Assessing the enterprising tendencies of Arab female undergraduate engineering students in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

This study assesses the enterprising characteristics of first-year undergraduate Omani female chemical engineering students in Muscat, Oman. Pre and post surveys were conducted with 27 respondents from an entrepreneurship boot camp module mandated by the Oman Ministry of Higher Education. The variables, measured on a 10-point Likert scale, included need for achievement, need for autonomy, creativity, risk-taking, and locus of control. Statistical analysis was performed on the integrated data to measure the impact of student learning using a t-test approach and comparing mean averages. This was followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews that were examined using thematic analysis. The comparison of students’ enterprise tendencies before and after the module indicates minor to moderate improvements in their entrepreneurial abilities and their understanding of entrepreneurial behavior. The most noticeable impact was on students’ risk-taking abilities, followed by their creativity, need for achievement, need for control, and, lastly, their need for autonomy. The findings illustrate that students perceived entrepreneurship positively but were concerned about the scheduling of the module and its integration into their core program of study. Students may have benefited further from a module of extended duration as opposed to the block delivery “boot camp” mode of learning. Due to the limited number of participants and the focus on female students only, the results of the study cannot be generalized. However, the article presents an initial exploration of and offers insights into enterprising characteristics among an empirically underexplored demographic and nonbusiness group.

Keywords

Arab engineering education enterprise tendencies entrepreneurship female students higher education

“In today’s world, being able to act entrepreneurially is a key skill, whether one is in business, the voluntary sector, or those parts of the public sector that must adapt to new circumstances” (Levie, 2004: 76). So, how about engineering students? Should they study entrepreneurship? Engineering students focus predominantly on technical knowledge but often lack the basic knowledge and skills to commercialize ideas and innovations through business and entrepreneurship (Wilson, 2008). Engineers should be able to take actions to commercialize their research output and should be aware of opportunities to develop a business start-up (Roberts, 2002; Wilson, 2012). On the other hand, business and management students often lack the technical and functional knowledge of how to develop and produce the commercially viable products they seek to develop.

To rotate the gears of graduate success, particularly in terms of postgraduation employability, the need for a synergetic amalgamation of engineering and entrepreneurship education is becoming increasingly important in higher education institutions (HEIs). In US-based HEIs, the incorporation of engineering entrepreneurship in engineering curricula has quadrupled over the last three decades (Byers et al., 2013). Moreover, it was observed in Spain that “the idea of integrating entrepreneurship with engineering education seems to pick up whenever there is a volatile or gloomy forecast of the economy” (Jarrar and Anis, 2016: 1). The increasing rate of unemployment within major engineering functions (Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob, 2018) has drawn educators’ and policy-makers’ attention to the need to educate and equip students with an enterprising mindset from a young age (Mbuya and Schachtebeck, 2016, Wang and Wong, 2004). Although entrepreneurship courses have traditionally been located in business and management schools, the importance of entrepreneurship education and concepts is gradually emerging in the engineering curriculum (Luryi et al. 2007).

Previous studies have shown the impact of entrepreneurship education by analyzing students’ responses before and after exposure to entrepreneurship or cognate modules or concepts in specific contexts, such as the use of enterprising simulation gaming (Smith et al., 2014; Williams, 2015). The outcomes of these studies provide specific guidelines about how academic practitioners could effectively implement such learning in their teaching practices (Yasin and Hafeez, 2018). Nabi et al. (2017) argue that introducing entrepreneurial concepts into higher education curricula reflects a greater focus on short-term and subjective outcomes, such as entrepreneurial attitude, rather than on longer-term objectives such as venture creation behavior. One of the major reasons for this is that entrepreneurship is a “multidimensional phenomenon”, which depends not only on entrepreneurial factors but also on environment and culture (Gartner, 1985; Levie, 2004; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). There is a geographical limitation to extant studies on graduates’ enterprising characteristics in general, with studies relating predominantly to the United States and Europe (mainly the United Kingdom) (Nabi et al., 2017). In particular, there is a dearth of empirical studies in the Arab world, with the exception of a recent paper demonstrating a positive relationship between entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions (Bakheet, 2018).

From a gendered perspective, there is a worldwide imbalance in the proportions of female and male students who enroll in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This inequity becomes more apparent when women employed in STEM professions have to leave their job due to an unfavorable work–life balance (Ng et al., 2010; Williams and Ceci, 2012). There is also evidence that recruitment processes for engineering occupations are likely to be biased toward male professionals (Moss-Racusin et al., 2012). These observations illustrate the crucial importance of equipping female students with entrepreneurship education and skills while pursuing their studies in STEM disciplines. A study based on an investigation in an American university found that female students struggled to become entrepreneurs and described the entrepreneurship environment as a “male-centered territory” (Cochran, 2019). The gender gap is clearly more apparent in the Middle East and North Africa region, where entrepreneurial activities and enterprises continue to be mostly male-dominated (Bastian et al., 2018).

To develop exploratory insights into the enterprising characteristics of Arab female engineering students in the Sultanate of Oman, this pilot study measures pre and post enterprise tendencies. The study is aided by the students’ qualitative insights into their experiences of an intensive entrepreneurship boot camp program at a newly established university in Muscat, Oman.

