Entrepreneurship among BSU Graduate Business Students: Self-Perception of Skills and Impact of the Graduate Business Program

A study was conducted to determine the perception of BSU business graduate students regarding entrepreneurship: what entrepreneurial characteristic they possess, how this correlates with their demographic profile; and how the graduate program contributes to its development. A modified questionnaire of Bajaro (2009) was administered to 55 graduate students in the first semester of the school year 2010-2011. Results show the BSU graduate students do not possess characteristics typical of entrepreneurs and are thus, not entrepreneurially inclined. Their entrepreneurial characteristics do not correlate with their demographic profile, except for one characteristic, “Risk-taking” that shows significant correlation with “community-business related training/exposure”. The BSU business graduate program was perceived to have limited contribution towards the development of their entrepreneurial characteristics. These findings indicate a very narrow playfield for improvements to be worked on that would have impact on entrepreneurship development. The graduate program may have to capitalize on the significant finding on the impact of “community-business related training/ exposure” to “risk-taking” and formulate more activities towards this end as it is these activities that could reach out to the needs of these business graduate students.