Author(s): Nicolas van de Sandt, René Mauer
The impact of Entrepreneurship Education (EE) programs on elements of the entrepreneurial mind-set remains a subject that is largely under-researched. It is the purpose of this study to examine the effects of an action-based EE program on the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set by testing the effect of the EE program on ambiguity tolerance and entrepreneurial alertness. In a pre-experimental design setting data was collected from a group of 53 graduate students that participated in a 3-months EE program at a European business school. Variables on entrepreneurial alertness and ambiguity tolerance were measured both before the treatment and afterwards using an online survey. The participation in the action-based EE program led to a significant increase in ambiguity tolerance. Furthermore, students who participated in the program developed a better ability of evaluation and judgment of entrepreneurial opportunities, which forms an important part of entrepreneurial alertness. Nevertheless, this study did not find a significant change of overall entrepreneurial alertness as well as in the two elements alert scanning and search and alert association and connection.