Risky Business Experiential Learning, Information and

The International Journal of Management Education 16 (2018) 224–238
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The International Journal of

Management Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme
Risky business: Experiential learning, information and

T
communications technology, and risk-taking attitudes in
entrepreneurship education
Cesar Banderaa,∗, Regina Collinsb, Katia Passerinic
a
Martin Tuchman School of Management, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
b
Office of Institutional Effectiveness, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
c
College of Professional Studies, Saint John's University, Queens, NY 11439, USA
A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT
Keywords: This paper presents two studies examining the effects of technology-supported experiential en-
Entrepreneurship education trepreneurship education on learners' entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes towards risk. Each
Learning technologies study compares students enrolled in three distinct self-selected college entrepreneurship courses
Risk tolerance that, to different degrees, integrate information and communications technology (ICT) and in-
ICT
teractions with entrepreneurs in a business incubator. Study 1 investigates students' pre-existing
Self-efficacy
Illusion of control
attitudes towards entrepreneurship and ICT through a survey distributed at the beginning of the
semester. Study 2 explores students' perceptions towards entrepreneurship, risk taking, ICT, and
the incubator after the course and retrospectively through a second survey. Responses revealed
that students’ perceptions were sensitive to their initial entrepreneurial intentions and their in-
teractions with incubator entrepreneurs, but only risk tolerance increased significantly across all
courses. A predictive model of student attitudes reveals that perceptions of ICT usefulness
moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial attitudes and risk. This work helps bridge
entrepreneurship education and education technology by constructing and empirically testing a
model relating entrepreneurial characteristics and ICT attitudes. It contributes a mechanism to
pedagogy theory that educators can use to improve learning outcomes, and presents educators
with experiential strategies that impact student attitudes towards taking risks in business start-
ups - an elusive goal of entrepreneurship education.
1. Introduction
Entrepreneurs today operate in a highly technological environment. Even those with “low-tech” companies must be able to use
computing technologies to perform common business tasks cost-effectively and competitively, including advertising (e.g., maintain a
web and social media presence) and accounting (e.g., maintain a digital ledger with invoice, payroll, and tax accounting). To perform
such activities diligently, entrepreneurs must be comfortable using tools for computing, online communication and distributed
collaboration (van Laar, van Deursen, van Dijk, & de Haan, 2017).
At the same time, researchers continue to question how best to teach entrepreneurship, with many recommending experiential
learning as a meaningful approach (Kolb, 1984; Krueger, 2007; NIRAS, 2008, p. 220). Experiential learning emphasizes learning as
occurring through the transformation of experience into knowledge, giving students the opportunity to learn by “doing.” In the
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: bandera@njit.edu (C. Bandera), regina.s.collins@njit.edu (R. Collins), passerik@stjohns.edu (K. Passerini).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2018.02.006
Received 5 September 2016; Received in revised form 8 October 2017; Accepted 27 February 2018
1472-8117/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Bandera et al. The International Journal of Management Education 16 (2018) 224–238
context of entrepreneurship education, experiential learning includes a broad range of experiences for students, such as (in order of
increasing proximity to real-world experiences) computer simulations to practice entrepreneurial activities, launching student
businesses, and working with real entrepreneurs to assist in their business ventures (Cooper, Bottomley, and Gordon 2004; Daly,
2001).
Entrepreneurial intention has been commonly used among researchers to assess the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education
(Duval-Couetil, 2013; Rideout & Gray, 2013). However, its use as an evaluative measure is complicated by the fact that en-
trepreneurship education encompasses a wide variety of pedagogical methods, tools, experiences, and objectives (Nabi, Liñán,
Fayolle, Krueger, & Walmsley, 2017; Pittaway & Edwards, 2012). Additionally, studies using entrepreneurial intention as an eva-
luative measure have suffered from inconsistent results (Hytti, Stenholm, Heinonen, and Seikkula-Leino 2010; Oosterbeek, van Praag,
and Ijsselstein 2010). Consequently, entrepreneurship education is beginning to focus less on raising entrepreneurial intention and
more on raising nascent entrepreneurs’ chances of success by teaching the different tools students should master and the risks they
should prepare for prior to undertaking an entrepreneurial venture (Neck, Neck, & Murray, 2017). Although entrepreneurial success
cannot be guaranteed, exposing students to real world activities, experiences, and tools may better prepare them to appreciate the
risks of entrepreneurship and their management.
In this research, we investigate the relationship between the three aforementioned concepts: technological proficiency, en-
trepreneurship education, and entrepreneurial intention. These three concepts have been studied separately in the literature but not
in unison. Specifically, we aim to determine if technology in experiential pedagogy improves the effectiveness of entrepreneurship
education, measured as improving student attitude towards the risk of launching a new venture. If so, entrepreneurship educators
may be able to similarly improve student attitudes by tailoring their courses with the purposeful introduction of technology.
The study develops a model of entrepreneurial intention, perceived risk of entrepreneurship, perceived utility of experiential
activities in startup environments, and perceived utility of ICT among university students. We then use this model in two studies
conducted at a northeastern polytechnic university which explore students' existing attitudes at the beginning of their respective
entrepreneurship courses (labeled Study 1) and their perception after exposure to their courses (labeled Study 2). The three en-
trepreneurship courses included in this research exposed students in varying degrees to experiential learning and technologies for
collaboration, communication, and data visualization. Study 1 investigated students' pre-existing attitudes towards entrepreneurship,
providing insights into students' self-selection into the different entrepreneurship courses. Study 2 investigated students’ perceptions
towards entrepreneurship after exposure to these experiential, technology-supported courses. Together, the results of these studies
shed light on the relationships between entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial intention, risk taking propensity, and exposure
to the ICT tools and experiences of the entrepreneur. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We first discuss the
literature informing the research and conceptual framework. This is followed by the research hypotheses, methodology, and results of
the data analysis. Implications of the results and limitations of the studies conclude this paper.