Literature review

Various studies have investigated the impact of entrepreneurship education on science and engineering students (Nezami et al., 2016). Introducing entrepreneurship concepts to engineering students has been found to strengthen mindsets and raise economic awareness (Mosly, 2017). By the late 1990s, the technical expertise of engineering was becoming integrated with entrepreneurial thinking to assist an individual’s career and provide them with the capabilities to evaluate a range of challenging situations (Mason et al, 1999). Cross-disciplinary activities between business and engineering disciplines have enabled learners to create, innovate, and develop new products and/or services, where the creativity includes both technology and people-centered pathways (Mat Junoh, 2008; Morrison, 1986), and have provided wider prospects for students. Creed et al. (2002) presented a study of designing a new entrepreneurship module while a homogenous group of engineering students was collaborating with industry partners to propose business plans and financial models and prototypes. Luryi et al. (2007) shared their experience of a similar industry-focused study, in which engineering students expressed their work roles in a technically oriented form, whereas business students adapted their roles to develop marketing strategies and business plans. The outcome of Cowling’s (2009) econometric analysis of the 2005 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Survey data in the United Kingdom demonstrated the positive impact of entrepreneurship education in further or higher education on graduates’ future entrepreneurial behavior. In contrast, Audet (2004) observed no significant effect on the perceived desire of students to launch an entrepreneurial venture of a compulsory undergraduate entrepreneurship module at a Canadian university.

Another notable trend in the higher education sector has arisen in response to the demand for the development of business management and commercial awareness in students (Nerad and Heggelund, 2008; Oosterbeek et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2014; Thune, 2010; Vesper and Gartner, 1997). According to a survey of over 500 engineering students from three large public universities in the United States who optionally enrolled in an entrepreneurship course, more than two-thirds preferred to work for medium-sized or large organizations after graduating but nevertheless believed that gaining knowledge of entrepreneurship had broadened their career prospects (Duval-Couetil et al., 2012). These students explained that the main reasons for their lack of interest in pursuing self-employment and entrepreneurship were a lack of initial start-up capital, the risk involved in entrepreneurial activity, and a lack of knowledge about the business world and markets (Duval-Couetil et al., 2012). However, despite a limited but growing number of studies of the “embedding” of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in higher education curricula, there remains a lack of information on how entrepreneurial understanding can help students gain enterprising skills and prepare them for their future professional life (Aceituno et al., 2015, 2018; Barnes and de-Villiers, 2017; Lean, 2012; Phillips, 2010; Quezada-Sarmiento and Mengual-Andres, 2018; Williams et al., 2013; Zalevski and Swiszczowski, 2009). Although it seems evident that entrepreneurship education has continued to improve entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions among engineering students, assessment of the actual effectiveness of these programs is problematic in practice due to the time lag between attitude and action (Nezami et al., 2016).

Enterprising characteristics encompass a range of attributes, such as proactiveness, rationality, autonomy, comprehensiveness, assertiveness, adaptability, and risk-taking (Henry et al., 2005; Kirby, 2004). The entrepreneurial attributes that make engineers commercially successful with their designs and technical developments include intelligence, knowledge of the product, courage, tolerance of uncertainty, ability to manage risk, and social and communication skills (Mason et al., 1999). A 2011 survey for the European Commission identified the five key entrepreneurship competence factors as creativity, analysis, motivation, networking, and adaptability, and ten factors for entrepreneurial attitude and tendencies: a sense of initiative, risk propensity, self-efficacy, a need for achievement, structural behavior, creativity, analysis, motivation, networking, and adaptability (European Commission, 2012). The report of the study (European Commission, 2012) highlights the impact of higher education entrepreneurship programs. Jarrar and Anis (2016) adopted the graduate attributes identified by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB): designing, investigation, problem analysis, lifelong learning, communication skills, individual and team work, economics and project management, impact of engineering on society and the environment, engineering knowledge base, use of engineering tools, ethics and equity, and professionalism. They then studied the impact of attending an entrepreneurship course on participants’ engineering skills and found significant improvements in at least the first seven of the above CEAB attributes.

To explore the enterprising tendencies of chemical engineering students in the empirically underexplored context of Oman, we developed a series of questionnaires and interviews focusing on five basic components of entrepreneurship: a need for achievement, a need for autonomy, creativity, risk-taking, and control locus. The following section describes the research methods used in the study.

Research methodology

Overview of the module

In fulfilment of a mandatory requirement by the Omani Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), the faculty and institutional lead for entrepreneurship at Muscat University designed a module entitled “Entrepreneurship: Creativity and Innovation for Engineers.” In April 2019, this module was delivered to chemical engineering students as a 1-week block delivery “boot camp”; it was then subject to a wide range of summative assessments over the course of 3 weeks. All 27 female chemical engineering undergraduates were enrolled in the module as a mandatory requirement. Although, as noted above, STEM disciplines are generally male-dominated, most students who had enrolled in this degree program were Arab females.

The module objectives, predetermined by MoHE, were as follows:

to develop an appreciation of business venturing and the entrepreneurial process, its risks, and rewards;

to critically identify and examine critical success factors in managing an entrepreneurial organization;

to develop a clear and structured understanding of a business plan;

to recognize, engage, and interact with entrepreneurs in the local community; and

to understand the traditional government support systems available to new business ventures, with a focus on Oman.

