First-year business students' entrepreneurial attitudes

Entrepreneurial competences consist of attitudes, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills. Several higher education insitutions support and promote students' learning of entrepreneurial competences during their studies. In order to verify the development of these competences they should be first examined at the early phase of the studies. Therefore, in the autumn 2017 when a new curriculum was launched in the business department of a Finnish university of applied sciences, a follow-up study with three substudies was planned to annually survey students' attitudes towards entrepreneurship, generic competences and subject-specific competences of entrepreneurship. This article presents the results of the first sub-study which examined the first-year students' attitudes in the beginning of their studies. According to the findings, it seems that all in all their attitudes towards entrepreneurship are quite positive. Although the aim is not to generalize the results of the study beyond this student group, the findings provide a solid starting point for the implementation of the curriculum in t0068is higher education institution, and thus, for the development of students' even more positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship during their studies.