2. Conceptual framework
2.1. Entrepreneurship education
Witnessing the growth of entrepreneurship education (Katz, 2003, 2008), researchers and educators have struggled to establish its
legitimacy as a discipline, with researchers questioning whether entrepreneurship can be taught in classrooms and what its core
competencies should be (Anding, 2005). Some researchers have focused on classifying the different pedagogical approaches to
teaching entrepreneurship (Fiet, 2001; Rasmussen & Sørheim, 2006). Neck and Greene (2011) provide a summary of these research
efforts, classifying entrepreneurship pedagogies as (1) process-based, (2) cognitive and method-based, or (3) focused on the en-
trepreneur as the subject of study.
The underlying assumption brought forward by Neck and Greene is that “entrepreneurship is complex and chaotic” and,
therefore, its teaching can rarely be linear and process-based. Understanding this complexity means understanding the roles of
entrepreneurs (the third pedagogy class) (Gartner, 1988) or their decision making processes (the second pedagogy class) (Krueger,
2007; Mitchell, Busenitz, Lant, and McDougall 2002; Mitchell, Smith, Seawright, and Morse 2000). Neck and Greene appear to
undervalue process-based pedagogy because it assumes that entrepreneurship education can be taught with a focus on the input and
output processes (the business planning process, as an example). Alternatively, they propose the method-based experiential approach
focused on value creation generated by teaching tools and techniques necessary for productive entrepreneurial action. This model
teaches doing-and-then-learning, emphasizes reflective learning, and stimulates practice under uncertainty. The three en-
trepreneurship courses included in the two studies presented in this paper support the method-based model's use of tools and
techniques, including ICT.
2.1.1. Experiential entrepreneurship courses

To varying degrees, entrepreneurship courses taught at the northeastern polytechnic university expose students to experiential
learning through involvement with start-ups in the Enterprise Development Center (EDC) new venture incubator located on the
campus. These companies develop technology-intensive products primarily for biomedical, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, and
energy markets. As of 2016, the EDC has over ninety companies with $100 MM in annual revenues, $136 MM in 3rd party invest-
ments, and over 700 jobs altogether. The entrepreneurial ecosystem of the EDC also includes investor roundtables, meet-and-greet
activities, and workshops from local service providers and faculty on topics including accounting, finance and intellectual property
protection, most of which are open to the students enrolled in entrepreneurship courses.
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As entrepreneurship is a highly applied discipline, the pedagogical approaches adopted in designing the courses used in this
research mirror the action-orientation of Neck and Green's method-based pedagogy classification. However, we also used business
planning as another approach to teaching start-up concepts, with the belief that such an approach is not in contrast with the method
world. In reality, writing a business plan requires mastering a portfolio of methods and tools that are necessary to practice en-
trepreneurship, such as market, strategic, and financial analyses. Like so many other aspects of entrepreneurship, business plan
methods are not linear and are sensitive to rapidly changing market factors. Business plan methods themselves can be experiential;
for example, results from gathering primary market data and assessing barriers to local markets often surprise students and motivate
them to pivot their initial business concepts. By merging the two frameworks from Neck and Green, the courses included in our two
studies focus on both process and method, and are driven by observation, practice, and reflection. Moreover, the diversity of ex-
periences to which students are exposed requires that the delivery modes and tools of the courses be flexible and adapt to face-to-face,
hybrid and online classroom experiences.
2.1.2. The role of ICT in entrepreneurship education

The role of ICT in education is well researched, including knowledge retention, adoption by students, and self-efficacy in the
context of entrepreneurship education (Joo, Lim and Kim, 2013), but there is little research on the relationship between ICT and the
promotion of the risk tolerance characteristic of entrepreneurs (Beranek, 2015; Fairlie & Holleran, 2012; Hvide & Panos, 2014).
Current research on the role of ICT in education and research on entrepreneurship education both use Theory of Planned Behavior
(TPB) as a framework (Azjen, 1991; Rideout & Gray, 2013; Sawang, Sun and Salim, 2014). Our research extends this framework to
include the impact of ICT on risk tolerance in entrepreneurship students.
To varying degrees, the entrepreneurship courses included in our two studies require or encourage students to use technologies
for collaboration, communication, and data visualization. The tools integrated into these courses include online forums in the Moodle
learning management system (accessed via web browsers) that are used by all the courses, Google Docs, Skype, Google Maps, mobile
devices, and tools for viewing the desktop of a remote computer (for example, Skype) and for controlling remote computers (such as
Remote Desktop and LogMeIn). Table 1 describes the underlying framework that informs the integration of these tools into the
entrepreneurial curriculum used.
The hectic schedules of entrepreneurs made it difficult to schedule face-to-face meetings between EDC entrepreneurs and stu-
dents, necessitating extensive use of online collaboration tools, both synchronous (Skype) and asynchronous (Moodle forums).
Students made use of the geolocation functions and portability of mobile devices to collect primary market data (including geo-
tagged observations and surveys), and remote desktop sharing enabled the instructor to review the work of teams in various loca-
tions. Students also used market data aggregation and visualization tools including the US Census Bureau's American FactFinder,
Google Finance, and Google Maps to complete financial analyses and local market studies. Together, these tools enabled students to
hone a portfolio of technology skills and entrepreneurial techniques.
2.2. Key outcomes of entrepreneurship education
2.2.1. Entrepreneurial intention

The ultimate goal of entrepreneurship education is to promote the formation of successful new ventures, whereby success could be
defined as the creation of new jobs, revenue, and/or duration. Entrepreneurship education could be evaluated retrospectively by
studying the entrepreneur once the new venture is formed, but this ignores the greater number of entrepreneurship students who
never formed a successful venture. Moreover, the likelihood of obtaining a statistically significant number of entrepreneurs with
common education attributes (e.g., a common pedagogy or course) is low. An alternative to a retrospective study of entrepreneurs is a
prospective study of students that relies on intent as a predictor of future action. This is the approach taken by researchers employing
the technology acceptance model (Bagozzi, Davis and Warshaw, 1992) and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology
(Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis, 2003).
The Theory of Planned Behavior considers intention as the best predictor of future behavior, and entrepreneurship researchers
employing TPB often use entrepreneurial intention (i.e., the actor's intention to start a small business within a set timeframe) as a
Table 1
Examples of activities and technologies supporting the process and methods pedagogy.