The European Commission (2012) identifies five elements of entrepreneurship education and recommends that at least one of these should be present in entrepreneurship education programs. Element 3 covered “practice-based methods, where students are involved in project work and/or in activities outside the classroom (linking with the business world or with the local community)” (European Commission, 2012: 44). Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob (2018) and Jones and English (2004) suggest using “action-oriented” teaching methods. In line with these recommendations, the module delivery included a variety of learning methods—specifically, case studies, interactive live assessment in a gaming platform, invited speakers from local industry, and a wide range of group-based workshop activities. All assessments required students to work in teams to develop a business plan and presentation (i.e. value proposition canvas, ideation, and pitch).

Research methods

As already noted, evaluation of the impact of entrepreneurship courses and enterprise-related subjects on the mindsets of students has been limited (Oosterbeek et al., 2010; Williams, 2015; Zhang et al., 2014). To examine the entrepreneurial learning experience of 423 engineering students at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain, Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob (2018) developed pre- and post-course surveys. Jarrar and Anis (2016) adopted a similar approach in studying 350 engineering students at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Williams (2015) investigated the impact of introducing business simulation software (SimVenture) on the entrepreneurial understanding of undergraduate students by conducting two surveys before and after the students’ practice with the simulation. Similar studies (Fayolle et al., 2006; Oosterbeek et al., 2008; von Graevenitz et al., 2010; Williamson et al., 2013) have tested short-term changes in students’ entrepreneurial attitudes by using before and after questionnaires. Dabbagh and Menascé (2006) used a simulation game to examine the impact of freshman engineering students’ exposure to entrepreneurial aspects of engineering. Our study employs a similar approach by conducting pre and post surveys to measure the impact of learning on students’ enterprising tendencies (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Summary of selected variables.

Variable	Description
Need for achievement	This need determines the desire to achieve something beyond what already exists and is an important component for successful entrepreneurship (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob (2018) use the term “need for success” and explain this as “the individual’s need to test their ability by setting themselves challenges and carrying out their daily activities even better” (p. 57).
Need for autonomy	This need can be explained as a tendency to be independent, is necessary for proceeding with a new venture, and is a key component of entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob (2018) use the term “need for independence” and emphasize that this is an innate entrepreneurial characteristic.
Risk-taking	This refers to “an individual’s tendency to take risks in his/her actions that vary across distinct decision contexts” (Curşeu et al. 2008: 44). Both Gasse (1982) and Lumpkin and Dess (1996) classify risk-taking attitude into psychological, personal, and social risk. The European Commission (2012) uses “need for achievement” and “risk propensity” in its study as indicators of “personal attitudes and skills that form the basis of an entrepreneurial mindset and behavior”(p. 44).
Creativity	“An important factor for the growth of an economy is the level of innovation” (European Commission, 2012: 76) and “there is a consensus that creativity is a necessary precondition for innovation” (Chell and Athayde, 2009: 14). Creativity relates to the ability to tackle and solve problems, as well as the curiosity that encourages novel ideas and a tendency toward experimentation with processes that might yield new services, technologies, or products (Bird, 1995; Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). The European Commission (2012) uses “creativity” as one of the variables for assessing entrepreneurial skills and highlights that more developed entrepreneurial competencies put individuals in a position to acquire positions in which more creativity is expected.
Locus of control	In the context of this study, locus of control indicates the students’ comprehension of the concept of being able to control the future through one’s own actions (internal locus of control) or of the future being subject to control by factors outside oneself (external locus of control). Levie (2004), in his study of engineering students at the University of Strathclyde, emphasized the latter and pinpointed the importance of the surrounding environment in promoting entrepreneurial activity.

Source: Literature review and authors’ experience.

The study is underpinned by a critical realist philosophical stance which provides explanations for the valid observations and outcomes (Carlsson 2005; Venkatesh et al. 2013), as a theoretical underpinning that is appropriate to our research aims and objectives.

Data collection process

Hamzah et al. (2016) investigated the impact of a compulsory entrepreneurship course on the entrepreneurial intentions of real estate graduates at a public university in Malaysia. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, the researchers conducted a survey and interviews to elicit respondents’ views about the success of the course. Similarly, we designed a survey questionnaire to investigate students’ enterprising tendencies using a 10-point Likert scale, which provided a detailed specification of the level of agreement or disagreement with each statement. The students were required to complete the first survey on the first day of the module (April 7, 2019). Following completion of the module, on April 11, 2019, they were required to complete the second survey. The pre and post surveys were followed by qualitative semi-structured paper-based interviews with their departmental and faculty leads for graduate employability and enterprise. Qualitative analysis was used as a structured, clear, and flexible approach to interpreting qualitative data with three action stages—data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing (King and Levin, 1993; Miles and Huberman, 1994). Pseudonyms have been used in this article to ensure anonymity.

Data analysis procedure

As illustrated in Figure 1, quantitative analysis of the integrated data was done using the t-test and comparison of mean averages with the Statistical Package of Social Sciences software. The qualitative data were analyzed using a qualitative template analysis to investigate students’ entrepreneurial perceptions. The results of both quantitative and qualitative analyses then led us to conclusions and recommendations.

