A Journey to Enhance Youth in Entrepreneurship: Investigation of Entrepreneurial Competencies and Development Needs
Year: 2021
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: According to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, entrepreneurship, especially among youths, has been the key driving force for the world economy and social change. This is important as 52% of the world’s youth is present in the Asia Pacific region. While Thailand has the second-highest level of entrepreneurial intention at 31.9%, the country suffers from a lack of good quality entrepreneurial education. The previous literature has not revealed enough on entrepreneurial competencies among youths, as well as opportunities for development needs. Therefore, uncovering youth entrepreneurial competencies and development opportunities can help unleash the potential of youth entrepreneurship. This study aims to 1) confirm the factors and indicators of entrepreneurial youth competencies, 2) identify the development needs among youths at the university level to provide recommendations on how to design effective learning for entrepreneurial education, and 3) the results will support the creation of the youth entrepreneurship learning program. The population of the study is made up of undergraduate students from universities in Thailand, and 689 effective responses were received in the survey. In accordance with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the 6 aspects of entrepreneurial youth competencies, consisting of opportunity, relationship, conceptual, management, strategic, and commitment competency, are confirmed since the empirical data is consistent with the theoretical measurement. However, there are 3 competencies; opportunity, relationship, and commitment that were found to have a significant causal relationship with entrepreneurial intentions from logistics regression analysis. The key priority needs for driving effective entrepreneurial education are personal learning assistance, design thinking integrated with content knowledge, and pedagogy through mobile learning applications. The prototype of the mobile learning application with design thinking and personal learning assistant is developed and proposed to promote entrepreneurial competencies among youths.
Institution: Chulalongkorn University
Language: English
Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220185751