Factors Affecting Individual Attitudes and Perceptions towards Entrepreneurship: Does Education Really Matter?

Abstract

Emphasizing the importance of new enterprises, studies have immensely attempted to explore what affect the entrepreneurship intentions of both potential and nascent entrepreneurs. In the literature, one of the factors with unclear effects on the entrepreneurship is the education that ambiguous results underline the necessity of distinguishing between educations. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors affecting the attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship with a special focus on the education classified as general and entrepreneurship education/training. The study uses a panel dataset of 11 European Union countries and over the period of 2007-2013, based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s surveys pool. Findings reveal that the effects of the education indicators are still inconclusive and in general, individual attitudes and perceptions are more sensitive to the market-based aspects. Overall results support the premise that education in both general and entrepreneurial contexts is needed to be customized according to country-specific dynamics.