Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Intentions of Slovak Youth Growing up in Cities and in Villages

Jon Gunnar Nesse,Alena Kašcáková,Stanislav Kološta,Torbjørn Årethun,Gabriela Nedelová,Filip Flaška

doi:10.33844/ijol.2018.60229

Abstract

Entrepreneurial intentions and factors influencing them are important in explaining and often triggering the entrepreneurial activity resulting in establishing new business and enabling to employ other people. This is especially important in category of young people. This study tries to explain common and different threats in entrepreneurial education, individual and contextual factors as variables explaining entrepreneurial intentions of youth growing in two different environments – city and village. This study also investigates if young people are willing to start their carrier in place of their birth. Data were collected in two rounds of voluntary anonymous electronic surveys among students, 537 respondents, who have finished their high-school studies. The principal component and regression analysis were applied. The dependent variable, entrepreneurial intentions, is constructed by combining items that differently measure an individual’s intentions to become an entrepreneur. The independent variables consist of measures for entrepreneurial education, social and cultural capital as well as individual factors as gender, career anchors, proactive personality and others.

Highlights

During the last two decades, entrepreneurship has gained increasing attention worldwide, both in research and in politics
Most important among Slovak youth can be considered autonomy and security, which belong to individual factors
Due to higher unemployment and lower wages relative to income earned from self-employment, there seems to be a higher share of necessity-driven entrepreneurial intentions among Slovak youth, for example in comparison with Norwegian study by Nesse et al (2015)

Summary

Introduction

During the last two decades, entrepreneurship has gained increasing attention worldwide, both in research and in politics. Data from Center of Science and Technology Information of Slovak Republic showed that in 2016, 55% of high school students in Slovakia did not continue to university studies. These students do not have opportunities to be involved within university entrepreneurial education programs. This was the reason for investigating the relationship between EI and participation in entrepreneurial courses and training for high school students in the final year of their studies. Primary data were collected in three rural regions in central and eastern part of Slovakia with highest longterm unemployment of high-school graduates and weak economic performance – Banská Bystrica, Žilina, and Prešov region (in 2014 regional average GDP in these regions do not reached 73% of average Slovak regional GDP, and average value of long-term unemployment of high-school graduates in 2015 was 137% of national average)

Methods

Results

Conclusion