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The objective of this paper is to analyze university graduate students’ assessments of the attainment of skills acquired in a Training Programme (TP) to develop entrepreneurial skills and transversal employability competencies. Both are vital for the success of today’s societies and play an important role in the sustainable development agenda. The...
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... 1 shows the skills included in the students' survey. In the second stage, the same group of experts were provided with three lists of common entrepreneurial skills which are shown in Table 2 [45,47,49]. The focus group agreed that the entrepreneurial skills of [45] were the most closely linked to the TP. ...Citations
... Working transversally helps to meet two objectives: the acquisition of skills such as entrepreneurship and digital, and the rest of general university skills (Laguna, Abad, de la Fuente & Calero, 2020). This implies that it would be important to develop a model such as that of EmDigital to establish a series of common indicators that can be reinforced in all degrees, and in this way, to guarantee that students develop valuable strategies related to digital entrepreneurship, regardless of their original degree once they have graduated. ...
Purpose: From an educational perspective, digital entrepreneurship comprises the convergence of the dimensions of entrepreneurship competence and digital competence. The XXXX project has generated a model of digital entrepreneurship based on the proposals of Entrecomp and Digcom models that, from a transversal approach, addresses digital entrepreneurship from the perspective of challenges and the development of new opportunities that technology can offer.Design/methodology/approach: The project conducted a study using a non-experimental and exploratory design with the objective of analyzing the digital entrepreneurship competence of 135 final-year students from the XXXX University. A questionnaire validated by experts and exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the four dimensions of digital entrepreneurship competence: identification of opportunities, action planning, implementation and collaboration, and management and security.Findings:The results show that the students feel they are more competent in the dimension of management and security, while they perceive that the dimension related to the identification of opportunities in the framework of digital entrepreneurship is less developed. It is concluded that it is necessary to establish a series of common and interdisciplinary indicators around digital entrepreneurship that can be reinforced in all degrees, so students could develop good strategies related to digital entrepreneurship regardless of the degree they come from.Originality/value: The added value of this study lies in its comprehensive approach, the solid theoretical foundation on which it is based, its exploratory approach, the integration of key dimensions, the identification of specific areas of improvement and the practical recommendations to address these deficiencies in higher education.
... In recent years, the PhD learning process has been transformed by the shift away from theoretical re-search towards applied research, with increasing emphasis on knowledge production and research output, design innovation and consultancy for external companies (Buono, Savall and Cappelletti, 2018). The focus is on developing both hard skills (technical and analytical) for performing the mechanical aspects of research, and soft skills, defined as intangible personal qualities required to be effective in the workplace (Laguna- Sánchez et al., 2020). Such skills are needed for PhD research and entrepreneurship, particularly vision, innovation, and the ability to create, organise and anticipate new activities (Omrane and Fayolle, 2011;Davey and Galan-Muros, 2020). ...
... However, organisational culture and institutional culture influenced how the individual was able to manage resources and foster innovation (Davey and Galan-Muros, 2020), which either facilitated or hindered entrepreneurial behaviour during their PhD journey. Clearly, the onus is on the PhD researcher to grasp transversal management (Laguna-Sánchez et al., 2020) in order to combine research and teaching (Foot et al., 2014), function internationally (Byram et al., 2019) and undertake commercially-relevant research (Buono et al., 2018). While many of these skills are inherent in entrepreneurial activity (Omrane and Fayolle, 2011;Davey and Galan-Muros, 2020), PhD researchers are often hamstrung by academic politicking (Lichy and McLeay, 2020). ...
... Relacionado con la educación emprendedora por género,Kljucnikov et al. (2016) hallaron que el género masculino y con mayor educación se inclinan más intensamente a la autonomía, a la realización de proyectos más riesgosos y a la agresividad competitiva que las mujeres según su OE.Laguna-Sánchez et al. (2020) y Liu et al. (2020 encuentran un mayor impacto de la educación en la intención emprendedora femenina. ParaKumar et al. (2021) los hombres de carreras de empresariales tienen mayor OE que los de ciencias e ingenierías, reflejándose la misma actitud para las mujeres. ...
