Entrepreneurial Competences of University Students in the Digital Age: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

Advances in technology continue to affect our lives day by day. The new technological developments gaining momentum with the 4th Industrial Revolution have an impact on the working life, employment and unemployment in the 4th industrial revolution as in every industrial revolution. Every new technology that has emerged may adversely affect some sectors and business areas and cause unemployment. The ongoing industrial revolution is expected to contribute to the formation of new businesses and new jobs. This change necessitates the preparation of the individuals for the needs of the new age as well as the equipping of individuals for entrepreneurship activities. There is no doubt that the dynamos of the preparatory process will be universities. This situation increases the importance of monitoring the developments in entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of technology and in gaining competence in this field for university students. As a requirement of competition, state authorities care about the role of universities in entrepreneurship and have serious expectations. Public authorities support and promote the universities in this area significantly. The questions such as ‘‘How are the students, who are the main target groups of universities, taken into account in the university entrepreneurship ecosystem?’’ and ‘‘What is the impact of universities on students through training, incentives and support activities in the field of entrepreneurship?’’ have become a topic to be studied in the field of higher education. While looking for answers to these questions, determining entrepreneurial competences of university students has emerged as an important requirement. The aim of this methodological study is to develop a tool to measure the entrepreneurial competencies of university students based on Kailer’s Entrepreneurship Competence Model. For the study, a sample was used consisting of 415 students from Selcuk University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences and Konya Technical University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences in Konya, Turkey. Content validity, construct validity and reliability studies were conducted at the development stage of Entrepreneurial Competences Scale of Students. The Data were analyzed on the computer using SPSS and LISREL package programs. According to the results of EFA, 25-item and two-dimensional Entrepreneurial Competency Scale was developed. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was calculated as.90 and the percentage of variance explanatory was measured as 42.28%. Subsequent CFA results showed that the scale had good fit values (X2/df: 2.39, RMSEA:.073, CFI:.94, NNFI:.94). It is concluded that the scale developed in this study is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to measure the entrepreneurship competencies of university students. It can be stated that the Entrepreneurship Competence Scale of University Students will be important for the universities that want to improve their student-based entrepreneurial-innovative features, public athorities and for the whole economy at macro level. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.