Fostering entrepreneurial culture in university

• Author: Sumedrea S.
• Pages: 111-118

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 10 (59) No. 1 - 2017

Fostering entrepreneurial culture in university

Silvia SUMEDREA1

Abstract: The paper is aiming to analyse the level of students’ in terest for the area of

entrepreneurship, their perception on embracing a future entrepreneurial career and the

possible obstacles that they perceived that would encounter in this endeavour. Various

communication channels were used to promote an entrepreneurial event and the impact has

been evaluated for students with different backgrounds.

Key-words: entrepreneurship, higher education, communication channels, social networks

1. Introduction

SME’ s are among the most dynamic organizations, and their contribution to

economic development is notable at European level. According to Muller et al

(2016), „the SME’s accounted in 2015 for two thirds of EU28 employment and

slightly less than three fifths of EU28 value added in the non-financial business

sector”. Eurostat indicated that over 2.3 million new enterprises were developed in

the EU in 2012 alone, creating around 3.5 million new jobs, while about 4 million

jobs were created from 2.6 million newly born enterprises, based on the final 2014

data.

But, in the nearest future (2020), the Europe’s economy will have to deal with

significant shortage of highly skilled workers, especially in the engineering, natural

sciences, IT and healthcare sectors (Dobbs et al., 2012) and, as a consequence, the

EU economy might grow at a slower pace.

These facts created an aggressive competition for entrepreneurial talents

among European countries and many universities across Europe are reconsidering

their values and curricula in order to develop not only skilled graduates, but also a

more entrepreneurial culture that will help them to embrace entrepreneurship and

support them to start new businesses.

New learning approaches are developed for ensuring that the future graduates

will have the necessary skills, knowledge, capabilities, and attitudes during their

working lives not only to become employees, but also to be able to develop new

entrepreneurial businesses.

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, silvia. sumedrea@unitbv.ro