Mismatch of Entrepreneurial Competencies on Some Demographic Features: A Case Study

Abstract

Entrepreneurs take initiative, accept the risk of failure and have an internal locus of control (Albert Shapero, 1975). Earlier studies show that gender difference (Crant, 1996, Davidsson, 1995, Kolvereid, 1996, Raijman, 2001), educational background (Schroeder and Rodermund, 2006), parental occupation (Falck, Heblich and Luedemann, 2009) and parental income (Hundley, 2006) affects entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurial competencies encourage entrepreneurial intentions (Dermol, 2010). The main focus of this paper is the entrepreneurial competencies of the postgraduate management students at a private management institute in West Bengal, India. Here the study is based on the students of a particular year through questionnaire method, though all the students of that particular year did not respond. Out of 60, only 30 responded. On the basis of their response we explore the entrepreneurial competencies of the students on different demographic features like gender, family income, parental occupation and educational background to find out the presence of any mismatch in the entrepreneurial competencies on the basis of these demographic features. Statistical analysis was performed by Mann-Whitney U test at 95% significance level. The study reveals that critical entrepreneurial competencies often differ significantly on the basis of gender, family incomes, parental occupation and educational backgrounds.