Esta investigación examina el papel del género en la orientación emprendedora (OE) de los jóvenes universitarios. El estudio explora las diferencias entre dos grupos (hombres y mujeres) estudiantes de seis áreas de conocimientos de una universidad pública española, en relación con el efecto del género en las dimensiones de la OE: autonomía, innovación, agresividad competitiva y asunción de riesgos. Para ello se llevó a cabo un método de investigación cuantitativo, mediante un estudio descriptivo, inferencial y transversal, a través de un cuestionario autoadministrado. La muestra se obtuvo mediante muestreo aleatorio-accidental, durante tres cursos académicos entre los años 2019, 2020 y 2021. Los resultados mostraron que, existen diferencias significativas entre los hombres y las mujeres en el contexto universitario, en cuanto a las percepciones de las dimensiones autonomía, agresividad competitiva y asunción de riesgos de la OE. Estas diferencias se debieron a que, se encontró que los hombres tomaban más riesgos, se percibían más autónomos y competitivos que las mujeres. Por otro lado, los resultados no confirmaron diferencias significativas entre los dos grupos en la dimensión de innovación, a pesar de que las mujeres se mostraron más innovadoras que los hombres. Los hallazgos de este estudio muestran evidencias de que la OE de los hombres jóvenes es mayor que la de las mujeres jóvenes. En conclusión, se confirma la necesidad de fomentar la autonomía, la competitividad y el comportamiento arriesgado entre el género femenino universitario, así como, la innovación entre el género masculino universitario.
... (3) flexibility; and (4) tenacity. Other experts (Sanchez et al., 2020) simplify the indicators of entrepreneurial skills into five characteristics: (1) Need for achievement; (2) desire for autonomy, (3) creativity and opportunism; (4) risk-taking abilities, and (5) locus of control. ...
Context: This article aims to determine the entrepreneurial skills of Vocational Secondary School students after the implementation of a new curriculum that promotes entrepreneurship courses in Indonesia. The authors believe that after taking such courses, students will be able to generate entrepreneurial skills. This study also explores the effect of demographic characteristics on students' entrepreneurship skills level, especially with respect to gender, school, and family. Approach: This study used a quantitative approach, with data collected through a questionnaire with five variables, that is, leadership, reflective communication, risk-taking, creatively innovative, and future orientation. Data were collected from 463 students who had taken entrepreneurship subjects that were chosen randomly. Data were analyzed using linear regression. Findings: 52.22% of our respondents had a moderate score for entrepreneurial skills, this is not in accordance with the expected learning outcomes, there are students who have entrepreneurial skills at a high level. With respect to creative innovation, in particular, a majority (53.15%) had a low score and 4.1% had a very low score. Moreover, family had a significant and positive effect on all dependent variables (leadership scores, reflective communication scores, risk-taking scores, creatively innovative scores, future orientation scores, and overall entrepreneurial skills scores). School demographic characteristics had a significant positive effect on the value of future orientation. These results indicate that private schools tend to strengthen the level of reflective communicative scores. Conclusion: The entrepreneurial skills of most vocational students are middling. This indicates that entrepreneurship subjects at Vocational Secondary schools have not been able to achieve their expected learning outcomes or help students develop entrepreneurial skills at a high level. Thus, further research is needed to determine the causes behind the problem. Schools are expected to be able to establish harmonious relationships by involving families to support the improvement of an informal learning environment that supports the mastery of entrepreneurial skills of vocational students.
... Universities have long implemented strategies within business programmes to grow relevant competencies such as entrepreneurship (Laguna-Sánchez et al. 2020). Supporting postgraduates to gain similar experience and development during their PhD has been the focus of the postgraduate modules in the School of Agriculture and Food Science in University College Dublin (UCD) and to this end, we have been providing transversal skills development for PhD candidates for over 15 years. ...
Transversal skills development is an essential component of doctoral education. The COVID-19 pandemic required the adaptation of five transversal skills modules to online delivery. Instructional design was used to create synchronous and asynchronous teaching to a Virtual Learning Environment. Feedback surveys were used to analyse student perceptions as to whether learning outcomes (LOs) were met and student satisfaction with the online format with a view to optimising future delivery of these modules. Of the 168 students surveyed, 84 (50.0%) responded. Based on 84 responses across five modules, students perceived that 394 (97.0%) of the LOs were met (p < 0.001). Statistically significant advantages to online delivery were found to be convenience, easy visibility of materials, timing of delivery and learning at own pace (p < 0.001). Importantly, 40 (47.6%) students would have struggled to achieve the necessary credits without this online training. 77 (91.7%) students found the online modules very useful or useful for their current research and 78 (92.9%) students reported them as being very useful or useful for their future career. A majority found online delivery more effective for their needs than the face-to-face format. These findings support the effectiveness of online delivery of transversal skills modules in doctoral programmes.
