M. Tech. (Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology / Whilst entrepreneurial education has received a fair amount of attention both locally and internationally, there is, surprisingly, still no universally accepted curriculum dedicated to aspiring entrepreneurs at universities which adequately exposes students to an environment that encourages new venture creation. Furthermore, disparities continue to exist in the quality of entrepreneurship education programmes on offer within higher education institutions in South Africa, particularly in curriculum design, delivery methods and forms of assessment. Moreover, an entrepreneurial culture in South Africa has not yet reached the desired national level in comparison to entrepreneurship in other developed nations. This study examines the influence of entrepreneurial-related programmes on students’ intentions to venture into new business creation. This study is located within a quantitative descriptive research paradigm, which permits the testing of relationships among the various constructs through a structured questionnaire. The sample was drawn from final year students of the Faculty of Management Sciences at a university who were studying various business-related programmes in which modules on entrepreneurship were compulsory. Variables included in the study focused on the entrepreneurial content of the curriculum, attitude towards entrepreneurship, intentions towards entrepreneurship and general self-efficacy. Data provided by 263 respondents was analysed using correlation and regression analyses. The results revealed a weak predictive relationship between the entrepreneurial content of the curriculum and the attitude of students to venture into new business creation. In addition, students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship showed low levels of prediction of students’ intentions towards entrepreneurship. Finally, the results showed that students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy did not appear to influence their attitude towards entrepreneurship. A possible reason for these results may be the notion that not enough enthusiasm is generated in students because the modules in entrepreneurship, whilst compulsory, are not offered as majors in the curriculum, unlike in dedicated entrepreneurship programmes. The major challenge in entrepreneurship programmes is the appropriateness of the content of the curriculum in developing student’s attitude towards entrepreneurship. Students who are not exposed to the content of the curriculum that allows the commercial use of entrepreneurial knowledge demonstrate a weak attitude towards entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial content of the curriculum should be enhanced with improved teaching delivery modes that enable students to gain hands-on experience by seeing, touching and ‘feeling’ the business world. Contents of the curriculum should be designed to include learning outcomes which are for entrepreneurship rather than about entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurial content of the curriculum which is developed for entrepreneurship deals with real entrepreneurial activity and produces students who have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship. In order to enhance the status of entrepreneurship, curriculum developers should include various aspects of entrepreneurship in all years of the students’ study programme. In order for entrepreneurship to be given ‘life’, provision should be made to support incubation start-ups at the university level with practical training. The feasibility of offering a practical, hands-on entrepreneurship programme should be explored.

Orientador : Prof. Dr. Márcia Maria dos Santos Bortolocci Espejo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Contabilidade. Defesa: Curitiba, 2016 / Inclui referências : f. 102-115 / Área de concentração : Contabilidade e finanças / Resumo: A literatura tem descrito que, apesar de as micro e pequenas empresas (MPEs) serem reconhecidas como um fator fundamental para a economia de um país (Berrone et al., 2014), muitos são os desafios enfrentados, acarretando o fechamento de uma grande parcela dessas empresas (Mizumoto et al., 2010). O objetivo da presente pesquisa consiste em verificar os determinantes de desempenho de MPEs relativos às características do empreendedor-gestor (motivação para empreender, capital humano e capital social) e o controle gerencial. Com base na amostra de 311 empresas localizadas na região noroeste do estado do Paraná, realizou-se um estudo de cunho epistemológico positivista e quantitativo por meio de um questionário respondido pelos empreendedores-gestores das MPEs. Para análise dos dados, empregaram-se a estatística descritiva e a técnica de Modelagem de Equações Estruturais. Algumas variáveis mostraram-se estatisticamente significantes para explicar o desempenho - dentre elas, o capital social e, principalmente, a adoção de Proxies de controle gerencial, ou seja, parâmetros que os empreendedores-gestores utilizam para subsidiar a tomada de decisão, adaptadas à estrutura limitada das MPEs. Os resultados também indicaram que o capital humano, quando associado às proxies de controle gerencial, afeta positivamente o desempenho, da mesma forma que a motivação por necessidade, quando associada ao capital social do empreendedorgestor e às proxies de controle gerencial, enfatizando o impacto conjunto das características do empreendedor-gestor (motivação para empreender, capital humano e capital social) e do controle gerencial no desempenho das micro e pequenas empresas. Palavras-chave: Empreendedor. Motivação para empreender. Capital Social, Capital Humano. Controle Gerencial. Desempenho. / Abstract: The literature has been writing that despite the micro and small enterprises (MSEs) are recognized as a key factor in the economy of a country (Berrone, Gertel, Giuliodori, Bernard & Meiners, 2014), there are many challenges, resulting the closure of a large portion of these companies (Mizumoto, Arts, Lazzarini & Hashimoto, 2010)). The aim of this research is to verify the determinants of MSE performance for the characteristics of the entrepreneur-manager (motivation to undertake, human capital and social capital) and management control. It was carried out a study of quantitative and positivist epistemological through a questionnaire answered by MSE entrepreneursmanagers based on the sample of 311 companies located in the northwest of Paraná state. For data analysis, it was used descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling technique. Some variables were statistically significant to explain the performance - among them the social capital and especially the adoption of management control proxies, which are parameters that entrepreneurs-managers use to support decision making, adapted to the limited structure of MSE. The results also indicated that human capital when associated with management control proxies positively affect performance, in the same way when the motivation for necessity is associated to the social capital of the entrepreneur-manager and the management control proxy, emphasizing the combined impact of entrepreneur-manager characteristics (motivation to undertake, human capital and social capital) and management control in the performance of micro and small businesses. Keywords: Entrepreneur. Motivation to undertake. Social Capital, Human Capital. Management control. Performance.

Le processus de création d’une entreprise par une équipe d’entrepreneurs est un phénomène multidimensionnel. A cet effet, cette recherche essaye de classifier les équipes entrepreneuriales, de déterminer les différents facteurs favorisant la prise de décision d’équiprendre et d’extraire les processus d’engagement équipreneurial à partir des perceptions des équipreneurs. La vérification adopte une approche qualitative par l’intermédiaire d’un entretien approfondi et son analyse sur la base de l’approche avancée par Miles et Huberman (2003) et des analyses lexicales et linguistiques par l’intermédiaire de deux logiciels : IRamuteQ et TROPES. Les résultats mettent en relief deux formes équipreneuriales : les entreprises équipreneuriales et les entreprises collectives. Le processus de création varie selon cette typologie. En effet, cette étude essaie de rechercher un processus type qui prédit le mieux la création d’entreprise en équipe et qui peut être utile aux opérateurs en entrepreneuriat. / The process of firm creation by a team of entrepreneurs is a multidimensional phenomenon. This search tries to classify the entrepreneurial teams, to determine the various factors favoring the decision-making of team entrepreneurship and to extract the processes of entrepreneurial team commitment from the perceptions of the teams. The verification adopts a qualitative approach through an in-depth interviews analysis based on the approach presented by Miles and Huberman (2003) and lexical and linguistic analyses through two software: IRamuteQ and TROPES. The results demonstrate two forms of entrepreneurial teams: ‘’equipreneurial’’ firms and collective firms. The process of creation varies according to this typology. Indeed, this study tries to look for a typical process which predicts the new firm creation by a team and which can be useful for the operators in entrepreneurship.