Bernat, Tomasz

Gasior, Aleksandra

Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto

  Students’ Entrepreneurship Behaviour –Comparison of Six CEE Countries  1. Introduction Global market gives a lot of possibilities for students after they graduate. But students from many countries have got problems which way to choose for earning money for living. One of the way how to become an independent employee is entrepreneurship. In this article, authors want to show how students imagine their future after  their studies.  The  survey was performed in 6 countries in the years 2006-2007. They represent selected nations from the post-socialist block: Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.  The main objective of the research was to find the entrepreneurial potential of students and to present the assessment of entrepreneurial climate in selected countries. The specific key problem undertaken in the paper is to analyse students’ potential in setting up their own business. Especially, a consideration was taken to present an individual assessment of a person’s possibilities of becoming an entrepreneur. The paper consists of three parts. Part 1 presents the research population. In Part 2, the results of the survey are presented. The last one contains the survey conclusions.     2  2. Research populations The population of respondents were obtained from 6 countries. Chart 1 presents gender structure of surveyed students.  0%20%40%60%80%100%female 65,1 74,7 64,1 69,5 62,4 62,6male 34,9 25,3 35,9 30,5 37,6 37,4Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 1. Gender of surveyed students in six selected countries, 2006-2007  In the research, six countries from Central & Eastern Europe participated. As indicated in Chart 1,  the biggest part of students in every country is presented by female students. Latvia is the first country where more students are female (74.7%) but the last one is Russia (62.4%). It’s a little bit strange because Latvia is much smaller than Russia but there are more young women seeking  higher education.  The level of studies (Chart 2) was another criterion of population split. In this part of the research, Poland was excluded from the analysis as the structure of Polish students representing the aforementioned levels differed from structures found in other surveyed states 3  considerably. Students, who were included in the research sample (in the states involved in the research), attended undergraduate courses leading to a bachelor’s degree comprised 64.9% in Hungary, but 92.2% in Russia. Students who attended graduate courses leading to a master’s degree constituted from 7.8% to 30.6% of respondents respectively.   Big point is that Russia is the country with the biggest population of students, but there is also the biggest group of bachelor’s degree students. Usually, we could assume that because of the geographical territory - this country should have the biggest group of master’s degree students. Maybe the Russian political system doesn’t  sustain  master’s degree education.  0%20%40%60%80%100%master’s degree 30,6 29,4 21,4 81,2 7,8 15,9bachelor's degree 69,4 70,6 78,6 18,8 92,2 84,1Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 2. Studies stage among surveyed countries, 2006-2007  After identifying where the biggest group of female and master’s degree students is, the next criterion of population and sample split was studies’ specialization (major/specialization) (Chart 3). Most of the students choose the speciality of business and economics: from 84.8% 4  in Latvia to 60.8% in Poland. The biggest group of respondents have chosen fields of study not connected with economics is in Poland (39.2%). We can say that Poland is one of these six countries which have the biggest number of students who are more dynamic in choosing other specilaities in studies.  0%20%40%60%80%100%non-economic 16,5 15,2 34,9 39,2 28,8 33,1business and economics 83,5 84,8 65,1 60,8 71,2 66,9Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 3. Major speciality in university studies in surveyed countries, 2006-2007  Chart 3 shows us that students are usually female; most of them study bachelor’s degree in the speciality of business and economics.  4. Research results Main research included the questionnaire, which was distributed to the students from selected six CEE countries. In the first question respondents were asked to state if they were  involved in any entrepreneurial activity. 5   In Ukraine,  there was the largest percentage of respondents who describe themselves as “enterprising persons” (79%). On the contrary, the Russian students represented nearly 60% of students declaring they were  involed in entrepreneurial activity. These results demonstrate that most of the students perceived themselves as persons who have considerable entrepreneurial potential. 0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 67,3 75,0 64,6 73,2 60,2 79,0no 32,7 25,0 35,4 26,8 39,8 21,0Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 4. Results of  the question: “ Is you behaviour entrepreneurial?”  Hence, which characteristics should be ascribed to an enterprising person? Respondents could choose from the following ten characteristics: 1) the readiness to bear responsibility, 2) willingness to search for new solutions, 3) ability to forecast and measure business risk, 4) first-hand experience in education, 6  5) hard-working, 6) intuition, 7) conscientiousness, meticulousness, care, 8) creativity and  innovative energy, 9) adaptation to changing conditions, 10) communicativeness.  