Pedagogical Dimensions Sample Activities Technologies Supporting Sample Activities
Context: World of value creation and prediction Validation of value propositions Google Docs, Moodle Forums
Focus: exposing students to a portfolio of techniques Data collection, guided data analysis Google Maps, mobile devices, Remote
Desktop
Level of analysis: the entrepreneur, her team and firm Interview and work with founders of EDC Skype, WebEx, Moodle Forums
start-ups
Primary Pedagogy: business planning, observation, practice, Financial models and forecasts Google Finance, Google Docs (financial
reflection, design models)
Language: Do-learn-reflect Elaborate start-up, defend and adjust Market data aggregators, Skype, Remote
Desktop
Pedagogical Implication: Iterative loops of prediction and Definition of minimum viable product, All of the above.
action business pivoting
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measure of the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education (von Graevenitz, Harhoff, and Weber 2010). Many empirical studies that
survey entrepreneurial intention report an increase in this measure after entrepreneurship education (Gibb, 2002; Gorman, Hanlon,
and King 1997; Kolvereid & Moen, 1997; Kuratko, 2005; Mitra & Matlay, 2004; Souitaris, Zerbinati, and Al-Laham 2007; Neck &
Greene, 2011). These studies may be inconclusive, however, as others show unclear or even negative effects of entrepreneurship
education on entrepreneurial intention (Krueger & Brazeal, 1994; Oosterbeek et al., 2010; Walter, Parboteeach, and Walter, 2011).
The mixed results reported on the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention highlight the
need for a more nuanced exploration. Two findings motivate us to propose that the degree in which ICT and experiential learning are
incorporated into entrepreneurship education may help disambiguate this relationship. First, using Regulatory Focus Theory
(Higgins, 1997), Piperopoulos and Dimov (2015) found that among students with higher self-efficacy, practice-oriented courses
resulted in higher entrepreneurial intentions than theory-oriented courses. Thus, the effect of entrepreneurship education seems to be
dependent on the pedagogical distinction between theoretical versus practical (Sirelkhatim & Gangi, 2015) and the initial en-
trepreneurial intention of the student. Second, risk taking, considered to be a requisite behavior for entrepreneurial intention dis-
cussed in the following section, has been found to be associated with skill mastery. Mastery of the ICT-centric tools of modern
entrepreneurship can thus build the confidence required to overcome the perceived challenges of entrepreneurship.
2.2.2. Risk taking

Research suggests that entrepreneurs do not necessarily view themselves as more willing to take risks, but that they tend to view
risky situations more positively (Barbosa, Gerhardt and Kickul, 2007; Busenitz, 1999; Palich & Bagby, 1995; Sitkin & Weingart,
1995). Focusing on entrepreneurship education, Sanchez (2011) found that students’ intentions for self-employment were positively
and significantly related to risk taking, and that risk taking increased after exposure to an entrepreneurship program. Fairlie and
Holleran (2012) have shown that individuals who are more risk tolerant benefit more from entrepreneurship education. Additionally,
studies have reported that a positive attitude towards risk taking is positively correlated with the decision to become an entrepreneur
(Caliendo, Fossen, and Kritikos, 2010) and that positive attitudes towards risk predict future positive entrepreneurial intentions
(Shepherd & Douglas, 1997).
Some researchers claim that entrepreneurs do not perceive a new venture as a risky proposition because they are confident they
have the skills with which to solve whatever problems they may encounter (Chell, 2008; Keh, Foo and Lim, 2002; Simon, Houghton,
and Aquino, 2000; Townsend, Busenitz, and Aruthurs, 2010). In settings where outcomes are under the control of the protagonist
only to a small degree, such as entrepreneurship, this line of research proposes that the self-efficacy that comes with mastery of skills
can cause the illusion that s/he has a similar ability to determine such outcomes. However, Simon et al. (2000) and Keh et al. (2002)
found different relationships between the illusion of control and risk perception. The former found that risk perception among MBA
students partially mediated the relationship between illusion of control and the decision to start a venture, whereas the latter found
that risk perception fully mediated illusion of control among founders of new ventures. Keh, Foo et al. argue that the seasoned
entrepreneurs of their study had greater appreciation (i.e., less illusion) of their control over the market forces that influence en-
trepreneurial outcomes than the MBA students of the study by Simon, Houghton et al.
Because risk taking propensity can be influenced by entrepreneurship education, and due to the conflicting results of en-
trepreneurial intention in the literature, this paper explores attitude towards risk taking as an important attribute of the student (in
Study 1) and also explores this attitude as an important outcome of entrepreneurship education (in Study 2). Beranek (2015) de-
monstrated that unless risk is explicitly addressed, conventional educational practices can develop entrepreneurship skills in students
except for the motivation to accept a risky business environment. Consequently, in addition to modeling entrepreneurial intention
using as covariates the degree in which entrepreneurship education employs ICT (which can build skills) and experiential learning
(which can mitigate illusion of control), we use these constructs to model risk propensity.
2.2.3. Learner entrepreneurial characteristics

Characteristics shown to impact learners’ entrepreneurial intentions include self-efficacy (Hodgkinson, 1992; Chen, Greene, and
Crick 1998; Hallam, Zanella, Dorantes, & Cardenas, 2015; Karlsson & Moberg, 2013; Wilson, Kickul, & Marlino, 2007; Zellweger,
Sieger, and Halter, 2011), resilience (Sinclair & Wallston, 2004; Morris, Fu, and Singhal, 2013), creative problem solving (Hmieleski
& Corbett, 2006; Zampetakis & Moustakis, 2006), subjective norm (Kolvereid & Isaksen, 2006; Morris et al., 2013), and opportunity
recognition (Tang, Kacmar, and Busenitz, 2010). All these characteristics are captured in both our studies to aid in the understanding
of the relationships of these variables with exposure to experiential technology-supported entrepreneurship education. Table 2
summarizes key learner characteristics explored in our two studies and introduces their definitions and sample survey questions.
Researchers have correlated technological self-efficacy with learner satisfaction and performance in distance and online learning,
where students must be comfortable with ICT (Girasoli & Hannafin, 2008; Joo et al., 2013; Yi & Hwang, 2003). However, the
correlation between entrepreneurial self-efficiency and entrepreneurial intent is more complex. Piperopoulos and Dimov (2015) show
the correlation is positive in practical courses while negative in theoretical courses, and Hallam et al. (2015) show self-efficiency
correlates more strongly with the long-term entrepreneurial intent among business students than among engineering students who
presumably are better versed in ICT. It is thus important to distinguish ICT self-efficacy from entrepreneurial self-efficacy in ICT-
intensive entrepreneurship education.
