 Greek students, who, at the time of our research, attended classes at a specific University of Economics and Business Studies. Our findings demonstrate that almost half of the students surveyed (46.5%) were positively disposed towards entrepreneurship despite any difficulties that they could probably encounter in the pre- and early-startup phase of their business venture. One third of the respondents (34.7%) reported that they already had an idea of the type of business they desired to establish. However, the majority stated that they were insufficiently prepared to become self-employed. In conclusion, there is much scope to designate and ameliorate entrepreneurship courses across the curricula of the specific university; such efforts could be further enhanced through more targeted longitudinal research in Greece and other South European countries, which face similarly increasing graduates' unemployment levels.

Keywords: undergraduate students; entrepreneurial propensity; facilitating entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship education; higher education; Greece; entrepreneurial orientation; self-employment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIRD.2012.047563

International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2012 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.293 - 313

Published online: 23 Aug 2014 *

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