Below, Table 1 presents choices made by the respondents in the scope discussed. For each option, the place of each characteristic in the hierarchy (created for a particular country) and the percentage of respondents who chose a particular option (in brackets) are given. Table 1. Entrepreneurial characteristics in surveyd CEE countries, 2006-2007      Source: own calculation based on the results of research  Indexes have been calculated for each group of students in average position occupied in the ranking and median of structural correlation.  Three characteristics indicated below were chosen most often by the respondents , namely: Options Hungary Latvia Lituania Poland Russia Ukraine the readiness to bear responsibility 3 (13,9) 8 (6,9) 8 (4,2) 8 (7,4) 8 (7,9) 3 (13,7) willingness to search for new solutions 6 (9,7) 6 (9,6) 4 (12,0) 2 (14,8) 7 (8,1) 4 (11,8) ability to forecast, measure business risk 4 (12,7) 5 (10,7) 6 (10,1) 1 (19,1) 2 (13,6) 1 (15,7) first-hand experience in education 10 (1,1) 9 (4,1) 10 (2,9) 10 (3,5) 9 (1,5) 9 (4,3) hard-working 7 (5,5) 3 (11,8) 3 (13,5) 6 (8,3) 3 (12,8) 8 (5,6) intuition 9 (3,1) 7 (8,5) 5 (11,2) 9 (4,8) 5 (12,1) 6 (9,8) conscientiousness, accuracy, care 7 (5,5) 10 (3,7) 9 (3,0) 7 (8,0) 10 (1,1) 10 (3,4) creativity and idea creation 1 (20,2) 1 (20,6) 1 (19,5) 4 (12,3) 1 (20,0) 7 (9,4) adaptation to changing conditions 5 (9,8) 4 (11,0) 7 (9,4) 3 (12,8) 6 (10,4) 5 (10,5) communicativeness  2 (18,5) 2 (13,1) 2 (14,1) 5 (9,0) 4 (12,4) 1 (15,7)  7  ? the ability to forecast and measure business risk – the Polish and Ukrainian students placed this characteristic as 1st , and according to the Russian respondents, it occupied the 2nd position. This characteristic was less popular among students from the remaining surveyed countries (it occupied from the 4th to the 6th position), ?  innovative energy and creativity (the average position in the ranking was 2.5; median of structural indexes 19.7%) occupied the 1st position according to the Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian students. The Ukrainian and Polish students attached lesser importance to this characteristic (the former placed it as 7th, while the latter – 4th), ? communicativeness - occupied the 1th position according to the Ukrainian students. It was also of profound importance to Hungarian, Latvian and Lithuanian students – the 2nd position in the ranking.  Taken the analysis of certain measures of central tendency into account, another characteristic to which similar importance has been attached are as follows: ? willingness to search for new solutions was particularly important to the Polish respondents – it occupied the 2nd position in the ranking, ? hard-working (median of structural indexes 10.1%). This characteristic was placed as 3rd in the ranking created on the basis of opinions expressed by the Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian students). ? adaptation to changing conditions (median of structural indexes 10.5%). The Polish students placed this characteristic high in the ranking, i.e. 3rd, when the 4th position in the ranking was occupied by the Latvian students.  8  It is also worth paying attention to the fact that Ukrainian and Hungarian students believe that an enterprising person should be ready to bear responsibility (the 3rd position in the ranking) while students from other countries placed it in the 8th position.  Table 1 clearly shows that respondents attached lesser importance to the following characteristics: ? first-hand experience in education: theHungarian, Lithuanian and Polish students rarely  indicated this feature from the list of entrepreneurial characteristics, ? conscientiousness, meticulousness and care (median of structural indexes 3.5%). This characteristic was the least important according to the Latvian, Russian and Ukrainian students.  At this stage, the percentage of potential entrepreneurs was determined. Then, the question about possible business activity was analyzed. Respondents answered the following question: “If you knew how to start your own activity, would you establish an enterprise?” The largest percentage was recorded among the Lithuanian students, i.e. 87.1%, whereas the smallest one – among the Russian respondents, namely 77%. Chart 5 shows comprehensive data. 9  0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 78,8 83,0 87,1 85,3 77,0 85,1no 21,2 17,0 12,9 14,7 23,0 14,9Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation Chart 5. Results of the question “If you knew how to start your own activity, would you establish an enterprise?” in the surveyed countries, 2006-2007.  The above discussion indicates that respondents have pro-entrepreneurial potential, namely 70% of students surveyed describe themselves as  having entrepreneurial characteristics. The  biggest group of respondents who declared they would establish their own enterprises if they knew how to start business activity was from Lithuania.  Taking into account what the respondents declared with respect to the question discussed, two groups of respondents were distinguished, namely those who had an idea for establishing their own companies and those who did not. Each group was given a different set of specifying questions. Students from the first group were asked questions that allowed assessing the probability of putting the idea to business activity into action. Respondents were asked to state: 10  ? whether they knew formalities connected with establishing their own companies,  ? if they knew how the market functioned in the area they wanted to conduct their business.   Subsequently, they were asked if they knew what financial means they must possess in order to start such a business, and whether they had such means or not. They were inquired whether they knew how to get such capital in case they did not possess sufficient finance. With regard to students who had an idea for setting up their own companies, their knowledge of formalities connected with establishing a company was examined first. The structure of answers given by respondents is shown in Chart 6. 