The Impact of Students’ Human Capital Investment on Entrepreneurial Outcomes

Abstract

This study examines how university courses in entrepreneurship are associated with long-term entrepreneurship outcomes. Drawing on human capital theory, I argue that entrepreneurship courses are helping to produce more entrepreneurship activity. I extend the view of entrepreneurship outcomes beyond just venture creation and include all professions with an entrepreneurial predisposition. By using publicly available data from the Internet and a professional social networking site I create unique dataset. Analyzing a sample of 2.531 university students between fall 2009 and spring 2018, I find evidence that entrepreneurship courses increase the probability for a participating individual to work in an entrepreneurial position or to start a business. Furthermore, while theoretical courses are higher associated with entrepreneurial job positions, practical courses increase the probability for venture creation. Interdisciplinarity in education I found also to be an influencing factor on entrepreneurship outcomes. I use a logistic regression model for my analysis. This study contributes to the understanding of the effect of entrepreneurship education at university level on long-term entrepreneurship outcomes. Given my new approach to the subject, this study should be seen as a preliminary study to investigate if the data collection method used is valid and I plan on extending in subsequent research.