3. Research questions and hypotheses
In Study 1, we investigate the interactions between student attitudes, self-selection into entrepreneurship courses, and course
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Table 2
Learner entrepreneurial characteristics.
Variable Definition Sample Questions Source
Self-Efficacy Personal belief and confidence in one's own I can shape whatever environment in which I Hodgkinson, 1992
ability. Ability to shape any environment. find myself operating.
Resilience Capability to recover or adjust quickly to change I believe that I can grow in positive ways by Sinclair & Wallston, 2004
or negative events. Belief in success after dealing with difficult situations.
something difficult occurs.
Creative Problem Portrays a propensity to think outside the box. I am creative when asked to work with Hmieleski & Corbett, 2006;
Solving limited resources. Zampetakis & Moustakis, 2006
Opportunity Presents skills in identifying innovative events, I often make novel connections and perceive Tang et al., 2010
Recognition actions, possibilities. new relationships between various pieces of
information.
Subjective Norm Links to the belief that the agent will have a strong My family and friends will support me if I Kolvereid & Isaksen, 2006
supporting structure for his activities. choose to be an entrepreneur.
design in order to understand how course characteristics and prior experiences impact students’ attitudes and perceptions. The
courses that students attended integrated varying degrees of theory, practice, ICT-based tools, and interactions with start-ups in the
EDC to create technology-supported experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. These conditions
allow Study 2 to examine the impact of this integration of technology-supported experiential learning on entrepreneurial intention
both directly and indirectly through their effects on learner characteristics. Together, these two studies allowed exploration of the
following research questions:
RQ1. How do students select entrepreneurship learning experiences? That is, do prior perceptions of ICT usefulness, value of
interaction with the EDC, and learner characteristics and attitudes differ between courses?
RQ2: How does experiential ICT-based learning impact perceptions of ICT usefulness, value of interactions with the EDC, or
learner characteristics and attitudes?
RQ3: Is there a difference in students' perceptions between the two studies? What conclusions can we draw about the interaction
between student characteristics and course design?
A predictive model was developed and tested (Fig. 1) to evaluate the interactions between learners’ entrepreneurial character-
istics, usefulness of ICT tools, exposure to the EDC, risk taking, and entrepreneurial intention. This model builds upon those in the
literature by adding the components “usefulness of tools” and “interactions with EDC.” As entrepreneurial characteristics of the
learner have been identified in the literature as drivers of entrepreneurial intentions, the first hypothesis of the predictive model
focuses on investigating the direct impact of learner characteristics on intentions.
H1: Learner entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact attitudes toward entrepreneurial intention.
Previous studies have shown that characteristics such as subjective norm have influenced attitudes towards risk taking (Puri &
Fig. 1. Proposed predictive model.
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Robinson, 2009). This suggests the second hypothesis that explores the impact of learners’ characteristics on risk taking.
H2: Learner entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact attitudes toward risk taking.
Studies exploring self-efficacy and technology use have suggested a strong positive relationship between these two variables.
Other studies have shown that the perceived usefulness of technologies significantly mediate the relationship between an individual's
willingness to be an “early adopter” of ICT and her/his intentions to use these technologies (Yi, Fiedler, and Park, 2006). In en-
trepreneurial education, exposure to start-up business tools and connecting with peers, external mentors, and corporate advisors can
be facilitated through technologies such as a Learning Management System (LMS) for asynchronous communication, Skype for
synchronous communication, Remote Desktop for screen sharing, and Google Drive for file sharing and collaborative editing. In-
tegrating these technologies into entrepreneurial courses supports experiential learning, simplifies communication, collaboration,
and coordination, and may cause changes in perceived competencies with technologies, all of which may in turn increase students'
willingness to take risks. This suggests the following two hypotheses.
H3a: Learner entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact the perceived usefulness of ICT in entrepreneurship courses.
H3b: Positive perceptions of ICT usefulness will positively impact the relationship between learners' entrepreneurial character-
istics and risk taking.
The interaction between learners and the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the EDC can impact the relationship between en-
trepreneurial characteristics and risk taking by exposing learners to how ICT is used in real-world ecosystems, suggesting the fol-
lowing two hypotheses.
H4a: Learner entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact perceptions of experiential interactions (with the EDC) in an
entrepreneurship course.
H4b: The perceived usefulness of experiential interactions (with the EDC) will positively impact the relationship between learner
entrepreneurial characteristics and risk taking.
Finally, since literature on entrepreneurial intention is not conclusive, our last hypotheses investigate how the learner's use of
technology, experiential learning, and attitudes towards risk ultimately impact entrepreneurial intention, without specifying if this
impact is positive or negative.
H5a: Learners' perceptions of ICT usefulness will impact their entrepreneurial intention.
H5b: Learners' risk taking perceptions will impact entrepreneurial intention.
H5c: Learners' perceptions of experiential interactions (with the EDC) will impact their entrepreneurial intention.
4. Methods
4.1. Experiential activities in participating courses
A northeastern polytechnic university offers three entrepreneurship courses, all electives taught by the same instructor. The three
courses fall in Neck and Green's category of the “method world” because they focus on doing-and-then-learning, placing value on
teaching tools and techniques that are required for successful entrepreneurial activity. Key characteristics of these courses are de-
scribed below. Table 3 summarizes characteristics of the three courses and of the students upon enrollment.
4.1.1. Course U
Course U is an undergraduate course composed of fourth-year students from all the disciplines at the university. Over half of the
students have day jobs (the course is offered at night) and some are considering launching a company within six months. Each student
works independently on her/his own start-up concept, and is evaluated by how clearly s/he defines its value proposition and how
credibly s/he proposes to manage risk over the company's first three years. To achieve this clarity and credibility, students exercise
business processes including market research, estimate manufacturing and sales fulfillment capacity, and calculate fixed and variable
costs.