... Additionally, an entrepreneurial profile also favours the sustainability of socio-economic development (Goel & Joshi, 2017;Vuorio et al., 2018). Consequently, the recent papers published show that Entrepreneurial Intention amongst university students influence employability ( (Chung et al., 2017;Laguna-Sánchez et al., 2020;Pardo-Garcia & Barac, 2020). In the light of this assertion, this study is focused on the analysis of the positive influence between EI on Employability from a gender approach. ...
... Recent papers such as Pardo-Garcia and Barac (2020), Laguna-Sánchez et al. (2020), Iglesias-Sánchez et al. (2019) highlight the connection between employability and EI. These studies emphasized the positive effects of entrepreneurial competences such as creativity, proactivity among others for EI as well as employability (García-Aracil & van der Velden, 2008b;Linan, 2008;O'Leary, 2017;UNESCO, 2016). ...
... Additionally, the analysis carried out also finds positive influence on employability. Consequently, there is also coherence with the results of recent previous studies (Chung et al., 2017;Laguna-Sánchez et al., 2020;Pardo-Garcia & Barac, 2020;Sin & Neave, 2016). However, the connection between Employability and EI through Azjen's proposal has not widely applied (Eid et al., 2017;Gorgievski et al., 2018). ...
A global concern about youth employment and the challenges to better connect companies' needs and professional and labour profiles of graduates is shared by policy makers and higher education institutions. The recognition of entrepreneurship as an integral and sustainable part of the solution is a source of motivation for the incorporation of entrepreneurial competencies onto university curricula. The driving force of this study is to analyse how and to what extent the employability weighs on entrepreneurship. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) is applied using a survey that links Employability and Entrepreneurial Intention positively and highlights the moderating effect of gender. Our study contributes to research showing the interconnection between both and provides an insight from a gender approach. Women feel competences related to entreprising people are useful beyond business creation and they reinforce their self-confidence about their skills facing both entrepreneurial or employment objectives.
The article is in Open Access
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2022.100708
... So, the common thread in learning, science, culture and the evolution of humanity in general over the next years will be determined by the mastery of a set of cross-cutting skills related to entrepreneurship. This entrepreneurial talent, which must be acquired beyond the technical learning related to each area of study, is the new source of opportunity for university students today (Laguna, Abad, de la Fuente-Cabrero & Calero, 2020) To this effect, the need to make major, profound changes in the design, evaluation and teaching of higher education qualifications is made explicit in the construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): the restructuring of bachelor's degrees, the implementation of new system for calculating credits, and the introduction of methodologies for learning based not only on specific skills but also on what are known as generic or cross-cutting ones. Within this new framework, Spanish universities have placed great emphasis on defining and incorporating into their degrees the skills that students must acquire during their university stay, but they paid less attention to how these skills should be measured and assessed (Fariza, Guitart-Tarres, Miravitlles-Matamoros, Nuñez-Carballosa, Bernardo & Bikfalvi, 2014). ...
Purpose: From a skills perspective, the academic field of entrepreneurship has grown to become a key element in university studies. Determining whether these skills exist among university students and how to foster them is a key in higher education. To this effect, the aim of this study is to determine the entrepreneurial skills’ level among the students on the different bachelor’s degrees taught at the Faculty of Business and Economics Sciences of University of Girona.
Design/methodology/approach: Information about the skill level was collected using a skills model called Tricuspoid, which was specifically designed for the self-assessment of entrepreneurial skills. Information about students’ sociodemographic, professional and educational profile was collected using a self-administered complementary questionnaire. Bivariate analysis and statistical contrast were applied.
Findings: Being a man, doing sport, balancing studying with paid work and accessing university studies via the vocational training pathway are indicators of a greater entrepreneurial capacity. On the other hand, being a woman, accessing university studies via baccalaureate or having no knowledge of English, however, are factors associated with a deficit in entrepreneurial talent.
Originality/value: Considering the fact that attitude to entrepreneurship can be modified through educational interventions, identifying these factors enables us to formulate guidelines for teaching activities that increase students’ entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial capacity for a better integration for our students into the job market.
