A Long-Term Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Intentions: Results from Finnish Higher Education Students

Abstract

The economic growth of Finland and the well-being of Finnish society are heavily based on entrepreneurship. Hence, it is important to foster entrepreneurial intentions among students in higher education. Entrepreneurial intentions have been extensively studied in entrepreneurship research for the past twenty years, and most research applies Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in the context of entrepreneurial intentions. However, there remains a demand for research: studies employing the full TPB model are rare, and the biggest research gap lies in longitudinal settings. This article contributes to entrepreneurial intention research by examining the TPB model in a longitudinal follow-up of the same indi-viduals from a point during their university studies, to between one and four years after graduation. In addition, the impact of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions requires more research and longitudinal settings. My article contributes to this research by examining the long-term effect of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions as illustrated by Finnish students in higher education. The objectives of this study are as follows: 1) to examine the long-term effect of attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and the subjective norm on entrepreneurial intentions, and 2) to examine the long-term effect of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions after graduation. The data for this research were gathered from Finnish students in higher education over the period from 2008 to 2013. The results suggest that attitudes to an entrepreneurial career have explanatory power that is retained with time. Attitudes measured during the period of higher education explained entrepreneurial intentions even two to four years after graduation. Interestingly, the results show that entrepreneurial education has a long-term effect on entrepreneurial intentions among Finnish students in higher education.