Founder or employee? The effect of social factors and the role of entrepreneurship education

Abstract

Career intentions of students are extremely important and they are affected by the particular social context, such as cultures, communities, universities in which they are embedded. The exposure to entrepreneurship education may also have moderating effects on the different social antecedents of career intentions. We draw data from a large sample and use logistic regression and marginal effects to highlight the importance of the socio-cultural environment to the intention to become a founder instead of an employee in the near and distant future. We show that the effect of entrepreneurship education is not the same in every social context. While entrepreneurship research up to now has mainly focused on individual level determinants of career choices, we highlight the importance of the social environment. Policy makers should consider the characteristics of the different levels of the social environment before designing policies to reinforce the intention to become a founder.