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Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Competencies through Extracurricular Activities—A Pragmatic Approach to Sustainability-Oriented Higher Education

Author

Listed:
  • Claudia Isac

    (Department of Economics, University of Petroșani, 332006 Petroșani, Romania)

  • Ana Maria Mihaela Iordache

    (Department of Informatics, Statistics and Mathematics, Romanian–American University, 012101 Bucharest, Romania)

  • Lia Baltador

    (Department of Management, Marketing and Business Administration, University Lucian Blaga Sibiu, 552304 Sibiu, Romania)

  • Cristina Coculescu

    (Department of Informatics, Statistics and Mathematics, Romanian–American University, 012101 Bucharest, Romania)

  • Dorina Niță

    (Department of Economics, University of Petroșani, 332006 Petroșani, Romania)

Abstract

Entrepreneurship can provide a creative, disruptive, problem-solving-oriented approach to the current economic, environmental, and social challenges of the world. This article aims to provide an analysis about the way universities can have an impact on developing entrepreneurial competence in students through extracurricular activities. The research relies on a questionnaire survey of students at the University of Petrosani, who participated in a range of entrepreneurial activities both online during the COVID-19 pandemic and face-to-face afterwards. The methodology consisted of applying principal component analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the indicators, followed by classification of the respondents through cluster analysis and training of a feedforward neural network. After finishing the network-training process, the error was minimized, resulting in three classes of respondents. Furthermore, based on the three classes, follow-up conclusions, policies, and decisions can be issued regarding the perception of entrepreneurship at the societal level, which is beneficial for academia and entrepreneurs, as well as for future research undertaken in this field. The key conclusion of our research is that entrepreneurship education is a real facilitator of the transition to sustainable entrepreneurship. Students perceived meeting successful entrepreneurs as being among the most effective extracurricular activities, assessing online activities as useful, and the field of study proved to be an important factor in their entrepreneurial intention.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudia Isac & Ana Maria Mihaela Iordache & Lia Baltador & Cristina Coculescu & Dorina Niță, 2023. "Enhancing Students’ Entrepreneurial Competencies through Extracurricular Activities—A Pragmatic Approach to Sustainability-Oriented Higher Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-26, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:11:p:8708-:d:1157884
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    References listed on IDEAS

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