Higher Technological Education Graduates’ Entrepreneurship: Results and Conclusions of a Nation-Wide Research Study

Vassilis Kostoglou

.

DOI: 10.4236/ib.2011.34044                

Abstract

Higher education graduates constitute one of the most important parts of the young workforce, and their transition to the labour market is among the main concerns of governments, policy makers and higher education institutes. It has also been argued by numerous scientists that there is a noticeable recognition of the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, and moreover increasing self-employment rates tend to bring subsequent decreases of unemployment. This paper concentrates on the investigation of technological higher education graduates’ entrepreneurship through the analysis of the results of a nation-wide research study carried out in Greece. The conducted survey was addressed through a structured questionnaire to a large random, yet stratified sample of 708 self-employed graduates of five consecutive years. Descriptive statistics was used for investigating the main variables sketching graduates’ entrepreneurship, such as their demography and education, their professional status, the characteristics of their enterprises, the satisfaction from self-employment; and multivariate analysis was applied for detecting the variables affecting significantly the turn to entrepreneurship. The main findings are highlighted and future relevant work is suggested.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Higher Technological Education, Graduate, Greek Labor Market

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Commission of the European Communities, “The European Agenda for Entrepreneurship,” Action Plan, COM (2004) 70 final, 2004.
[2]	Commission of the European Communities, “Entrepreneurship in Europe,” Green Paper, COM (2003) 27 final, 2003.
[3]	N. Birdthistle, B. Hynes, M. O’Dwyer and Y. Costin, “Enterprising Tertiary Level Students,” Electronic Jour- nal of Family Business Studies (EJFBS), Vol. 3, No. 1, 2009, pp. 5-29.
[4]	R. D. Handscombe, E. Rodriguez-Falcon and E. A. Pat- terson, “Embedding Enterprise in Science and Engineer- ing Departments,” Education + Training, Vol. 50, No. 7, 2008, pp. 615-625.
[5]	CIHE, NCGE and NESTA, “Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates: Putting Entrepreneurship at the Centre of Higher Education,” NCGE Report, September 2008.
[6]	M. Franco, H. Haase and A. Lautenschlager, “Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions: An Inter-regional Compari- son,” Education + Training, Vol. 52, No. 4, 2010, pp. 260-275.
[7]	V. Kostoglou and S. Paloukis, “Investigating Graduates’ Employability in European Union: Review, Analysis and Comparison,” Proceedings of the International Conference “Global Integration of Graduate Programmes”, Split, 15-17 October 2007, pp. 20-29.
[8]	H. Schomburg and U. Teichler, “Higher Education and Graduate Employment in Europe: Results from Graduate Surveys from Twelve Countries,” Springer, Dordrecht, 2006.
[9]	K. Wilson, “Entrepreneurship and Higher Education,” 2008. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/10/13/42961567.pdf
[10]	F. J. Greene and G. Saridakis, “Undestanding the Factors Influencing Graduate Entrepreneurship,” Research Report 001/2007, National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship, Birmingham, 2007.
[11]	V. Souitaris, S. Zerbinati and A. Al-Laham, “Do Entrepreneurship Programmes Raise Entrepreneurial Intention of Science and Engineering Students? The Effect of Learning, Inspiration and Resources,” Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2007, pp. 566-591. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2006.05.002
[12]	F. H. Stephen, D. Urbano and S. V. Hemmen, “The Im- pact of Institutions on Entrepreneurial Activity,” Mana- gerial and Decision Economics, Vol. 26, No. 7, 2005, pp. 413-419. doi:10.1002/mde.1254
[13]	J. G. Hussain, J. M. Scott and P. D. Hannon, “The New Generation: Characteristics and Motivation of BME Graduate Entrepreneurs,” Education + Training, Vol. 50, No. 7, 2008, pp. 582-596.
[14]	Eurobarometer Greece, “Entrepreneurship Survey of the EU25, Secondary Analysis Greece,” Flash Eurobarometer 192, 2007.
[15]	F. Thomaidou and T. Politis, “Study of Trends and Pros- pects of Higher Education Graduates in Greece,” IOBE, Athens, 2008.
[16]	M. Karamesini, “The Incorporation of University Gradu- ates in the Labour Market,” Horizontal Support Actions of the Career Offices of the Universities, Athens, 2008.
[17]	V. Kostoglou and K. Siakas, “Graduates’ Entrepreneurship: Investigating Self-employment of University Graduates,” Proceedings of the 2nd International FINPIN Conference—Promoting Entrepreneurship by Universities, H?meenlinna, 20-22 April 2008, pp. 45-51.
[18]	C. Koilias, V. Kostoglou, A. Garmpis and B. Van den Heijden, “The Incorporation of Graduates from Higher Technological Education into the Labor Market,” Journal of Service Science and Management, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2011, pp. 86-96. doi:10.4236/jssm.2011.41012
[19]	Hellenic Statistical Authority, “Labor Force Survey,” Piraeus, 2009.
[20]	R. Likert, “A Technique for Measurement of Attitudes,” Archives of Psychology, Vol. 140, 1932, pp. 140-149.
[21]	D. Hosmer and S. Lemeshow, “Applied Logistic Regres- sion,” 2nd Edition, John Wiley, New York, 2001.