Figure 1.

Schematic structure of the research project.

Findings and discussion

The findings illustrate improvements following completion of the entrepreneurship module in the percentages for each enterprise characteristic. The module had the greatest impact on students’ risk-taking ability (13.8%), followed by creativity (5.9%), control locus (4.8%), need for achievement (4.6%), and, lastly, need for autonomy (2%). The general enterprise characteristics of students improved by 8.2%. Table 2 summarizes the average responses before and after completion of the entrepreneurship module.

Table 2.

Average student responses before and after the completion of the entrepreneurship module.

Entrepreneurial element	First round of questionnaire	Second round of questionnaire	Improvement (%)
Need for achievement	6.5	6.8	4.6
Need for autonomy	5	5.1	2
Creativity	6.8	7.2	5.9
Risk-taking	5.8	6.6	13.8
Control locus	6.2	6.5	4.8
Total enterprising tendency	6.1	6.6	8.2

Based on the results collected from the pre-module survey, our findings indicated that the female engineering students’ enterprising characteristics were slightly above the Likert-scale average before being exposed to the entrepreneurship module. The assessment of enterprising characteristics on completion of the module suggested minor to moderate impacts on students’ learning. Figure 2 compares average responses to the questionnaires before and after completion of the module.

Figure 2.

Students’ pre and post enterprising characteristics.

In contrast to the results of the study by Williams (2015), who found that second-year undergraduate business and management students’ enterprising characteristics improved significantly after involvement with entrepreneurship simulation gaming, these engineering students lacked familiarity with their core degree program and possibly struggled to appreciate and apply entrepreneurship concepts. Also, they did not have business, economics, and management backgrounds or prior learning in those fields.

Successful entrepreneurs record high scores for the need for achievement either by striving adequately for performance or, if necessary, by competing (Hornaday and Aboud, 1971). In a study by the European Commission (2012), respondents were found to give themselves a higher score for the need for achievement than their counterparts in a control group. The students in this study scored moderately above the average for the need for achievement and the score improved to some extent on completion of the module. Also, their score for autonomy was not in the higher range and improved only minimally after delivery of the module. Similar to the findings of the European Commission study (2012), creativity achieved the highest score and improved moderately on module completion. The locus of control score in the pre-module survey was slightly above average and increased slightly after the module completion.

Although very few studies have shown statistically significant differences in the risk-taking characteristics between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs (Low and MacMillan, 1988), a comprehensive literature survey by Williamson et al. (2013) suggested that “participants in entrepreneurship education are more likely to change attitudes, such as risk-taking, and intentions, such as being self-employed or being entrepreneurial, than non-participants” (p. 6). Our findings are consistent with those of Williamson et al. (2013): before attending the module, the students’ score for risk-taking was almost on the average value, indicating that they were unlikely to take risks, but on completion of the boot camp module, the risk-taking factor achieved the highest score. Although Duval-Couetil et al. (2012) found that the level of risk-taking tolerance had a lower score than the other entrepreneurial attitudes studied, this study detected a moderate level of improvement in risk-taking among the female Omani engineering students. Moreover, Williamson et al. (2013) recorded a lower score for risk-taking propensity among female respondents than for male respondents. In this regard, the findings of this study are refreshing, as the participants were female-only and appeared to have a higher risk-taking mindset.

In the study by Duval-Couetil et al. (2012), more than two-thirds of the students (of whom some had had no exposure to entrepreneurship and some had completed one or more entrepreneurship courses) did not show interest in being involved in entrepreneurial activity after graduation but preferred to work for medium-sized or large businesses. This finding may be seen as broadly compatible with our results since exposure to the entrepreneurship boot camp module had a minimum to moderate impact on the enterprising characteristics of our students.

Our female Omani students’ enterprising scores in different areas were not in the higher ranges but closer to average values. While, as noted above, this is broadly consistent with the study by Duval-Couetil et al. (2012), in Williams’s (2015) study, second-year business and management undergraduate students demonstrated a remarkable improvement in their enterprising orientation after an entrepreneurship simulation gaming course. In another study, carried out in the United Kingdom by Smith et al. (2014), Master’s and PhD students from different disciplines exhibited stronger development of their enterprising tendencies.

The results of the t-test statistical analyses performed on the integrated data are presented in Table 3. The Levene’s test and two-tailed significance values are higher than 0.05, which indicates that the variability in the two conditions is similar. The t-test results are based on having equal variances as both pre and post survey results were derived from the same statistical population. Given the negative t-values, there is no significant difference between the two conditions.

Table 3.

Statistical analysis of integrated data.

