Development of entrepreneurial competencies of Russian and Czech undergraduate students: Gender aspect

Abstract

Introduction. Recently, university teachers have faced the task to develop not only professional knowledge, skills and abilities, but also universal and supra-professional competencies. The comprehensive development of university students influences the formation of a specialist’s personality, ensures his/her adaptability and resistance to the challenges of the external environment, the graduate’s readiness to demonstrate high performance indicators in the chosen field of activity. Among the supra-professional competencies, a separate cluster of entrepreneurial competencies can be distinguished, which ensure the deployment of commercial thinking and are the driver of the development of the state’s economy. Meanwhile, in some publications there are a number of facts, which illustrate the gender differences in entrepreneurship in the world. Official statistics demonstrate the relevance of the development of women’s entrepreneurship in the economies of countries. The prevailing number of studies is carried out among students enrolled in entrepreneurship training programmes. However, the indicators of the development of entrepreneurial competencies of students of non-core specialties (future human resource management specialists), taking into account the gender factor, have not been studied enough.The aim of the present research was to answer the question about the presence of a gender gap in the development of entrepreneurial competencies among university students enrolled in the training direction “Personnel Management” in the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic.Methodology and research methods. The methodological framework of the current research is based on the behavioural approach to the study of competencies, which suggests that success in professional activity is favoured by a high level of development. The literary analysis of relevant empirical studies was conducted to choose a research method and to develop a methodology for competencies assessment. The review makes it possible to assess the level of knowledge of the problem of gender differences in entrepreneurial competencies of university students at the international level. The empirical part of the work was attended by N = 582 students (n1 = 291 people of the Czech Republic (Ceske Budejovice), n2 = 291 people of the Russian Federation (Ekaterinburg), among them women – 70.1% n1, 74.2% n2 and men – 29.9% n1, 25.8% n2. Testing was carried out using the authors’ methodology “Assessment of Entrepreneurial Competencies of Students” for the 15 most important competencies in the field of entrepreneurship, which are associated with the manifestation of initiative, management of resources and people, decision-making and active action.The data obtained were processed using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, t-statistics.Results and scientific novelty. It is shown that the development of participants’ entrepreneurial competencies does not have a direct correlation with the gender of the respondents. When assessing the potential of women’s entrepreneurship, the opinion of society is influenced by the stereotyping of ideas about it as a traditionally masculine type of activity, while the development of these competencies in the university takes place without highlighting significant gender differences. Moreover, in a number of cases, women have higher indicators in the analysed range of competencies in comparison with men. We assume that gender does not have a decisive role in the implementation of business initiatives but there may be other factors: the environment, including the educational environment of the university, personal characteristics and motivation of a person.Practical significance. The research findings are expected to contribute to the debate on entrepreneurial competencies and provide useful data to be employed in learning with a focus on the development of internal entrepreneurship.