Entrepreneurship has played an important role in economic prosperity and social stability in many developed countries. Today South Africa as developing country is faced with massive challenges of high levels of unemployment among the youth, especially university graduates, due to lack of work experience, low skills base and education. The formal labour market in South Africa is currently saturated, unable to absorb the ever increasing number of labour force; hence, the decision by the government to prioritise the development and support of small medium enterprises. Beside all these interventions, South Africa is still ranked among the lowest of all developing countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Today entrepreneurship is offered in most of the universities as part of the curriculum but it is evident that levels of entrepreneurship are still not improving in the country. There has been an upward trend in the number of young South Africans entering higher education; this can be attributed to the poor market conditions for low–skilled workers and the high monetary benefits to education. The daunting observation is that while the graduate labour force is on the rise, a large number of graduates possessing diplomas and degrees are finding it difficult to find employment. Graduate unemployment in South Africa has been rising very fast since 1995 along with national unemployment. In this study the entrepreneur was used casually to refer to the owner or creator of a new business, small, growing, and successful business. This includes any person who sets up a small business, or changes from being an employee of an organisation to being self employed, even though neither needs any significant degree of innovation nor capital. Risk taking and risk tolerance is one component of entrepreneurship that is very critical, hence there is a need for more attention in the entrepreneurial education. In the discovery perspective, cognition has impact on the chance that some people will identify and seize the opportunity. Opportunity identification depends on prior awareness and knowledge, whilst exploitation depends on having the necessary ii capabilities. Entrepreneurs should be able to read and recognise patterns for them to recognise opportunities. Profile of an entrepreneur and skills required are technical skills, perseverance, communication skills, managerial skills, leadership skills, innovative skills, pro–activity, information seeking skills, and financial skills. The primary objective of this study was to assess the attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship among students in a higher education institution in the Sedibeng District of the Gauteng Province. The empirical study was conducted among the population and recommendations on entrepreneurial education were compiled. The survey was conducted using a self–completion questionnaire method, whereby questionnaires are handed out to respondents for self–completion and returned to the researcher immediately. In an effort to encourage high response, the questionnaire was accompanied by a cover letter which assured the respondents of confidentiality. An attitude scale to test the prevalence of entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions among the respondents was used. The Likert scale was used whereby the respondents were asked to rate a particular issue on a scale that ranged from strongly disagrees to strongly agree. The majority of the respondents are predominantly young Africans, from low income families with only few parents that made it to university level, and mostly not involved in entrepreneurship. The gap exists with regard to equipping the respondents with entrepreneurial education and training. The university and other stakeholders should create an environment that is supportive towards entrepreneurial activities. There are still many business opportunities that need to be explored in South Africa but the biggest challenge remains the access to knowledge and information with regard to available support structures. Tertiary institutions should: Develop start–up capital systems for students whilst studying. The curriculum design should support employability skills such as languages, starting your own businesses, presentation skills, creativity and leadership abilities, specific qualifications focusing on business creation should be developed, case studies should focus more on opportunity orientated ideas and business and lecturing staff should be empowered to support entrepreneurial activities in their respective fields. Databases of possible business ideas should be developed. A conceptual research model that will support accelerated youth entrepreneurship should be developed in the country and research institutions should be contracted to populate this research model. Furthermore, government regulations should be tested regarding their impact on youth entrepreneurship development as a standard item. Fresh approaches are thus needed to stimulate youth entrepreneurship in rural areas. Therefore, policies and programmes to encourage youth entrepreneurship in these areas should be researched. National competitions for youth entrepreneurs should be encouraged and visible events should be organised such as enterprise weeks at tertiary educational institutions. Tertiary institutions can also investigate the possibility of business hives for students or allowing students businesses to operate on campuses for the duration of their studies. