IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i19p5296-d270804.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Service-Learning for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas: What Is Its Global Impact on Business University Students?

Author

Listed:
  • Almudena Martínez-Campillo

    (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n, 24071 León, Spain)

  • María del Pilar Sierra-Fernández

    (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n, 24071 León, Spain)

  • Yolanda Fernández-Santos

    (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n, 24071 León, Spain)

Abstract

Service-Learning (SL) is a teaching innovation method that combines learning and social service objectives to improve educational quality and graduate employability. To date, there are hardly any studies on its global impact on university students. This paper describes and evaluates an SL experience for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in the context of Spanish Higher Education. Based on knowledge acquired in classrooms, multi-disciplinary teams of students from different subjects related to Business Administration offered support to potential entrepreneurs from rural municipalities in the complex task of writing a successful Business Plan for their projects for local sustainability. Within this academic framework, our study has two goals: (1) to assess the self-perception of university students about the improvement in their curricular development, professional skills and civic-social responsibility after participating in the SL experience; and (2) to estimate its possible effect on academic performance. The results show that the students acknowledged they had improved their social and sustainability commitment and their curricular development, and had acquired skills that society increasingly demands from future business professionals. Furthermore, service-students achieved significantly higher academic performance than a control group of non-participating students. These findings highlight the effectiveness of SL to provide a more holistic education for business university students.