	Levene’s test for equality of variances		t-test for equality of means
	F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean difference	Standard error difference	95% Confidence interval of the difference
	F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean difference	Standard error difference	Lower	Upper
Need for achievement	0.15	0.70	−0.59	52	0.55	−2.78	4.67	−12.16	6.60
Need for autonomy	0.40	0.53	−0.14	52	0.89	−0.74	5.20	−11.17	9.69
Creativity	0.04	0.85	−1.12	52	0.27	−4.30	3.84	−12.00	3.41
Risk-taking	0.08	0.78	−1.55	52	0.13	−7.56	4.86	−17.31	2.20
Control locus	0.04	0.85	−0.69	52	0.50	−3.11	4.50	−12.13	5.91
Total enterprising tendency	0.33	0.57	−1.34	52	0.19	−4.30	3.21	−10.75	2.15

With regard to the 95% confidence interval, the results in Table 3 indicate that there is no remarkable change in the tested parameter between the sample groups. Therefore, all the t-test-calculated parameters specify that there were no significant changes in students’ entrepreneurial characteristics pre- and post-module delivery. In comparison, the t-test results from the similar study by Williams (2015) show significant values and significant (two-tailed) values lower than 0.05 for almost all entrepreneurial factors, indicating a significant difference between the pre and post situations. Also, Williams’s findings for lower and upper boundaries within a 95% confidence interval of difference illustrate a remarkable improvement in scores.

Qualitative analysis

The feedback collected from the student interviews is categorized into three themes: “entrepreneurial factors”—the attainment of entrepreneurial concepts, the timing of the module, and the duration of the module (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Feedback themes from the student interviews.

Entrepreneurial factors

Analysis of the qualitative data shows that 11 participants discussed the importance of entrepreneurial factors. The theme of “entrepreneurial factors” focuses on learning from a content perspective and how the module shaped perspectives on entrepreneurship. More specifically, students mentioned the importance of such learning for their economic success. This is exemplified by Participant 1:

As an engineering student, I have never thought about entrepreneurship and the importance of it in the economic success of industrial technologies but since taking this module, I believe this will help me to improve my skills.

Another common theme was their enjoyment of the module and its delivery:

This is very interesting that entrepreneurship can be learned through an educational framework. (Participant 2)

I enjoyed every session particularly those with invited speakers […] telling their successful entrepreneurial experiences and how they overcome the challenges by taking risks and implementing their creative ideas. (Participant 3)

More specifically, the students’ engagement with the module reflects their recognition of their enterprising characteristics and they referred in their responses to improvements in those characteristics:

Learning about how we can strengthen our enterprising tendencies by reinforcing our creativity, risk-taking abilities, need for achievement and autonomy have been the best outcome of this module for me so far. (Participant 4)

This module showed us there are links between entrepreneurial characteristics and a couple of psychological factors such as risk-taking and need for autonomy. That would have been better if the module provided guidance on how practically we could improve these factors to become successful entrepreneurs. (Participant 5)

Timing of the module

The quantitative results from the t-test indicated minor to moderate improvements in the students’ enterprising characteristics. This could be due to the timing of the module, which was scheduled during a busy period of the semester when students were working on many assignments and project submissions for another module. Seven out of twenty-seven students mentioned this in their interviews. For example:

I felt I would have been more dedicated to the module if it wasn’t at this busy time of the year […] as we had many other deadlines and were unable to fully commit. (Participant 5)

Some suggested that the module should be offered at the beginning of the semester or during the summer season:

This module is good, but I think it is not the right time to take it. Why don’t we do this course at the beginning of the semester? (Participant 6)

The time that was chosen for this module was not suitable. We would prefer to study it for a week in the summer or during a time when we are less pressured. (Participant 7)

Duration of the module

Another factor that could potentially hinder students’ learning was the duration of the module. While there was a moderate positive impact on the students’ attitude to risk-taking, it seems that other entrepreneurial factors, such as the need for achievement, the need for autonomy, and the control locus, required more practice and further justification for the content to be fully appreciated by the engineering students. Twelve interviewees pointed this out, with one commenting:

I think it would be better if this module was longer and more detailed. Therefore, we could learn more about the details and bring the outcomes from the theoretical to the practical level. (Participant 8)

The qualitative data analysis reflects the varying levels of students’ satisfaction with the entrepreneurship module as well as the obstacles they were struggling against to acquire further information. On the other hand, the quantitative analysis from the pre and post surveys indicated minor to moderate improvements in the attainment of entrepreneurial attributes by the female students, with the highest impact on risk-taking ability (13.8% improvement) and the lowest on the need for autonomy (2% improvement). The main cause of these limited improvements seems to have been the relatively short duration of the boot camp module. Although the survey results confirmed the effectiveness of the module in satisfying the entrepreneurial mindset training goals over a semester, some students expressed concerns about the length of time they had to commit to complete the module assessments.

Conclusion and recommendations

The entrepreneurship orientation of female undergraduate engineering students was assessed by conducting pre and post surveys and semi-structured interviews. Our findings were that (a) there were minor to moderate improvements in the students’ enterprising characteristics and (b) the students did not exhibit any significant appreciation of the entrepreneurship module. In the academic and professional STEM environment, where there remains an imbalance in the workforce between males and females, the concentration of this study on equipping female students with entrepreneurship education, especially in the Arab region, provides refreshing insights and opportunities to develop more effective enterprise education programs.

