Do business schools encourage entrepreneurship?

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education has grown substantially over the past 25 years as governments, students, parents and alumni push for the inclusion of the subject area into mainstream university education. To date entrepreneurship programs have been housed for the most part in schools of business or, more specifically, in the functional area of management education. However questions are starting to arise whether or not traditional business schools that rely on lecture/discussion/case method of learning are actually encouraging students to consider entrepreneurship as a career option. This paper reports on the entrepreneurial intent of 120 fourth year business students and finds that business students view their education as a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions, research that contradicts much of the current theory on the subject.