Suggested Citation

  • Almudena Martínez-Campillo & María del Pilar Sierra-Fernández & Yolanda Fernández-Santos, 2019. "Service-Learning for Sustainability Entrepreneurship in Rural Areas: What Is Its Global Impact on Business University Students?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-21, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:19:p:5296-:d:270804
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5296/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5296/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna B. Spiegler & Jantje Halberstadt, 2018. "SHEstainability: how relationship networks influence the idea generation in opportunity recognition process by female social entrepreneurs," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(2), pages 202-235.
    2. Fayolle, Alain & Liñán, Francisco, 2014. "The future of research on entrepreneurial intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 663-666.
    3. Luis Cabedo & Marta Royo & Lidón Moliner & Teresa Guraya, 2018. "University Social Responsibility towards Engineering Undergraduates: The Effect of Methodology on a Service-Learning Experience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-17, June.
    4. Jantje Halberstadt & Christoph Schank & Mark Euler & Rainer Harms, 2019. "Learning Sustainability Entrepreneurship by Doing: Providing a Lecturer-Oriented Service Learning Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2015. "Entrepreneurship, innovation and regional growth: a network theory," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 103-128, June.
    6. Peterson, Robert A. & Merunka, Dwight R., 2014. "Convenience samples of college students and research reproducibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 1035-1041.
    7. Ignacio De Los Ríos-Carmenado & Mauricio Ortuño & María Rivera, 2016. "Private–Public Partnership as a Tool to Promote Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development: WWP Torrearte Experience," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-19, February.
    8. Robert Peterson & Dwight Merunka, 2014. "Convenience samples of college students and research reproducibility," Post-Print hal-01822317, HAL.
    9. Omid Sabbaghi & Gerald Cavanagh S. J. & Tim Hipskind S. J., 2013. "Service-Learning and Leadership: Evidence from Teaching Financial Literacy," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 127-137, November.
    10. Rodrigo Lozano & Michelle Y. Merrill & Kaisu Sammalisto & Kim Ceulemans & Francisco J. Lozano, 2017. "Connecting Competences and Pedagogical Approaches for Sustainable Development in Higher Education: A Literature Review and Framework Proposal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, October.
    11. David Urbano & Sebastian Aparicio & David Audretsch, 2019. "Twenty-five years of research on institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth: what has been learned?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 21-49, June.
    12. Stefan Schaltegger & Marcus Wagner, 2011. "Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 222-237, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lorenz Probst, 2022. "Higher Education for Sustainability: A Critical Review of the Empirical Evidence 2013–2020," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-24, March.
    2. Míriam Hernández-Barco & Jesús Sánchez-Martín & José Blanco-Salas & Trinidad Ruiz-Téllez, 2020. "Teaching Down to Earth —Service-Learning Methodology for Science Education and Sustainability at the University Level: A Practical Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-23, January.
    3. Débora Regina Schneider Locatelli & Paulo Jorge Reis Mourão & Rui Silva, 2021. "Lusophone Entrepreneurship: Analysis of Entrepreneurial Behavioural Characteristics in Brazilian and Portuguese Universities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, April.
    4. Yolanda Ruiz-Ordóñez & Amparo Salcedo-Mateu & Ángel Manuel Turbi-Pinazo & Carlos Novella-García & Carmen Moret-Tatay, 2020. "CASD-14: A Questionnaire on Civic Attitudes and Sustainable Development Values for Service-Learning in Early Adolescents," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-11, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jantje Halberstadt & Christoph Schank & Mark Euler & Rainer Harms, 2019. "Learning Sustainability Entrepreneurship by Doing: Providing a Lecturer-Oriented Service Learning Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, February.
    2. José Alberto Martínez-González & Urszula Kobylinska & Francisco J. García-Rodríguez & Lukasz Nazarko, 2019. "Antecedents of Entrepreneurial Intention among Young People: Model and Regional Evidence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-29, December.
    3. Míriam Hernández-Barco & Jesús Sánchez-Martín & José Blanco-Salas & Trinidad Ruiz-Téllez, 2020. "Teaching Down to Earth —Service-Learning Methodology for Science Education and Sustainability at the University Level: A Practical Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-23, January.
    4. Cristina Robledo-Ardila & Juan Pablo Román-Calderón, 2022. "Potential: in search for meaning, theory and avenues for future research a systematic review," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 72(1), pages 149-186, February.
    5. Mohammad Nurul Alam & Osarodion Ogiemwonyi & Ibrahim. E. Hago & Noor Azlinna Azizan & Fariza Hashim & Md Sazzad Hossain, 2023. "Understanding Consumer Environmental Ethics and the Willingness to Use Green Products," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440221, January.
    6. Mireia Ercilla-Montserrat & David Sanjuan-Delmás & Esther Sanyé-Mengual & Laura Calvet-Mir & Karla Banderas & Joan Rieradevall & Xavier Gabarrell, 2019. "Analysis of the consumer’s perception of urban food products from a soilless system in rooftop greenhouses: a case study from the Mediterranean area of Barcelona (Spain)," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(3), pages 375-393, September.
    7. Alfredo Monte & Sara Moccia & Luca Pennacchio, 2022. "Regional entrepreneurship and innovation: historical roots and the impact on the growth of regions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 451-473, January.
    8. José M. Ramírez-Hurtado & Alfredo G. Hernández-Díaz & Ana D. López-Sánchez & Víctor E. Pérez-León, 2021. "Measuring Online Teaching Service Quality in Higher Education in the COVID-19 Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-14, March.
    9. Dwayne D. Gremler & Yves Vaerenbergh & Elisabeth C. Brüggen & Kevin P. Gwinner, 2020. "Understanding and managing customer relational benefits in services: a meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 565-583, May.
    10. Aysun Ata Aktürk & Hasibe Özlen Demircan, 2018. "Development of Preschool Children Sibling Rivalry Scale (PSRS)," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(1), pages 117-136, February.
    11. Joana César Machado & Beatriz Fonseca & Carla Martins, 2021. "Brand logo and brand gender: examining the effects of natural logo designs and color on brand gender perceptions and affect," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(2), pages 152-170, March.
    12. Lucinda Austin & Barbara Miller Gaither, 2019. "Redefining fit: examining CSR company-issue fit in stigmatized industries," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(1), pages 9-20, January.
    13. Grigorios, Lamprinakos & Magrizos, Solon & Kostopoulos, Ioannis & Drossos, Dimitrios & Santos, David, 2022. "Overt and covert customer data collection in online personalized advertising: The role of user emotions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 308-320.
    14. Rašković, Matevž & Ding, Zhonghui & Škare, Vatroslav & Ozretić Došen, Đurđana & Žabkar, Vesna, 2016. "Comparing consumer innovativeness and ethnocentrism of young-adult consumers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3682-3686.
    15. Teng, Weichen & Su, Yaohua & Liao, Tien-Tien & Wei, Cang-Liang, 2020. "An exploration of celebrity business ventures and their appeal to fans and non-fans," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    16. Seok Chan Jeong & Beom-Jin Choi, 2022. "Moderating Effects of Consumers’ Personal Innovativeness on the Adoption and Purchase Intention of Wearable Devices," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(4), pages 21582440221, November.
    17. Nadeem, Waqar & Al-Imamy, Saifeddin, 2020. "Do ethics drive value co-creation on digital sharing economy platforms?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    18. Nadeem, Waqar & Juntunen, Mari & Shirazi, Farid & Hajli, Nick, 2020. "Consumers’ value co-creation in sharing economy: The role of social support, consumers’ ethical perceptions and relationship quality," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    19. Dunja Meštrović & Nina J. Zugic, 2018. "Students’ Perceptions of Service Quality, Satisfaction, and Word-Of-Mouth: Scale Adaptation and Validation on a Sample of ICT and STEM Students," Tržište/Market, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, vol. 30(2), pages 195-211.
    20. Danilo Boffa & Antonio Prencipe & Armando Papa & Christian Corsi & Mario Sorrentino, 2023. "Boosting circular economy via the b-corporation roads. The effect of the entrepreneurial culture and exogenous factors on sustainability performance," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 523-561, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:19:p:5296-:d:270804. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.