The cognitive base of educational background and its impact on entrepreneurial knowledge structures

Loi, Michela

;Cogoni, Marco;Di Guardo, Maria Chiara;Filatotchev, Igor

2019-01-01

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Abstract

Prior research in entrepreneurship suggests that the type of educational background is conducive for different cognitive bases. However, very few studies have produced empirical support for this assumption, and existing research does not define what these cognitive differences refer to. With this study, we aim to address these theoretical and empirical gaps. In a sample of 575 university students wishing to attend an entrepreneurship education program, we found that the fields of academic specialization have an impact on students’ knowledge structures, operationalized as the way of organizing a set of non-technical concepts related to entrepreneurship. Students in humanities exhibit significant differences from their peers with backgrounds in engineering, hard and social sciences. At the same time, students outside the humanities show homogeneous cognitive patterns. Important implications related to entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial cognition are discussed.