4.1.2. Course G
Course G is a graduate course with mostly MBA students aspiring to work in medium to large companies upon graduation. The
course includes a focus on “intrapreneurship” – that is, the exploitation of innovation within the framework of an established
company (Ershad, 2012; Kenney & Mujtaba, 2007). At the beginning of the semester, practicing entrepreneurs from the EDC present
their companies to Course G students, who in turn organize themselves into teams each of which then selects a different EDC
company with which to work during the semester. Course deliverables include primary market research for new products or markets
pursued by the EDC companies, financial projections, and grant proposals to government programs, foundations, and investors for
research funding.
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Table 3
Learner and course characteristics.
Attribute Course U Course G Course H
Attributes of Students at Start of Course

Opportunity Recognized Mostly yes but not vetted Yes, vetted by client Yes, vetted by Industry Advisory Board
Type of Innovation Low-tech (includes lifestyle Medium/High-tech (that of clients) Very high-tech (requiring intellectual
companies) property protection)
Entrepreneurial Intent High Low Medium
Desire to Start a Company High Low Low
Age Oldest (many night school Average (graduate students) Youngest (undergraduates in accelerated
adults) program)
Attributes of Courses
Focus of Syllabus Validate student's business Commercialization of client's Multi-year innovation program
model innovation
Academic Standing Undergraduate Graduate Undergraduate Honors
Students Work … Individually In newly-formed teams In pre-exiting teams
Exposure to Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Low High (EDC) Medium (Industry Advisory Board)
Prerequisites One finance class, one marketing class
Mandatory/Elective Elective
Use of ICT
Online Learning Management (Moodle) High High High
Asynchronous Communication (Forums) Low High High
Asynchronous Collaboration (Google Low High High
Docs)
Synchronous Communication (WebEx, Low High High
Skype)
Synchronous Collaboration (Remote Low Medium High
Desktop)
Visualization (Google Maps, Market Data High High High
Aggregators)
Mobile Devices High High High
4.1.3. Course H
Course H is part of a three-year undergraduate entrepreneurship program offered to select honors students. Working in teams of
three to five, students are required to design a company with significant societal impact, generate intellectual property, and secure
mentorship from faculty and industry. The main objective of the program is to expose students to entrepreneurial challenges,
strategic thinking, risks, and failures. The three-year time horizon permits students to experience pivoting, student turnover, and
balancing technology research, commercialization, and company management. Every semester, each team presents its updated
business plan and presents its technical progress to an industry advisory board of twenty C-level executives from local companies who
critique the work and, at times, invest in the projects. Teams also participate in regional technology-based business plan competitions
and interface with off-campus mentors and supply chain partners including licensers and licensees of intellectual property, beta
testers, and component suppliers. Students take Course H in their fifth semester of the program, by which time their technological
innovations and market analyses are relatively mature.
4.2. Information and communication technologies in participating courses
The three courses included in this research used ICT to varying degrees. For example, to facilitate within-group collaborations,
Courses G and H used online forums that provide asynchronous group communication using the university's Moodle learning
management system. Particularly in Course G, online discussion forums were also used to communicate with company personnel in
the EDC, although in some cases these companies preferred to use third-party asynchronous communication tools (such as Wiggio) to
ensure the privacy of confidential information that they shared with students. From a pedagogical standpoint, the use of Moodle for
asynchronous discussions enabled instructors to perform activity-based assessments using Moodle's reporting tools.
Despite the fact that all three courses were taught in a traditional face-to-face manner, students used synchronous communication
tools for activities including connecting students with off-campus mentors or enabling students to meet when they themselves were
off-campus. Students were encouraged to use Skype for synchronous communication because it supports multiple participants and
live broadcasting of a desktop for activities including prototype demonstrations and document reviews. Students were also en-
couraged to use Remote Desktop for prototype design evaluation in situations where other students needed to remotely control the
prototype or simulation.
To facilitate multi-user collaboration (both synchronous and asynchronous), students used Google Docs which has become the de
facto standard for collaboration (Denton, 2012; González-Martínez, Bote-Lorenzo, Gómez-Sánchez, & Cano-Parra, 2015). Because the
university's e-mail system is hosted by Google, all students and faculty automatically have access to Google Docs and Google Drive
and were encouraged to use these tools for collaborative writing and editing. Course U students deploying new business ventures
most often targeted a geographically localized initial market. To validate their business models, these students were encouraged to
become intimately familiar with their target demographics and display their market analyses using Google Maps. All students took
230
advantage of the ubiquitous nature of cell phones and tablets to work and collaborate anytime and anywhere.
4.3. Instruments
In each of the three courses described above, a survey was distributed to the students at the beginning of the semester. Study 1
began by prompting students to assess their attitudes towards entrepreneurship and risk taking, and their intention to become
entrepreneurs within five years. Study 1 also explored students' prior experience with ICT including mobile devices, Moodle, Skype,
and Google Docs, as well as their expectations of how useful those technologies would be in learning about entrepreneurship. The
survey ended with questions exploring students’ opinions about the potential value of interacting with the EDC as part of their
entrepreneurship educational experience.
A total of 69 students across the three courses participated in Study 1 (NU = 14, NG = 22, NH = 33). In order to relieve students’
concerns that their responses might impact their subsequent course grades, all Study 1 responses were kept anonymous. To reduce the
length of the survey, learner entrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurial intention were each captured with single items taken
from validated scales. All items in the survey were scored on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to
Strongly Agree with a neutral option (Neither Agree nor Disagree). The single items for Self-Efficacy, Resilience, Creative Problem
Solving, Opportunity Recognition, and Subjective Norm were combined into a single formative construct called “learner en-
trepreneurial characteristics.” This latent construct was developed as a formative construct because it is a linear combination of the
individual learner characteristics, and because changes in these characteristics cause changes in the latent variable but are not
causally related to each other (Bagozzi, 2011; Christophersen & Konradt, 2012). The remaining measures in the model are reflective
indicators of the four other constructs in Fig. 1, namely interactions with EDC, usefulness of tools, taking risks, and entrepreneurial
intentions.
Study 1 responses enabled an exploration of general perceptions toward entrepreneurship, risk taking, use of ICT tools, and
exposure to EDC companies across all three courses by analyzing the ranks of these research variables. Additionally, this data allowed
between-course differences to be analyzed by comparing the distributions of ranks across the three courses. Significant differences in
the distributions of these ranks suggest that students enrolled in different courses differed in their attitudes towards some of the key
characteristics explored in Study 1, as one might infer by the different syllabi of the courses.