The most notable improvement effected by the module was in students’ risk-taking ability (13.8%), indicating that the students had become more willing to take risks after they had understood the nature and potential outcomes of entrepreneurship. Barba-Sáncheza and Atienza-Sahuquillob (2018) and Jones and English (2004) argue that risk-taking can be encouraged by practice-based teaching and learning methods, including interactive live assessments and the use of local guest speakers with a relevant technical background (e.g. engineering). Although risk-taking is an important factor in entrepreneurship, however, it might be a detrimental attribute in engineering practice, in which safety is paramount. This tension can be addressed from different perspectives. As mentioned earlier, risk can be classified in terms of, for example, personal, capital, psychological, and social risk, so that, when entrepreneurship education focuses on the enhancement of risk-taking abilities among engineering students, it is critical to distinguish between the different types of risks and to emphasize the need to avoid technical risk (“safety hazards” in engineering terminology). Also, there are calculated risks and there are “wild” risks: it is crucial for engineering students to assess every aspect of a decision so that they avoid wild risks and focus on strengthening their calculated risk-taking potential. This could be a subject for further studies in enterprise education. Among the other enterprising characteristics, creativity (5.9% improvement) was in second place, followed by control locus (4.8%), the need for achievement (4.6%), and, lastly, the need for autonomy (2%). This minimal improvement in students’ need for autonomy could be attributable to gender roles and cultural factors in traditional Arab societies.

The overall nonsignificant improvement in the students’ enterprise tendencies indicates that these female engineering students were not sufficiently motivated to engage in enterprise education. This may be attributable to the demands of other tasks and activities, such as examination pressure from core modules in engineering. It may be also be because the students’ exposure to entrepreneurship learning was too early: these students had yet to become fully engaged in their core engineering courses and, further, were not aware of how to apply their understanding of entrepreneurship to the field of engineering. However, students with a background knowledge of business education might benefit more from such programs (Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Education, 2006). Universities might take these considerations into account when planning and offering entrepreneurship modules to undergraduate students.

Recommendations

This study provides insights into how to develop enterprising characteristics in nonbusiness students. Based on our findings, we offer the following recommendations.

Entrepreneurial factors: During the module, emphasis should be placed on the importance of enterprising characteristics such as creativity, the need for autonomy, the control locus, the need for achievement and risk-taking ability, and their function in developing an entrepreneurial mindset.

Interactive mentorship: Since invited speakers positively influenced and inspired the engineering students, interactive mentorship between students and nonacademic entrepreneurs could help to further the development of enterprising characteristics. Students can simultaneously appreciate the adversities and advantages in entrepreneurship and can learn about the mindsets and strategies of industry-based entrepreneurs.

Timing of module: Based on our qualitative findings, students struggled with the intensive block delivery boot camp approach during 1 week while also preparing for examinations at the end of an academic semester. We will recommend changing the scheduling of the module and will examine the data set deriving from future studies to assess any changes in learning effectiveness. Also, we propose to provide the module for students at a later stage of their undergraduate programs (in this study, the students were in their first year).

Extending module delivery: A 1-week block delivery model may be better suited to students with business backgrounds, while it may restrict the benefits for engineering students with no previous exposure to entrepreneurship concepts. Extending the duration of the module to a whole semester and introducing its significance gradually throughout the degree program could help students to develop a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. Extending the duration in this way would allow lecturers to deliver workshops on the fundamentals of business issues prior to the delivery of the entrepreneurship module itself.

Different engineering cohorts: Conducting research on different groups of students from various engineering majors (chemical, mechanical, electrical engineering, etc.) will provide an opportunity to distinguish between the entrepreneurial abilities of students from different academic programs, followed by contextual fine-tuning if required and feasible.

Structural changes: Given the above recommendations to extend the duration of the delivery, to change the timing of the module, and to provide business workshops or a pre-entrepreneurship session, it would be beneficial in future studies to repeat the analyses following such changes and then reevaluate these variables.

Use of theoretical models: A future version of this study might adopt Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior. This theory has been empirically tested for a wide range of activities in different sectors with a common finding that the intention to perform an activity is a strong predictor of actual behavior. Based on the position of Williamson et al. (2013) that the theory has not been empirically proven for enterprise education and enterprise creation, we propose further research to fill this gap.

Limitations

This study is limited by its sample size and its bias toward females in a single university, and the results are therefore not generalizable. However, the work could be enriched by developing gender comparisons, increasing the sample size, comparing engineering cohorts, and also assessing the impact of the structural changes identified in our recommendations. Since the module studied was delivered for the first time to engineering students in the Sultanate of Oman, the sample size for this study was necessarily limited: increasing sample sizes will provide more reliable evaluations of the program. We further intend to compare Omani males and females from a similar background to analyze similarities and differences in their enterprising characteristics and tendencies.

As this pilot study was conducted to ascertain the effectiveness of our program of study, we believe that the outcome of this research will encourage a dialogue with other institutions and academics in engineering and entrepreneurship disciplines. As the course-specific evaluations measured shorter-term outcomes alone and, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that effectively measure the value and scale of economic impacts, we propose to develop a quasi-experimental longitudinal research project at an institutional level that would cover “a wider range of outcomes which may be related to course delivery, university context, self-selection and prior perceptions of entrepreneurship” (Williamson et al. 2013: 29).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Naveed Yasin

References

Aceituno-Aceituno

Bousoño-Calzón

Herrera-Gálvez

(2015) Una propuesta para impulsar el espíritu emprendedor y la capacitación en el futuro de la profesión periodística. Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico 21(2): 929–942.