0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 37,6 61,5 38,4 33,7 38,0 51,3no 62,4 38,5 61,6 66,3 62,0 48,7Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 6. Results of the question: “Do you know all essential formalities connected with the establishing of your own company?” in surveyed countries, 2006-2007  The biggest group of students who had knowledge about formalities connected with establishing their own companies was from Latvia (61.5%). The second position was 11  occupied by the Ukrainian students with 51.3%. The last group of respondents who didn’t know formalities was from Poland 66.3%.  The following question was about financial means for setting up business. 0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 9,0 26,9 29,2 4,1 11,4 19,0no 91,0 73,1 70,8 95,9 88,6 81,0Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 7. Results of  the question: “Do you have financial means to set up business?” in surveyed countries, 2006-2007.  Analyzing the data presented (Chart 7), it should be stated that the majority of respondents did not have such means, therefore, the biggest group was from Poland. It might easily be noted that the Lithuanian and Latvian students stood out in this scope. In these countries, there was a similar percentage of respondents who declared they possessed sufficient financial means (29.2% and 26.9% respectively). Considerable differences may be noted for the Ukrainian students (upper extreme was 19%) and the Polish respondents (lower extreme was only 4.1%).  12   Students were asked to answer the following question: “Do you have any idea for establishing your own company (start a business activity)?”  Chart 8 shows the structure of answers received. The respondents were divided into the following groups: respondents who had an idea for establishing their own companies and those who did not.  0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 47,4 60,2 54,5 42,3 52,8 51,6no 52,6 39,8 45,5 57,7 47,2 48,4Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation. Chart 8. Results of  the question: “Do you have any idea to establish your own company (start a business activity)?” in surveyed countries, 2006-2007.  More than a half of respondents declared they had an idea for establishing their own companies, apart from the Polish and Hungarian students. The lowest percentage was reported in Poland where only 42.3% of respondents declared they had an idea for business activity. The Latvian students (60.2% of whom chose this option) were found at the other extreme.  13  Results of the next question  are presented in Chart 9. The surveyed students were asked to state whether they knew how the market functioned in the area they wanted to conduct their business.  0%20%40%60%80%100%yes 67,4 78,8 68,1 81,6 71,1 78,5no 32,6 21,2 31,9 18,4 28,9 21,5Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Russia Ukraine Source: own calculation Chart 9. Results of the question: “Do you know how the market functions in the area you want to conduct business?” in surveyed countries, 2006-2007.  Answers - in Chart 9 - suggest that differences with respect to opinions held by the students in this scope are  minimal: the biggest group of students was from Poland 81.6%;nearly the same level was indicated by the Hungarian students, namely  67.4% and Lithuanians – 68.1%.  5. Conclusions The research results presented above give the possibility to have some basic conclusions. There are two group of conclusions “positive” and “negative” that students from surveyed CEE countries  have or don’t special attitude to be an entrepreneurial activity. 14   The group of conclusions with “positive” aspects: ? Students assessed themselves as entrepreneurial, they felt themselves as  open for new challenges also in the business sphere. ? The most important factor is creativity and idea creation. Moreover, they indicated communicativeness and ability to forecast and measure business risk. ? Majority of the surveyed population wanted to set up their own business and they had considerable knowledge of the  market they wanted to carried out business activities in.  The group of conclusions with “negative” aspects: ? Generally speaking, the surveyed students did not know all essential formalities needed to set up business in the country. Only Latvians and Ukrainians knew more than surveyed students of other nationalities. ? Researched groups indicated they had no money for a start up. This is the biggest obstacle for the business activity of students both during their study time and after graduation. ? Students did not have really in mind own receipt for business activity. It is fifty-fifty structure of respondents who had or not an idea what to do in the business.   15  The surveyed  groups of students even if they assessed themselves as a entrepreneurial, were not really prepared to set up their own businesses. Acquired results of the international survey suggest that a lot of factors positively influence the surveyed students  in their thinking and behaving  towards building their own businesses. Nevertheless, the determinants can be too weak to convince them to set up a business. The important role in the field should be allotted  to universities, study programs and students’ organizations.  Huge assistance  could flow from private companies (such as banks with the application of special programs, concerning business planning and later on business management) and also from NGOs’ activities.    Dr Tomasz Bernat Dr Aleksandra G?sior University of Szczecin bernatom@o2.pl 

Students’ Entrepreneurship Behaviour –Comparison of Six CEE Countries

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto