Survey of the junior enterprises movement in Brazil: entrepreneurship and innovation in undergraduate courses of higher education institutions

Abstract

Junior enterprises (JEs) are non-profit companies with educational goals run entirely by university students. The current study aims to analyse the panorama and profile of companies linked to the state federations of JEs in Brazil. The companies' characteristics were evaluated by a cross-sectional survey with secondary data and structured interview forms that assessed 564 JEs. Data were analysed using Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests through the Stata 14.0 program (p > 0.005). The results showed that 92% of JEs come from public institutions, 74% are part of an association to support JEs and 68% of companies consist of one course, with 55% of these from the area of exact sciences. Our findings indicate that the majority of JEs in Brazil are from public universities and are more assisted by support sectors compared to companies from private universities. In addition, there was a predominance of companies in the area of exact sciences concentrated in southern and south-eastern Brazil.