Owing to the fact that entrepreneurship is widely considered to be a mechanism for reducing unemployment, the purpose of the study was to assess whether final-year Commerce students in the predominantly rural provinces, the Eastern Cape Province and the Limpopo Province, have the intention to start their own businesses.The study draws heavily from entrepreneurial intent models and focuses on the relationship between three key variables, namely, exposure to entrepreneurship education, awareness of entrepreneurial support and social capital to establish whether they are related to the intention of final-year Commerce studentsto start their own businesses. The literature review concentrated on entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurial intent models; government entrepreneurial support initiatives in South Africa and in other countries and their role in the development of entrepreneurial intent, emergence of new ventures and the growth of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs); entrepreneurship education and its role in enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial intent;the influence of social capital on entrepreneurial intent and the different stages on the new venture life-cycle; and concludes with the link between entrepreneurship and the establishment of SMMEs. A survey was conducted among National Diploma (ND): Internal Auditing, Cost and Management Accounting and Financial information systems students (IAUD, CMA and FIS) (who had six months exposure to entrepreneurship education), ND: Entrepreneurship/Small Business Management (E/SBM) (who had three years exposure to entrepreneurship education) and ND: Management (without exposure to entrepreneurship education). The respondents for the study comprised 355 final year students of which 276 were from Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape Province and 79 were from Tshwane University of Technology (Polokwane Campus) in the LimpopoProvince.Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric statistics. The findings reveal that the majority of the respondents had the intention to start a business in the future.The entrepreneurial intent of the ND: E/SBM students was v stronger than the entrepreneurial intent of the ND: IAUD, CMA and FIS students and ND: Management students. Some significant relationships were found between entrepreneurial intent and the key variables of the study. / Business Management / D.Com. (Business Management)

The purpose of the study is to determine the effectiveness of the interventions used by the South African Breweries (SAB) KickStart Programme to establish and grow entrepreneurial small businesses among young South Africans. South Africa has an extremely high unemployment rate, low economic growth and a dismal Total (early-stage) Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). With regard to established businesses (older than three-and-a-half years), the GEM report of 2005 ranked South Africa the lowest of all the countries surveyed. The SAB KickStart Programme comprises five phases: an awareness campaign, recruitment and training, a business plan competition for grants, success enhancement and national awards. The following interventions form part of the programme: the General Enterprising Tendency (GET) test; two-week live-in business management training; funding and mentoring; and a national competition for prize money. At every stage, adjudication is based on business plans and presentations. The evaluation of the effectiveness of an existing entrepreneurship programme, the SAB KickStart Programme, has several advantages, in so far as it determines whether the programme does indeed attain its objectives, and could help to improve the structuring of such programmes for future use by other corporations in South Africa. The population for the study comprised all the participants of the SAB KickStart Programme, from 2001 to 2006. A questionnaire was developed and a response rate of 28.5% was realised. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to the turnover and percentage profit figures of respondents to investigate the significance of the type of SAB KickStart support afforded. The results were confirmed by the Bonferroni multiple comparison of means test. The deduction is that funding and mentoring, after training, adds value to the programme. Eighty per cent of the SAB KickStarters were still operating their initial businesses, which they owned when they started on the programme, while a further six per cent had started another business, hence a "failure" rate of only 14 per cent. Many other meaningful findings emerged. In conclusion, it can be said that the SAB KickStart Programme adds value and advances entrepreneurship, and could possibly be applied by other large institutions in South Africa In conclusion, it can be said that the SAB KickStart programme adds value and advances entrepreneurship, and can be elevated to other large institutions in South Africa. / Business Management / D.Comm. (Business Management)

