Assessing the influence of institutions on students’ entrepreneurial dynamics: evidence from European post-socialist and market-oriented economies

Abstract

This paper theorizes how institutional conditions influence students’ entrepreneurship dynamics (e.g., nascent and active), especially these institutional conditions related to environments where students are mostly exposed (e.g., university and country), as well as the moderation effect of the type of economy (e.g., post-socialist and marked-oriented). We tested our proposed theoretical model in a sample of 91,105 students from 557 European universities located in nine post-socialist economies and nine market-oriented economies. The results show the important role of informal institutions in the country (societal perceptions) and university (students’ perception) on students’ entrepreneurial dynamics, especially the moderation of post-socialist and market-oriented economies on the informal institutions that influence nascent entrepreneurs. Several implications for policymakers and university managers emerge from this study.