Assessing the influence of institutions on students' entrepreneurial dynamics: evidence from European post-socialist and market-oriented economies

Plain English Summary This paper extends the university entrepreneurship research by theorizing the influence of institutional conditions (environments where students are mostly exposed at university and country-level) on students' entrepreneurship dynamics (e.g., nascent and active), as well as the moderation effect of the type of economy (e.g., post-socialist and marked-oriented). This study shows the crucial role of informal institutions in the country (societal perceptions) and university (students' perception) on students' entrepreneurial dynamics. Several implications emerge from this study. First, policymakers should realize that students' entrepreneurship is a multi-level phenomenon affected by individual- university- and country-level factors in implementing policy frameworks that cultivate pro-entrepreneurial values in post-socialist economies. Second, for university managers, results open a window for the re-consideration of university budgets and performance indicators in the configuration of entrepreneurial education programs with more action-oriented approaches to stimulate students' interest and perceived self-efficacy to pursue this career path. This paper theorizes how institutional conditions influence students' entrepreneurship dynamics (e.g., nascent and active), especially these institutional conditions related to environments where students are mostly exposed (e.g., university and country), as well as the moderation effect of the type of economy (e.g., post-socialist and marked-oriented). We tested our proposed theoretical model in a sample of 91,105 students from 557 European universities located in nine post-socialist economies and nine market-oriented economies. The results show the important role of informal institutions in the country (societal perceptions) and university (students' perception) on students' entrepreneurial dynamics, especially the moderation of post-socialist and market-oriented economies on the informal institutions that influence nascent entrepreneurs. Several implications for policymakers and university managers emerge from this study.