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How entrepreneurial are students who intend to become academics? – A study of career motives

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  • Nora Hesse

    (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

  • Jürgen Brünjes

    (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to ascertain how students who intend to work as academics differ in their entrepreneurial attitudes and career motives from students who intend to become entrepreneurs. The study is based on quantitative data from two German universities. Our multinomial logistic regression analyses show that some career motives that can be associated with the intention of starting a business can also be associated with the intention of starting an academic career. However, students with academic career intentions are by and large not more likely to develop entrepreneurial intentions than students who intend to become employees outside the academic world. Particularly, compared to students with entrepreneurial career intentions, academic-bound students tend to lack entrepreneurial attitudes, and have a lower desire to achieve financial success and a stronger desire to receive recognition in their future career. These differences should be considered when designing policies that aim at fostering the creation of university spin-offs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nora Hesse & Jürgen Brünjes, 2018. "How entrepreneurial are students who intend to become academics? – A study of career motives," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 38(1), pages 27-52, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jahrfr:v:38:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1007_s10037-017-0114-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10037-017-0114-y
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Career motives; Entrepreneurial intention; Career intentions; Student survey;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship

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