Study 2 explored students' perceptions of most of the same research variables at the end of the semester. A total of 47 students
responded across courses (NU = 11, NG = 17, and NH = 19). To explore students' self-awareness and self-reflection resulting from
their exposure to an entrepreneurship course, this survey included paired questions that captured students’ perceptions of their
technology use, subjective norms and willingness to take risks at the time of the survey compared with how they believe they felt at
the beginning of the course (self-reflection). For example, the item capturing perceptions of Subjective Norms in the Study 2 survey
asked students to score two statements: “My family and friends will support me if I chose to be an entrepreneur: Now” (current) and
“Six months ago” (retrospective).
4.4. Statistical techniques
We tested survey responses for normality using SPSS Version 22. Although the sample sizes for each survey (N1 = 69, N2 = 47)
were sufficient to assume normality according to the Central Limit Theorem (CLT), examination of each variable's distribution,
skewness and kurtosis revealed that several variables fell outside recommended ranges. For this reason, nonparametric tests were
applied throughout the analysis. Non-parametric tests were also used for between-course analyses because of the small number of
participants in each course for which the CLT assumption would not hold.
Because the different syllabi of the three participating courses may have attracted students with diverse backgrounds and learning
goals, the Study 1 data was further evaluated by course using the Kruskal-Wallis One-Way Analysis of Variance test to identify
between-course differences in students’ attitudes. This nonparametric test uses ranks to determine if three or more independent
samples originate from the same distribution, and is an extension of the Mann-Whitney U test to three or more groups. Statistically
significant results suggest that the distributions of the samples differ more than would be expected by chance; mean ranks indicate the
general distributions of scores so that the group with the lowest mean rank is the group with the greatest number of lower scores
(Field, 2013). The Kruskal-Wallis One-Way Analysis of Variance test was also used to evaluate between-course differences in Study 2.
We used the Mann-Whitney U test for independent samples to explore differences between the Study 1 and Study 2 response
distributions. This test explores whether the distributions of responses are the same across two populations. Results suggested that
only the variable Risk Taking changed significantly during the courses (U = 2129, Z = 2.912, p = 0.004).
To better understand students' current and retrospective perceptions as measured in Study 2, the Wilcoxon two-sample paired
signed rank test was used to compare students' current and retrospective responses. This nonparametric test evaluates the null
hypothesis that the population median of the paired differences of the two samples is zero; statistically significant differences suggest
the population medians differ more than would be assumed by chance. Again, only Risk Taking exhibited a statistically significant
difference between students’ current and retrospective perceptions at the end of the course (W = 103.50, Z = 2.538, p = 0.011).
To evaluate the interactions between learners' entrepreneurial characteristics, usefulness of ICT tools in the classroom, and ex-
posure to the EDC with risk taking and entrepreneurial intention, Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to develop and test a predictive
model. PLS was selected as the appropriate methodology because the relationships between these variables have not been well
researched, and because there are factors in this research that in some cases are collinear (Tobias, 1997). Using SmartPLS 2.0.M3, the
proposed predictive model (Fig. 1) was tested using entrepreneurial intention as the dependent variable and entrepreneurial
231
Table 4
Attitudes and perceptions (Study 1).
Variable and Difference Highest Mean Rank Median Mean Rank Lowest Mean Rank
Entrepreneurial Intention K = 15.71, p = 0.00 Course U: 47.79 Course G: 40.70 Course H: 25.77
Resilience K = 8.01, p = 0.02 Course U: 44.39 Course H: 36.67 Course G: 26.52
Usefulness of Google Docs K = 7.16, p = 0.03 Course U: 42.46 Course H: 37.62 Course G: 26.32
Usefulness of Seeing Files on Other Computers K = 9.83, p = 0.01 Course U: 47.43 Course H: 35.42 Course G: 26.45
Usefulness of Controlling Files on Other Computers K = 8.68, p = 0.01 Course U: 46.96 Course H: 35.11 Course G: 27.23
EDC and Entrepreneurship K = 8.40, p = 0.02 Course U: 47.25 Course G: 35.80 Course H: 29.27
characteristics as the independent variable. The model was first tested using Study 1 data to understand relationships between
students’ pre-existing attitudes. The model was tested again using Study 2 data to identify any changes that emerged in the re-
lationships between the research variables.
Entrepreneurial characteristics were modeled as a formative construct incorporating learner self-efficacy, resilience, subjective
norm, creative problem solving, and opportunity recognition. Correlations of the items in this formative construct were tested to
identify possible multicollinearity. Reflective constructs represented learners’ perceptions of interactions with the EDC and usefulness
of ICT tools and were expected to moderate the effects of entrepreneurial characteristics on risk taking, which in turn affected
entrepreneurial intention.
5. Results
5.1. Attitudes and perceptions (study 1)
The results of Study 1 suggested that students in the three courses differed significantly in their entrepreneurial intention and
perceptions of the usefulness of Google Docs, seeing files on other computers, and controlling files on remote computers. To a lesser
extent, attitudes towards the value of exposure to the Enterprise Development Center for entrepreneurship also differed. However,
attitudes towards risk taking did not differ between the three courses. These results, shown in Table 4 as the rank distribution of the
variables’ scores, suggest that students did tend to self-select into courses that they felt matched their entrepreneurial intentions and
attitudes.
An evaluation of the mean ranks relating to the perceived value of interactions with the EDC for entrepreneurship shown in
Table 4 suggests that students in Course U reported the highest mean ranks. These students enrolled in the course with an existing
idea for a new business venture and a desire to realize it. These students may have expected to gain valuable experience and insights
through interactions with the EDC. At the same time, students in Course H began the semester with the goal of completing the
requirements of the three-year honors entrepreneurship program. Of all three courses, these students had the lowest entrepreneurial
intention at the start of the course, possibly because they were not planning to become entrepreneurs and may have seen limited
value in interactions with EDC companies. These results answer RQ1 and help clarify the self-selection mechanisms that motivated
students to enroll into their entrepreneurship elective course based on their interests and aspirations.