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Entrepreneurship has played an important role in economic prosperity and social stability in many developed countries. Today South Africa as developing country is faced with massive challenges of high levels of unemployment among the youth, especially university graduates, due to lack of work experience, low skills base and education. The formal labour market in South Africa is currently saturated, unable to absorb the ever increasing number of labour force; hence, the decision by the government to prioritise the development and support of small medium enterprises. Beside all these interventions, South Africa is still ranked among the lowest of all developing countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). Today entrepreneurship is offered in most of the universities as part of the curriculum but it is evident that levels of entrepreneurship are still not improving in the country. There has been an upward trend in the number of young South Africans entering higher education; this can be attributed to the poor market conditions for low–skilled workers and the high monetary benefits to education. The daunting observation is that while the graduate labour force is on the rise, a large number of graduates possessing diplomas and degrees are finding it difficult to find employment. Graduate unemployment in South Africa has been rising very fast since 1995 along with national unemployment. In this study the entrepreneur was used casually to refer to the owner or creator of a new business, small, growing, and successful business. This includes any person who sets up a small business, or changes from being an employee of an organisation to being self employed, even though neither needs any significant degree of innovation nor capital. Risk taking and risk tolerance is one component of entrepreneurship that is very critical, hence there is a need for more attention in the entrepreneurial education. In the discovery perspective, cognition has impact on the chance that some people will identify and seize the opportunity. Opportunity identification depends on prior awareness and knowledge, whilst exploitation depends on having the necessary ii capabilities. Entrepreneurs should be able to read and recognise patterns for them to recognise opportunities. Profile of an entrepreneur and skills required are technical skills, perseverance, communication skills, managerial skills, leadership skills, innovative skills, pro–activity, information seeking skills, and financial skills. The primary objective of this study was to assess the attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship among students in a higher education institution in the Sedibeng District of the Gauteng Province. The empirical study was conducted among the population and recommendations on entrepreneurial education were compiled. The survey was conducted using a self–completion questionnaire method, whereby questionnaires are handed out to respondents for self–completion and returned to the researcher immediately. In an effort to encourage high response, the questionnaire was accompanied by a cover letter which assured the respondents of confidentiality. An attitude scale to test the prevalence of entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions among the respondents was used. The Likert scale was used whereby the respondents were asked to rate a particular issue on a scale that ranged from strongly disagrees to strongly agree. The majority of the respondents are predominantly young Africans, from low income families with only few parents that made it to university level, and mostly not involved in entrepreneurship. The gap exists with regard to equipping the respondents with entrepreneurial education and training. The university and other stakeholders should create an environment that is supportive towards entrepreneurial activities. There are still many business opportunities that need to be explored in South Africa but the biggest challenge remains the access to knowledge and information with regard to available support structures. Tertiary institutions should: Develop start–up capital systems for students whilst studying. The curriculum design should support employability skills such as languages, starting your own businesses, presentation skills, creativity and leadership abilities, specific qualifications focusing on business creation should be developed, case studies should focus more on opportunity orientated ideas and business and lecturing staff should be empowered to support entrepreneurial activities in their respective fields. Databases of possible business ideas should be developed. A conceptual research model that will support accelerated youth entrepreneurship should be developed in the country and research institutions should be contracted to populate this research model. Furthermore, government regulations should be tested regarding their impact on youth entrepreneurship development as a standard item. Fresh approaches are thus needed to stimulate youth entrepreneurship in rural areas. Therefore, policies and programmes to encourage youth entrepreneurship in these areas should be researched. National competitions for youth entrepreneurs should be encouraged and visible events should be organised such as enterprise weeks at tertiary educational institutions. Tertiary institutions can also investigate the possibility of business hives for students or allowing students businesses to operate on campuses for the duration of their studies. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

abstract: Research on government innovation has focused on identifying factors that contribute to higher levels of innovation adoption. Even though various factors have been tested as contributors to high levels of innovation adoption, the independent variables have been predominantly contextual and community characteristics. Previous empirical studies shed little light on chief executive officers' (CEOs) attitudes, values, and behavior. Result has also varied with the type of innovation examined. This research examined the effect of CEOs' attitudes and behaviors, and institutional motivations on the adoption of sustainability practices in their municipalities. First, this study explored the relationship between the adoption level of sustainability practices in local government and CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes (i.e. risk taking, proactiveness, and innovativeness) and discovery skills (i.e. associating, questioning, experimenting, observing, and networking) that have not been examined in prior research on local government innovation. Second, the study explored the impact of organizational intention to change and isomorphic pressures (i.e., coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures) and the availability and limit of organizational resources on the early adoption of innovations in local governments. Third, the study examines how CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes and discovery skills, and institutional motivations