Entrepreneurship intention among French Grande école and university students: An application of Shapero's model

摘要

Arguably, entrepreneurship is still a recent phenomenon in French society, and its higher education establishments are still experimenting with ways to teach entrepreneurship and enterprise creation. This paper presents a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the entrepreneurial intention of French higher education students at three different establishments (a management Grande école, an engineering Grande école and a university) using the Shapero intention model. The study found that most of the students wanted to work in large organizations and were not intending to create a new company or work in a family business. There were significant differences, however, between management and engineering students in terms of their entrepreneurial environment, which may affect their attitudes to new business creation. The authors conclude that, while enforced learning through entrepreneurial courses and seminars may initially be off-putting, such initiatives may have longer-term beneficial impacts on entrepreneurial intention.