Development of Entrepreneurial Leadership Competencies Among Malaysian University Students

Recent developments in entrepreneurial leadership raised many questions about how to develop entrepreneurial leadership competencies particularly, in university students as prospective entrepreneurial leaders. In particular, there is not enough knowledge on the specific competencies enabling university students to lead entrepreneurial activities, factors motivating them to learn and develop their entrepreneurial leadership competencies, the process of their entrepreneurial leadership competencies, and the roles that university entrepreneurship programs play in developing the students’ entrepreneurial leadership competencies. This research attempted to answer these questions through employing qualitative research method. A sample of fourteen undergraduate entrepreneurial leaders defined as students successfully leading the university entrepreneurship clubs and activities for more than two semesters and four university entrepreneurship program coordinators was purposefully selected as the participants. The main technique for data collection was semi-structured interviews. The interviews lasted between 50 to 110 minutes and were recorded in a digital audio recorder. Once the interviews were conducted, they were labelled and transferred to NVIVO 8 software to be transcribed. The interviews transcribed in 48 hours after the actual interview was conducted. Then, the transcriptions were sent to the participants for content validity. Analysis of the data including the interview transcriptions and documents provided by the universities was carried out in two main phases. First, preliminary data analysis that was the process of data analysis conducted after obtaining each data. Second, thematic data analysis carried out by coding the data through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Analysis of the data revealed that student entrepreneurial leaders had two specific competencies that enabled them to lead university entrepreneurship clubs and activates including personal competencies and functional competencies. The dominant personal competencies of the student entrepreneurial leaders were: proactiveness, innovativeness, self-efficacy, love of challenges, and versatility. Functional competencies enabling student entrepreneurial leaders to successfully lead entrepreneurship clubs and activities were ability to create a caring interpersonal relationship, employing an enabling task delegation approach, and building self-confidence of their group members. Two main factors emerged as the significant motives for the student entrepreneurial leaders to learn and develop their entrepreneurial leadership competencies including internal factors which are personal interest and self-development and external factors including entrepreneurial learning opportunities and programs, entrepreneurial leadership task demands and expectations, problems and opportunities, and significant others. Student entrepreneurial leaders’ entrepreneurial leadership competencies developed through a continuous and gradual process of learning, change, and maturity in personal and interpersonal competencies that occurs through involvement in practicing leadership roles and tasks and requires executing a lot of endeavour, ambition, and perseverance. Thirty eight roles emerged as contributions of university entrepreneurship programs in developing student entrepreneurial leaders’ entrepreneurial leadership competencies which were organized in two clusters including student-related and program-related roles. Student-related roles contained enhancing personal and functional competencies of the students. Program-related roles reflected providing entrepreneurial learning opportunities (experiential learning, social interactive learning, observational learning and reflective learning), liking students to entrepreneurial industries, and having a holistic approach to develop students’ entrepreneurial competencies

Entrepreneurial leadership measurement:a multi-dimensional construct

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to refine our understanding of entrepreneurial leadership by developing a multi-dimensional measure for the construct through a comprehensive approach based on the skills and competencies of entrepreneurial leaders as well as their behaviour and roles. Design/methodology/approach – Following the evidence collected across two cultural and economic contexts namely Iran and Scotland and prior theoretical conceptualisations, this study designed an entrepreneurial leadership scale. Questionnaires were the mode of data collection, and data was triangulated via participants and literature. Findings – From the study a detailed conceptualisation of entrepreneurial leadership was formed, which in turn provides the basis for an empirical-based construct of this phenomenon and its measurement from a cross-cultural perspective. Specifically, this study identifies the items that best describe each dimension of entrepreneurial leadership. By these findings, this study provides the skills, competencies and specific behaviour of entrepreneurial leaders. Originality/value – The findings of this study have implications the theory and practice. By highlighting the dimensions of entrepreneurial leadership, this study assists the development of theories on how entrepreneurial leadership influence the process of innovation and opportunity recognition. This study is one of the first to examine the validity and reliability of the measure developed for the construct across two countries having different cultural and economic contexts, namely Iran and Scotland. In practice, the findings of this study serve as a useful reference for practitioners of the skills, behaviours and competencies expected of entrepreneurial leaders

Role of family and entrepreneurial leadership development of university students.

Family has been identified as the first place that enhances students’ awareness about, attitude toward and capabilities of entrepreneurship. However, little attentions has been directed to how family nurtures entrepreneurial abilities particularly, the competencies to lead entrepreneurial activities in students. This study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of how family develops entrepreneurial leadership competencies of university students. A total of fourteen student entrepreneurial leaders, defined as students who were highly involved in leading university entrepreneurship clubs and projects, was purposefully selected and interviewed. Half of the students had one of their parents as an entrepreneur and the parents of the half were not involved in entrepreneurship. Analysis of the data revealed that parents played an influential role in inspiring students to get involved in entrepreneurial activities, whether or not they themselves were entrepreneurs. Furthermore, lived and continuous involvement in family business developed the students’ self-efficacy in leading entrepreneurial activities. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications

The impact of principals' entrepreneurial leadership behaviour on school organizational innovativeness

Entrepreneurial leadership has been increasingly applied in various organizations to foster the process of innovation, face the challenges and crises of leadership in the current organization environments and consequently improve the performance of the organizations. However, research on the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on the performance improvement of educational organizations and specifically school organizational innovativeness is scarce. Utilizing a sample of 300 public secondary school teachers in Malaysia, we examined the relationship between principal’s entrepreneurial leadership behaviour and school organizational innovativeness. The data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that entrepreneurial leadership behaviour of principals had a significant positive impact on the teachers’ perceived school organizational innovativeness. More specifically, the findings of the study suggest that different aspects of principal’s entrepreneurial leadership behaviour improve the implemented organizational innovations and the changes they created in schools. Implications of the findings for school leadership research and practice are discussed

Entrepreneurial intention of university students: An analysis of gender and ethnic groups

Is there any difference between entrepreneurial intention of university students in terms of their gender and ethnic groups? This study is among the few studies that attempt to find a response to this question on the context of three public universities in Malaysia. The sample comprised of students from Science and Social Science faculties. Findings illustrated that there was a significant difference between male and female students on entrepreneurial intention where the male students obtained higher mean score. Regarding to ethnic groups, it was found that there is no significant difference on the entrepreneurial intention of the Malay and non-Malay students. Further analysis was conducted and it was found that the Malay students’ mean scores are significantly different from non-Malay students on attitude towards entrepreneurial career, perceived behavioral control, and entrepreneurial efficacy. This paper discusses the findings and provides suggestions to improve entrepreneurial intention among university students

Students' entrepreneurial regulation and intention to become an entrepreneur: a comparison between public and private universities

Motivation and ability to orient ones' knowledge, thought and behavior to accomplish entrepreneurial goals and tasks has recently termed as entrepreneurial regulation. Entrepreneurial regulation strongly affects the whole process of new venture creation and specifically entrepreneurial opportunity exploration that is the first step in the entrepreneurship process. However, few researchers examined the construct particularly among potential entrepreneurs such as university students. This study aims to measure self-regulation (promotion focus), entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention to become an entrepreneur among university students. 722 students from both public and private universities were randomly selected as the participants based on the assumption that entrepreneurship education and training programs and university environment highly influence the development of entrepreneurial regulation, self-efficacy and intention in students. Analysis of the data revealed a significant relationship between students' promotion focus, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, students from public universities had significantly higher entrepreneurial regulation and intentions than their counterparts from private universities. We discuss the implications of the findings for entrepreneurship research, theory development and education