Empowering translators through entrepreneurship in simulated translation bureaus

Abstract

This paper reviews entrepreneurial activities that take place within the simulated translation bureaus of member institutions of the INSTB network and establishes a link between entrepreneurism, self-efficacy and perceived competence. Reusing pre-test and post-test data of a student survey, a first attempt is made to design and test a survey instrument for gauging the impact of a simulated translation bureau on perceived entrepreneurial competence and self-efficacy for planning, setting up, and managing a translating organisation in pedagogical translation company simulations. Tentative results suggest a positive effect of participation in translation company simulation modules on students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived competence. Because of the anonymity of the data, pre-test and post-test responses could not be paired. As a consequence, the statistical significance of the results could not be confirmed.