Aceituno-Aceituno

Casero-Ripollés

Escudero-Garzás

, et al. (2018) Formación universitaria sobre el emprendimiento en proyectos empresariales de comunicación y periodismo. Comunicar. Revista Científica de Comunicación y Educación XXVI(57): 91–100.

Audet

(2004) A Longitudinal study of the entrepreneurial intentions of university students. Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal 10(1–2): 3–6.

Bakheet

(2018) Relationship between attitudes and intentions for business start-up: a case of Omani university and college students. Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal 24(2).

Barba-Sáncheza

Atienza-Sahuquillob

(2018) Entrepreneurial intention among engineering students: the role of entrepreneurship education. European Research on Management and Business Economics 24: 53–61.

Barnes

de-Villiers-Scheepers

(2017) Tackling uncertainty for journalism graduates: a model for teaching experiential entrepreneurship. Journalism Practice 12: 94–114.

Bastian

Sidani

El Amine

(2018) Women entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa: a review of knowledge areas and research gap. Gender in Management, 33(1): 14–29.

Bird

(1995) Towards a theory of entrepreneurial competency. Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth 2: 51–72.

Byers

Seelig

Sheppard

, et al. (2013) Entrepreneurship: Its Role in Engineering Education. Bridg., no. Summer 2013.

10.

Carlsson

(2005) developing information systems design knowledge: a critical realist perspective. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methodology 3(2): 93–102.

11.

Chamber of Commerce and Ministry of Education (2006) Fomento del Espíritu Emprendedor en la Escuela. Available at: https://sede.educacion.gob.es/publiventa/d/13411/19/1 (accessed 14 May 2019).

12.

Chell

Athayde

(2009) The Identification and Measurement of Innovative Characteristics of Young People: Development of the Youth Innovation Skills Measurement Tool. London: NESTA.

13.

Cochran

(2019) What’s gender got to do with it? The experience of US women entrepreneurship students. Journal of Small Business Management 57: 111–129.

14.

Cowling

(2009) The impact of entrepreneurship training and small business experience on future entrepreneurial activity in the UK. IES Working Paper .

15.

Creed

Suuberg

Crawford

(2002) Engineering entrepreneurship: an example of a paradigm shift in engineering education. Journal of Engineering Education 91(2): 185–195.

16.

Curşeu

Vermeulen

PAM

Bakker

(2008) The psychology of entrepreneurial strategic decisions. In: Vermeulen

PAM

Curşeu

(ed) Entrepreneurial Strategic Decision-Making: a Cognitive Perspective. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, pp. 41–67.

17.

Dabbagh

Menascé

(2006) Student perceptions of engineering entrepreneurship: an exploratory study. Journal of Engineering Education 95(2): 153–164.

18.

Duval-Couetil

Reed-Rhoads

Haghighi

(2012) Engineering students and entrepreneurship education: involvement, attitude, and outcome. International Journal of Engineering Education 28(2): 425–435.

19.

European Commission (2012) Effects and Impact of Entrepreneurship Programmes in Higher Education. the Netherlands: European Commission - DG Enterprise and Industry by EIM Business & Policy Research.

20.

Fayolle

Gailly

Lassas-Clerc

(2006) Assessing the impact of entrepreneurship education programmes: a new methodology, Journal of European Industrial Training 30(8): 701–720.

21.

Gartner

(1985) A conceptual framework for describing the phenomenon of new venture creation. Academy of Management Review 10: 696–706.

22.

Gasse

(1982) Elaboration on the psychology of entrepreneurship, In: Kent

CAD

Sexton

Vesper

(eds) Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship. Englewood Cliffs, pp. 209–223.

23.

Hamzah

Yahya

Sarip

, et al. (2016) Impact of entrepreneurship education programme (EEP) on entrepreneurial intention of real estate graduates. Pacific Rim Property Research Journal 22(1): 17–29.

24.

Henry

Hil

Leitch

(2005) Entrepreneurship education and training: Can entrepreneurship be taught? Education and Training 47: 98–111.

25.

Hornaday

Aboud

(1971) Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. Personnel Psychology 24: 141–153.

26.

Jarrar

Anis

(2016) The impact of entrepreneurship on engineering education. In: The Impact of Entrepreneurship on Engineering Education, Proc. Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA16) Conf., Paper 098 Dalhousie University.

27.

Jones

English

(2004) A contemporary approach to entrepreneurship education. Education and Training 46(8/9): 416–423.

28.

King

Levine

(1993) Finance, entrepreneurship and growth, theory and evidence. Journal of Monetary Economics 32: 513–542.

29.

Kirby

(2004) Entrepreneurship education: Can business schools meet the challenge? Education and Training 46: 510–519.

30.

Lean

(2012) Preparing for an uncertain future: the enterprising Ph.D. student. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 19(3): 532–548.

31.

Levie

(2004) Entrepreneurship for engineering students at the University of Strathclyde. In: Leading Practices in Engineering Entrepreneurship Education. Lisbon, Portugal: COTEC conference on Engineering Entrepreneurship Education, September 6, 2004, pp. 75–88.

32.

Low

MacMillan

(1988) Entrepreneurship: past research and future challenges. Journal of Management 14(2): 139–161. DOI:10.1177/014920638801400202.

33.

Lumpkin

Dess

(1996) Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. The Academy of Management Review 21(1): 135–172.

