Entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial communities in India: does gender really play a role?

What is it about?

This paper explores the relationship between gender, entrepreneurial education (EE), and entrepreneurial intention (EI) in the Indian context, where the government is attempting to create entrepreneurial communities among young citizens. We examined whether the female gender attenuates the positive relationship between EE and EI. We additionally use career preparedness as a control variable to explore this relationship, a novel approach to this research stream in the Indian context. The data for this study were collected from 368 undergraduate students across four Indian universities. We find that male students score higher for the first two dimensions of EI. In contrast, there is no significant difference in male and female student scores for the third dimension. Besides, the male students exhibited a higher EI when the composite score was used. Thus, our findings support the extant literature. The students scoring higher concerning the control variable, 'career preparedness,' reported a positive relationship between EE and EI, independent of gender. The results were supported for all three dimensions of EI. Thus, the results suggest that when the respondents feel that their universities have prepared them well for their careers, they consistently exhibit a positive relationship between EE and EI constructs independent of their gender. This result is fascinating and allows us to suggest that EE and EI relationship for females is not as simple as extant research suggests (generally lower than male students). Therefore, a nuanced approach needs to be taken in the future in building entrepreneurial communities where the female gender may play a strong role.

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