Jorge Jarpa V, Christian Cancino, Katherine Alvarez Ruf
The scientific literature has studied the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of university students analysing their personal characteristics, the ability to generate networks, leadership and risk propensity. Less has been studied regarding the contexts presented by universities to foster entrepreneurial abilities in their students. The aim of this study is to analyse the entrepreneurial context (EC) in universities and measure the EI of public versus private university students in Chile. To do this, a study with a new construct was applied to test a reliability analysis, considering five dimensions of entrepreneurial sub-contexts (ESC), taking 415 students as the sample from two recognized universities in Chile. The results show that entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial sub-contexts were statistically significant differences between public and private universities. Each entrepreneurial sub-context identified may contribute to create a favourable atmosphere to entrepreneurial intention. Since the university context may influence students to become an employees or entrepreneurs, universities can be seen as potential sources of future entrepreneurs. Finally, this study recommends universities consider each entrepreneurial sub-context identified, in order to improve students’ entrepreneurial intention in the next years of economy recovery after COVID-19.