Owing to the fact that entrepreneurship is widely considered to be a mechanism for reducing unemployment, the purpose of the study was to assess whether final-year Commerce students in the predominantly rural provinces, the Eastern Cape Province and the Limpopo Province, have the intention to start their own businesses.The study draws heavily from entrepreneurial intent models and focuses on the relationship between three key variables, namely, exposure to entrepreneurship education, awareness of entrepreneurial support and social capital to establish whether they are related to the intention of final-year Commerce studentsto start their own businesses. The literature review concentrated on entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurial intent models; government entrepreneurial support initiatives in South Africa and in other countries and their role in the development of entrepreneurial intent, emergence of new ventures and the growth of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs); entrepreneurship education and its role in enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial intent;the influence of social capital on entrepreneurial intent and the different stages on the new venture life-cycle; and concludes with the link between entrepreneurship and the establishment of SMMEs. A survey was conducted among National Diploma (ND): Internal Auditing, Cost and Management Accounting and Financial information systems students (IAUD, CMA and FIS) (who had six months exposure to entrepreneurship education), ND: Entrepreneurship/Small Business Management (E/SBM) (who had three years exposure to entrepreneurship education) and ND: Management (without exposure to entrepreneurship education). The respondents for the study comprised 355 final year students of which 276 were from Walter Sisulu University in the Eastern Cape Province and 79 were from Tshwane University of Technology (Polokwane Campus) in the LimpopoProvince.Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric statistics. The findings reveal that the majority of the respondents had the intention to start a business in the future.The entrepreneurial intent of the ND: E/SBM students was v stronger than the entrepreneurial intent of the ND: IAUD, CMA and FIS students and ND: Management students. Some significant relationships were found between entrepreneurial intent and the key variables of the study. / Business Management / D.Com. (Business Management)

Youth entrepreneurship is one of the solutions to reducing unemployment. The purpose of the study was to analyse youth entrepreneurship business performance in the Capricorn District Municipality in Limpopo Province. An entrepreneurship development model focusing on internal factors (entrepreneurial orientation) and external factors (supportive and cooperative environments), was adapted to establish whether they are related to youth business performance. The business environmental factors, such as business location, crime, and corruption were also tested as to whether they are related to youth business performance. The research used a census survey and primary data was obtained through questionnaires. The respondents for this study were 26 youth entrepreneurship business units in CDM, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings reveal that youth businesses have shown negative performance in terms of the employment in the CDM, which results in employing fewer than five employees. / Business Management / M. Tech.

The research work is dedicated to the essence, details and specification of the entrepreneurship including the youth entrepreneurship in particular. It outlines the trends of the youth entrepreneurial development in Russia and abroad. The research analyzes restrains and limits of the youth entrepreneurship in order to propose the ways to overcome them. Thus, there were identified three groups of factors that prevent the graduated students to start their own business: 1) personal characteristics, fear of risk or failure; 2) lack of knowledge, skills, funds; 3) politico-social and economic instability, intense competition, etc. Moreover, the majority of the students have no or have just hint of information about the youth entrepreneurship support programs. The scientific work showed up that among the UrFU graduated students sample (Psychology Department and Economic Department, 78 persons, in total) 58 persons (74%) wanted to be an entrepreneur. The comparative analysis of both groups of students who willing and unwilling to be an entrepreneur irrespectively of their study programs results in fact that the students who are inclined to entrepreneurship have high level of risk tolerance combined with the high level of achievement motivation and the low level of motivation to avoid failure. In addition, the economy students have the high level of risk tolerance and the psychology students have the average one. In conclusion, the outcomes of the research can be used as an informational pool for the development of the youth entrepreneurial projects and as a reference framework for further monitoring of the graduation students attitude toward the entrepreneurship issue. / В исследовании определено содержание, сущность и специфика предпринимательской деятельности, а также молодежного предпринимательства в частности. Описаны тенденции развития молодежного предпринимательства за рубежом и в России. Охарактеризованы сдерживающие факторы, барьеры предпринимательской деятельности молодых людей и меры преодоления этих барьеров. Так, выделено три группы факторов, препятствующих студентам-выпускникам создавать свой бизнес: 1) личностные качествами, боязнь риска и неудачи; 2) отсутствие знаний, навыков, финансов; 3) социально-политическая и экономическая нестабильность, высокий уровень конкуренции и т.п. При этом большинство студентов вообще не слышали о программах поддержки предпринимательства или имеют весьма смутное представление о них. Выявлено, что из выборки студентов-выпускников УрФУ (психологи и экономисты, всего 78 чел.) 58 человек (74%) хотели бы стать предпринимателями. Сравнительный анализ мотивации склонных и не склонных к предпринимательской деятельности независимо от профессионального направления подготовки показал, что, студенты склонные к предпринимательству отличаются высоким уровнем готовности к риску в сочетании с высоким уровнем мотивации успеха и низким уровнем мотивации избегания неудач. При этом экономисты отличаются высоким, а психологи средним уровнем готовности к риску. В целом, полученные данные могут служить информационной основой по развитию проектов, вовлекающих студентов в предпринимательство, а также проведения последующих мониторингов отношения выпускников к данной деятельности.