Contributos da universidade para a promoção do potencial empreendedor dos estudantes

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is nowadays considered one of the most important determinants on the growth of a country’s economy. Throughout time, there have been many psychological theories based on the investigation of the basic characteristics of a successful entrepreneur. The impact of entrepreneurship on teaching places is undeniable as this is an remarkable environment for the development of an entrepreneur spirit. The three main goals of this study are to: characterize the entrepreneurship potential of students according to different study areas; characterize the level of participation and perception of the turnover of activities suggested by University to students; and to analyze the relationship between the entrepreneurship potential of students and the following academic variants: area of study, study activities and activities with university extension. The data was collected amongst 333 students from the 3rd year of an University in Oporto. The instruments used were IAPE – Inventário de Avaliação do Potencial Empreendedor (Santos, Caetano & Curral, 2010) and a List of Activities that promote entrepreneurship, recommended by the University. The main results suggest that there are big differences in entrepreneurship amongst students of different study areas. On the other hand, significant differences were found between participation on and awareness of turnover of study activities and university extension, although a low grade of participation in these activities was found. In the end of this work, its implications are argued and suggestions on future investigations are done.

Date of Award	Jun 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Manuel Fonseca (Supervisor) & Luísa Ribeiro Trigo (Co-Supervisor)