The When and Why: Student Entrepreneurial Aspirations

The potential for greater small business ownership to increase the level of entrepreneurial activity, innovation and creativity within an economy has made the policies and programmes aiming at promoting new venture creation extremely attractive to policymakers (Gilbert et al., 2004; �cs and Audretsch, 2003; van Stel et al., 2005; Audretsch et al., 2006). Along with a greater dissatisfaction with traditional corporate careers, such a shift has led more business students into contemplating careers as business owners in their own right (Brockhaus and Horowitz, 1986). This has in recent years led to an explosion in the number of entrepreneurship modules and courses taught within business schools (Vesper and Gartner, 1997; Katz, 2003; Kuratko, 2005). The aims of such programmes are to increase awareness amongst those who have little knowledge of the entrepreneurial career option (Donckels, 1991; Kantor, 1988), and for those who have already developed interest in entrepreneurship, to increase their start-up and small enterprise management capabilities (Johannisson, 1991 and Kantor, 1988). Traditionally university entrepreneurship education pays most attention to the latter, with the action-orientated ?go-out-and-do-it-now? philosophy remaining the most prominent approach (Ronstadt, 1985). Within this philosophy the role of enterprise education through the acquisition of skills and network connections is to increase students? self-confidence in relation to the process of starting a business and thereby creating a linkage from vision to action (Johannisson, 1991).