... Also referred to as 21st-century skills, among the soft skills that students should develop to be successful, both throughout their academic training and, downstream, in their professional life, are critical thinking; problem-solving; collaboration; adaptability; entrepreneurialism; ability to work in teams; effective oral and written communication; information search and analysis; curiosity; and imagination (Snape, 2017). Laguna-Sánchez et al. (2020) also list these soft skills, pointing out skills such as adaptability, teamwork, work organization, autonomy, orientation towards results, ability to learn, ability to negotiate and responsibility. Pluzhnirova, Zhivoglyad, Kulagina, Morozova, and Titova (2021) put forth the fundamental differences between hard and soft skills ( Table 3), warning that, although there are professional fields in which hard skills take precedence over soft skills, these are the "skills of the future" (Pluzhnirova et al., 2021, p. 116), and, as such, should be developed in parallel and complementarity with hard skills. ...
The growing digitalization that is taking place in most current societies, shaping a super-smart society - such as, for example, the aimed Society 5.0 - raises profound implications in the learning that the higher education context should foster, and which is summarized in the following question: what kind of skills should be taught and how? This perspective paper aims to analyze the centrality of soft skills in this new and unavoidable context, as well as the implications in the learning process. The results of a bibliographical search point toward the fact that, in addition to professional and scientific skills, soft skills are critical for professional and personal success, which implies a profound reformulation of the teaching processes in the overwhelming majority of higher education institutions and their actors. For this challenge to become a reality and for the success of these processes, elements such as digital literacy, sustainability and interculturality are paramount.
... The fourth dimension, Entrepreneurship (ENT) skills, stands out in the policy agenda, as there are frequent references to the need to have entrepreneurial graduates. Clearly, these are essential skills for work, as leadership, initiative, and creativity drive innovation in a knowledge economy [67]. This means that it is important for HEIs to include specific programs in their plans of study that are aimed at improving graduate entrepreneurship, as this is a key dimension of employability [67,68]. ...
... Clearly, these are essential skills for work, as leadership, initiative, and creativity drive innovation in a knowledge economy [67]. This means that it is important for HEIs to include specific programs in their plans of study that are aimed at improving graduate entrepreneurship, as this is a key dimension of employability [67,68]. ...
The aim of this article is to provide a systematic review of the transversal competencies for employability in university graduates from an employer’s perspective, with consideration to the importance of the topic in the cross-national context. The PRISMA statement was used to guide the methodology and the reporting for the systematic review. The data collection produced 52 articles from the Scopus and Web of Science (JCR only) databases in the ten years between 2008 and 2018. The analysis focused on the characteristics of the employers and organizations, the methods and the instruments for evaluating transversal competencies, and the most highly valued competencies, both internationally and by continent. One of the main contributions is the creation of a classification that is made up of 41 transversal competencies that are grouped into five dimensions. The results show that employers attributed more importance to the competencies in the dimensions of Job-related basic (JRB) skills, Socio-relational (SR) skills, and Self-management (SM) skills. We conclude that Higher education institutions need to incorporate “pedagogies for employability”, which will strengthen the link between the academic setting and the socio-occupational reality and will ensure that graduates make a suitable transition to the world of work.
... While emphasizing the need for HEIs to revisit current educational approaches, employers tend to prioritize qualities that would allow a prospective worker to be both flexible and competent (Al-Youbi et al., 2020;Heike, 2020). Taking into account economic uncertainties such as those arising due to the Covid-19 pandemic, transversal employability skills are often presented as a prerequisite for sustainable employability and valued on par with professional qualities by some employers (Laguna-Sánchez et al., 2020). From the perspective of educators, employability emerges as the main result of educational processes that shape a future graduate's professional capabilities while providing the necessary foundation for navigating the labor market. ...
In alignment with sustainable goals outlined by Saudi Vision 2030, the research paper aimed to investigate the views on employability skills in higher education by exploring the perceptions of Saudi students and education leaders. The study's qualitative design caters to the exploration of the practical significance of employability skills and attributes of Saudi graduates as a function allowing to address unemployment and strengthen the economy. The researchers analyzed two sets of qualitative data collected from a sample of Saudi students (n=49) and a sample of education leaders (n=6) with the help of Likert-scale questionnaires and open-ended questionnaires, respectively. Corroborated with the scholarly evidence, the explorative analysis of the data showed the practical significance of employability skills of Saudi graduates for achieving the country's economic goals through the means of sustainable employability. Overall, the results are consistent with the current scholarship on the topic suggesting that all stakeholders should partake in the development of initiatives and programs that hone transversal employability skills. In the context of Saudi Arabia, the ongoing unemployment crisis necessitates the introduction of a national policy that would formulate a collaborative agreement between the three main stakeholders-employment-seekers, employers, and higher education institutions.