account for high and low sustaining levels of innovation over time by tracking how much their governments have adopted innovations from the past to the present. Lastly, this study explores their path effects CEOs' entrepreneurial attitudes, discovery skills, and isomorphic pressures on sustainability innovation adoption. This is an empirical study that draws on a survey research of 134 CEOs who have influence over innovation adoption in their local governments. For collecting data, the study identified 264 municipalities over 10,000 in population that have responded to four surveys on innovative practices conducted by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in past eight years: the Reinventing local government survey (2003), E-government survey (2004), Strategic practice (2006), and the Sustainability survey (2010). This study combined the information about the adoption of innovations from four surveys with CEOs' responses in the current survey. Socio-economic data and information about variations in form of government were also included in the data set. This study sheds light on the discovery skills and institutional isomorphic pressures that influence the adoption of different types of innovations in local governments. This research contributes to a better understanding of the role of administrative leadership and organizational isomorphism in the dynamic of innovation adoption, which could lead to improvements in change management of organizations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Public Administration 2013

Yes / Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurial attitudes of upcountry vegetable farmers in Sri Lanka with respect to the characteristics of innovation, opportunity seeking and risk taking and considers their implications for rural development efforts. Design/methodology/approach – The study was carried out in the hilly areas of the Badulla district in the Uva Province of Sri Lanka. Primary data were collected through a survey using a researcher-administered questionnaire as the data collection instrument and the individual farmer as the unit of analysis. Findings – Most vegetable farmers in the upcountry areas were found to be attitudinally entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial attitudes were determined more by educational background and farming experience than age, gender, extent of farmland, type of farming and ownership of farmland. Farming experience related positively with innovation, opportunity seeking and risk taking, but farmers’ educational background showed no significant association with innovation. Research limitations/implications – It is suggested that farmer-owned companies with appropriate institutional arrangements could reduce transaction costs for buyers, and introduce accessible rural finance schemes to enhance provision of assets and technology. Such a rural setting would gain from initiatives on marketing alternatives and entrepreneurial skill development. Future research could benefit from analysis of the financial and social performance and entrepreneurial skills of vegetable farmers. Originality/value – The entrepreneurial attitude of farmers is an under-researched area of study particularly in the Sri Lanka context. Rural development initiatives could target entrepreneurial farmers based on these criteria to achieve maximum production impact. However care needs to be taken to consider the potential distributive impact of such targeting on farmers regarded as non-entrepreneurial. / This publication would not have been possible without the funding provided by the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) under its academic fellowship programme. Assistance provided by Ellie Fixter (ACU, London) and Max Wellingham (British Council, Manchester) is sincerely appreciated.

The research problem for the study was the low entrepreneurial activity in South Africa that leads to high unemployment rates. The research question wanted to investigate the effect that entrepreneurship education may have on the students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Intentions were measured because the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which was employed as the framework, postulates that intention is the best predictor of behaviour. The study also investigated the effect of social norms on the students’ entrepreneurial intentions; whether the students who have self-employed parents and/or have personal entrepreneurial experience, would show higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions than students with a different background. A quantitative research design was employed to answer the research questions, and to test the hypotheses. An online survey was sent to the entire target population and anonymous responses were received. This was important and ethical as it protected the respondents’ identity. A total of 92 responses out of 1 743 students were received, and 73 were complete. The collected data was analysed using a Stata 15 statistical package. The study found that entrepreneurship education does indeed have an effect of raising the students’ entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes and their perceived entrepreneurial skills gained from studying entrepreneurship. The students who come from communities where entrepreneurship is less prevalent showed the highest gain in intentions, attesting to the effect of education in an open distance learning context on their intentions. The students’ entrepreneurial background did not show any effect on their intentions; those who have self-employed parents did not have higher intentions than the students with a different background. To increase the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education, it is recommended that more practical ways of teaching entrepreneurship should be implemented. It is also recommended that entrepreneurship education should be extended to more students, and particularly to science and engineering students. This is because the latter are more likely to produce innovative products that will lead to high growth, high impact businesses that will employ more people for longer, therefore raising entrepreneurial activity and reducing unemployment. / Business Management / M. Com. (Entrepreneurship)