34.

Luryi

Tang

Lifshitz

, et al. (2007) Entrepreneurship in engineering education. In: Frontiers in Education Conference 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Milwaukee, 10–13 October 2007.

35.

Mason

Berry

Bunch

(1999) Innovation and entrepreneurship for engineers. In: NCIIA Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., 11-13 March 1999.

36.

Mat Junoh

MZH

(2008) Entrepreneurship and innovation for engineers: an integrated approach in entrepreneurship education.

37.

Mbuya

Schachtebeck

(2016) Future entrepreneurs: Does the field of study matter? A comparison of students in a South African urban environment. Problems and Perspectives in Management 14(2): 228–235.

38.

Miles

Huberman

(1994) Qualitative Data Analysis, 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

39.

Morrisson

(1986) Making managers of engineer. Journal of Management in Engineering 2(4): 259–264.

40.

Mosly

(2017) The significance of including an entrepreneurship course in engineering programs. Higher Education Studies 7(4).

41.

Moss-Racusin

Dovidio

Brescoll

, et al. (2012) Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 109(41): 16474–16479.

42.

Nabi

Linan

Fayolle

, et al. (2017) The impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education: a systematic review and research agenda. Academy of Management Learning and Education 16(18): 277–299.

43.

Nerad

Heggelund

(2008) Toward a Global Ph.D.?: Forces and Forms in Doctoral Education Worldwide. Washington, DC: University of Washington Press.

44.

Nezami

Tavakoli

Torfeh

(2016) Developing an entrepreneurial mindset in industrial engineering classes: a case study. Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Presentations And Conference Materials, 2016 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Paper ID #15493.

45.

Schweitzer

Lyon

(2010) New generation, great expectations: a field study of the Millennial Generation. Journal of Business and Psychology 25(2): 281–292.

46.

Oosterbeek

Van Praag

Ijsselstein

(2010) The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship skills and motivation. European Economic Review 54(3): 442–454.

47.

Oosterbeek

Van Praag

Ijsselstein

(2008) The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurship competencies and intentions: an evaluation of the junior achievement student mini-company program. IZA DP No. 3641 .

48.

Phillips

(2010) Encouraging a more enterprising researcher: the implementation of an integrated training programme of enterprise for Ph.D. and postdoctoral researchers. Research in Post-Compulsory Education 15(3): 289–299.

49.

Quezada-Sarmiento

Mengual-Andrés

(2018) Fomento de la innovación y competencias de emprendimiento en los profesionales en formación en Ingeniería de Software: Un enfoque de la Academia y Cuerpos de Conocimiento. Revista Espacios 39(06): 7–12.

50.

Roberts

(2002) SET for Success. London: HM Treasury.

51.

Smith

Williams

Yasin

, et al. (2014) Enterprise skills and training needs of postgraduate research students. Education. Education and Training 56 (8/9): 745–763.

52.

Thune

(2010) The training of Triple Helix Workers? Doctoral students in University-Industry– Government Collaborations. Minerva 48(4): 463–483.

53.

Venkatesh

Brown

Bala

(2013) Bridging the qualitative–quantitative divide: guidelines for conducting mixed methods research in information systems. MIS Quarterly 37(1): 21–54.

54.

Vesper

Gartner

(1997) Measuring progress in entrepreneurship education. Journal of Business Venturing 12(5): 403–421.

55.

von Graevenitz

Harhoff

Weber

(2010) The effects of entrepreneurship education. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 76(1): 90–112.

56.

Wang

Wong

(2004) Entrepreneurial interest of university students in Singapore. Technovation 24(2): 163–172.

57.

Williams

(2015) The impact of SimVenture on the development of entrepreneurial skills in management students. Industry and Higher Education 29(5): 379–395.

58.

Williams

Smith

Yasin

, et al. (2013) Evaluating the state of enterprise training for post-graduate researchers, Education and Training 55(8/9): 849–867.

59.

Williams

Ceci

(2012) When science choose mother-hood. American Scientist 100(2): 138–145.

60.

Williamson

Beadle

Charalambous

(2013) Enterprise Education Impact in Higher Education and Further Education. Final Report for the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills by of ICF GHK. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208715/bis-13-904-enterprise-education-impact-in-higher-education-and-further-education.pdf.

61.

Wilson

(2008) Entrepreneurship Education in Europe. Entrepreneurship and Higher Education. Paris, France: OECD, pp. 98–115.

62.

Wilson

(2012) Wilson review of business-university collaboration. Available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/32383/12-610-wilson-review-business-university-collaboration.pdf (accessed 20 April 2014).

63.

Yasin

Hafeez

(2018) Enterprise simulation gaming: effective practices for assessing student learning with SimVenture Classic and VentureBlocks. In: Hyams-Ssekasi

Caldwell

(eds) Experiential Learning for Entrepreneurship. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

64.

Zalevski

Swiszczowski

(2009) Gender and attitudes to enterprise: a survey of UK doctorate students in science, engineering, and technology. Equal Opportunities International 28(1): 65–79.

65.

Zhang

Duysters

Cloodt

MMAH

(2014) The role of entrepreneurship education as a predictor of university students’ entrepreneurial intention. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal 10(3): 623–641.