5.2. Predictive model analysis (Study 1)
The data from Study 1 was analyzed in SmartPLS to test the predictive model (Fig. 2) exploring the pre-existing relationships
between learner entrepreneurial characteristics (the formative construct created from the five attitudinal items capturing self-effi-
cacy, resilience, subjective norms, creative problem solving, and opportunity recognition), usefulness of ICT, effectiveness of EDC
interactions, risk taking, and entrepreneurial intention. Results yielded a model R-squared of 0.235, with risk taking having an R-
squared of 0.208.
5.3. Attitudes and perceptions (Study 2)
Using the Study 2 questions capturing students' current and retrospective perceptions, a Wilcoxon two-sample paired signed rank
test revealed no statistically significant differences about the usefulness of ICT in their coursework, suggesting that students did not
perceive their attitudes towards the usefulness of ICT to have changed during the semester. This is not to say that the students did not
value ICT, but that their assessment of the technology's value remained unchanged most likely because they were already familiar
with it. The Study 2 survey also captured students' current and retrospective perceptions of subjective norm and risk taking. Of these
two items, only risk taking resulted in a statistically significant difference, with students reporting across all three courses that they
believed their willingness to take risks had increased (W = 103.50, Z = 2.538, p = 0.011).
The Kruskal-Wallis One Way Analysis of Variance test was used to explore the between-course differences of learner char-
acteristics, attitudes towards ICT usage, and perceptions of the value of EDC interactions. Attitudes towards risk taking differed
between courses (K = 5.690, p = 0.058). Other variables exhibiting between-course differences in Study 2 include subjective norm,
usefulness of Google Docs, and exposure to the EDC and its value to entrepreneurship. These results are shown in Table 5 and help
answer the questions on students’ reactions to entrepreneurship courses (RQ2).
232
Fig. 2. Predictive model with entrepreneurial intention as outcome (Study 1).
Table 5
Attitudes and perceptions (Study 2).
Variable and Difference Highest Mean Rank Median Mean Rank Lowest Mean Rank
Subjective Norm K = 7.02, p = 0.03 Course U: 33.18 Course H: 21.42 Course G: 20.94
Taking Risks (retrospective) K = 6.23, p = 0.04 Course U: 32.36 Course G: 23.68 Course H: 19.45
Taking Risks (current) K = 5.69, p = 0.06 Course U: 32.23 Course H: 22.42 Course G: 20.44
Usefulness of Google Docs K = 6.66, p = 0.04 Course H: 29.26 Course U: 24.14 Course G: 18.03
EDC and Entrepreneurship K = 8.07, p = 0.02 Course G: 24.38 Course U: 16.73 Course H: 12.90
5.4. Predictive model analysis (Study 2)
When the predictive model was tested using Study 1 data, results yielded a model R-squared of 0.235, with risk taking having an
R-squared of 0.208. When the same model was tested with Study 2 data (Fig. 3), the R-squared for risk taking increased significantly
Fig. 3. Predictive model with entrepreneurial intention as outcome (Study 2).
233
Fig. 4. Revised predictive model with risk taking as outcome (Study 2).
(0.539); however, the overall R-squared for the model decreased to 0.116, with several paths leading to entrepreneurial intention
becoming insignificant, suggesting that H1, H5b and H5c are not supported and that, after exposure to the entrepreneurial course,
learners’ entrepreneurial characteristics, risk taking perceptions and EDC experiences no longer impacted their entrepreneurial in-
tentions.
To further explore the observed increase in risk taking in Study 2, the predictive model was modified by removing entrepreneurial
intention and making risk taking the outcome variable (Fig. 4). Analysis of this revised model using Study 2 data resulted in a model
R-squared of 0.538. The average variance extracted, composite reliability, and Cronbach's alpha values (Table 6) were above the
minimum recommended values (0.5, 0.5, and 0.7, respectively) for all reflective constructs (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010).
Additionally, all paths in the model were significant except for the path leading from interactions with the EDC to taking risks,
suggesting that hypothesis H4b was not supported. Results suggested that, after taking the entrepreneurship course, learners'
entrepreneurial characteristics had a positive impact on their attitudes towards risk taking (H2 is supported), a positive impact on
the perceived usefulness of ICT in entrepreneurship courses (H3a is supported), and a positive impact on perceptions regarding
interactions with the EDC (H4a is supported). H3b was also supported, suggesting that positive perceptions of the usefulness of ICT
in entrepreneurship education positively moderated the effects of learners' entrepreneurial characteristics on their willingness to take
risks.
5.5. Comparing the studies: differences in distributions between Study 1 and Study 2
To answer RQ3, Study 1 and Study 2 were compared. Although Study 1 results suggested that students in the three courses
differed significantly in their entrepreneurial intention (attitude towards becoming an entrepreneur within five years) (K = 15.710,
p = 0.000), there was no statistically significant difference in entrepreneurial intention between the three courses in Study 2. These
Table 6
Results of PLS analysis on revised predictive model.
Variable AVE (> 0.5) CR (> 0.7) Cronbach's alpha (> 0.7)
Interactions with EDC 0.8191 0.9311 0.8880

Usefulness of Tools 0.5699 0.9020 0.8727
Taking Risks 1.000 1.000 1.000
Path (* Significant) Original Sample Sample Mean St. Dev. T-statistic
Attitudes - > EDC* 0.4145 0.4178 0.0912 4.5442

Attitudes - > Taking Risks* 0.2561 0.2755 0.0946 2.7084
Attitudes - > Tool Usefulness* 0.6247 0.637 0.0911 6.8560
EDC - > Taking Risks 0.1288 0.1307 0.0797 1.6171
Tool Usefulness - > Taking Risks* 0.4855 0.4681 0.0995 4.8775
* denotes p < 0.05.
234
results suggest that, after being exposed to their respective courses, learners’ entrepreneurial intentions clustered towards a mean,
supporting prior research finding that entrepreneurial intention may be an inconclusive indicator of the effectiveness of en-
trepreneurship education.
The rank distributions of Risk Taking from Study 1 (N1 = 69) and Study 2 (N2 = 47) exhibited a statistically significant difference
(U = 2129, Z = 2.912, p = 0.004), with two courses showing significant increases (Course H U = 440, Z = 2.460, p = 0.014; Course
U U = 112, Z = 1.970, p = 0.058). Course G, which had mid-range ranks in Study 1, had the highest ranks in Study 2, and Course U,
which had the highest rank in Study 1, exhibited mid-range ranks in Study 2. This new rank distribution reflects the amount of actual
interaction the students in each course had with the EDC. No other variables exhibited statistically significant differences between
Study 1 and Study 2.
