Structural equation model for the study of entrepreneurial education in an open platform

Abstract

The overall goal of this paper is to provide a contribution to the studies that aim to boost the entrepreneurial education and the entrepreneurial activity of universities, through the analysis and implementation of the experimental lab, a tool to support to the activity of universities favouring entrepreneurship, and led by the belief that potentially implementable results have to be achieved. A new tool of a virtual platform, the ExperimentaLab, in order to provide students with an entrepreneurial training program and a strong network to simulate the progression from an idea to a real start-up. A first simulation was run in 2014, showing that the experimental lab could be effective at processing an idea and make it potentially ready for market and investors and a valid educational tool potentially implementable by entrepreneurial university. A second and a third simulation (ended on December 2015) were then run, trying to overcome previous limitations. This research aims to propose to investigate whether the hypothesized work structure of the ExperimentaLab and related cognitive dynamics may support the entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial activity of universities through a PLS-Path modeling approach and multi-group path analysis