Students enrolled in Course G exhibited an increase in perceptions of opportunity recognition (U = 292.50, Z = 3.199, p = 0.020)
and attitudes towards the EDC and learning (U = 241, Z = 2.415, p = 0.018) as measured by comparing the ranks from Study 1 and
Study 2. Working with actual EDC companies on innovative projects may have enabled these students to recognize how companies
identify and exploit opportunities for innovation and intrapreneurship, and led to positive changes in perceptions of the educational
value of such experiential learning. Students confirmed in their written anonymous course evaluations that they enjoyed working in
the EDC ecosystem.
Students in Course H were the only participants to report a statistically significant increase in entrepreneurial intention (U = 449,
Z = 2.631, p = 0.009). In this course, the instructor built on the students’ vetted, well-defined product concepts to guide them
through the process of starting a company. Their increased entrepreneurial intentions, as well as their increased attitudes towards risk
taking (U = 440, Z = 2.460, p = 0.014), suggest that experiential entrepreneurship education is very effective for students who have
already been guided through the creative idea and design processes. Even for students whose ideas have not been vetted and are not
fully developed (Course U), exposure to experiential entrepreneurship education resulted in an increased attitude towards risk taking
(U = 112, Z = 1.970, p = 0.058).
6. Discussion
The two studies in this research explore pre-existing perceptions and attitudes of the students who self-select into three different
entrepreneurship courses (RQ1) and students' perceptions and attitudes after exposure to their chosen course (RQ2). By exploring the
changes and evolution in perceptions between the two studies, this research contextualizes the interactions between students’ pre-
existing attitudes and the design of the course (including the use of ICT tools and exposure to start-up companies in the EDC) on their
subsequent attitudes towards entrepreneurship, in particular focusing on the evolution of their entrepreneurial intention and risk
taking attitudes (RQ3). Motivated by the lack of research evaluating the impact of technology and experiential learning in en-
trepreneurship education, this research explores three distinct entrepreneurship courses that use information and communication
technologies and interactions with actual start-up companies in an Enterprise Development Center to educate students in en-
trepreneurship.
Findings suggest that students largely self-classify according to their entrepreneurial intentions by enrolling in entrepreneurship
courses matching their entrepreneurial desires and goals. Results of Study 1 revealed that students' entrepreneurial intentions differed
when analyzed by course, with students in Course U reporting the highest entrepreneurial intentions at the beginning of the course.
By the end of the three courses, students' entrepreneurial intentions had converged, revealing a decrease in this measure for students
in Course U and a statistically significant increase in the entrepreneurial intention of Course H students. Contextualizing these
changes within the broader environment of course and student characteristics, patterns begin to emerge that give meaning to the
inconsistent results of previous research on entrepreneurship education and learners’ entrepreneurial intentions. Students who were
perhaps overconfident experienced a decrease in entrepreneurial intention after being soberly exposed to the ecosystem and tools of
entrepreneurs as suggested by Oosterbeek et al. (2010), while students who had well-developed, vetted business ideas or innovations
became more interested in entrepreneurship after being exposed to the same type of course.
Although the impact of technology-supported experiential entrepreneurship courses on entrepreneurial intention varied between
the three courses included in this research, students' propensity towards taking risks increased in all three courses. This suggests that
exposing students to the tools and experiences necessary for entrepreneurship increases their comfort in taking on the risks associated
with entrepreneurial activities, and that this increased risk taking propensity may be a more salient measure of the success of
entrepreneurship education than entrepreneurial intention. To this end, the predictive model evaluating Study 2 data focuses on risk
taking as the outcome variable. This model shows that students' entrepreneurial characteristics positively impact their willingness to
take risks, and this relationship between learner characteristics and risk is moderated by students’ perceptions of the usefulness of
ICT. Table 7 summarizes our findings.
6.1. Research implications
This research contributes to the field of entrepreneurship education by disambiguating the interactions of student characteristics,
the technological and experiential characteristics of the entrepreneurship course, risk taking, and entrepreneurial intention. By
contextualizing not only the activities and methods used in the various courses but also the students who self-selected into these
courses, the two studies in this research begin to unravel the mixed effects of entrepreneurship education on students’ entrepreneurial
intentions. This research predicts that students with greater affinity for entrepreneurship will adapt ICT more readily, and encourages
instructors to introduce ICT to their course commensurately with the entrepreneurship prerequisites of the course.
235
Table 7
Hypothesis testing results.
Hypothesis Supported?
H1: Learners' entrepreneurial characteristics will impact their attitudes toward entrepreneurial intention. No
H2: Learners' entrepreneurial characteristics will impact their attitudes toward risk-taking. Yes
H3a: Learners' entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact the perceived usefulness of ICT in entrepreneurship courses. Yes
H3b: Positive perceptions of technology usefulness will positively impact the relationship between learner entrepreneurial characteristics and risk Yes
taking.
H4a: Learners' entrepreneurial characteristics will positively impact their perceptions regarding experiential interactions (i.e. with the EDC) in an Yes
entrepreneurship course.
H4b: The perceived usefulness of practical experiences gained through exposure to the EDC will positively impact the relationship between learner Partially Supporteda
entrepreneurial characteristics and risk taking.
H5a: Learners' perceptions of technology usefulness will impact their entrepreneurial intention. No
H5b: Learners' risk taking perceptions will impact entrepreneurial intention. No
H5c: Learners' perceptions of experiential interactions (with the EDC) will impact their entrepreneurial intention. No
a
Partially supported when entrepreneurial characteristics are grouped into categories of control and creativity.
By exploring the simultaneous effects of ICT, experiential learning, and exposure to start-up companies, this research highlights
the importance of an integrated approach to entrepreneurship education research and practice. Building on the method world model
of entrepreneurship pedagogy (Neck & Greene, 2011), this research encourages educators to move beyond the classification of
entrepreneurship courses as either theoretical or practical, and expose students to ICT and start-up companies so as to empower
students with skills and experiences that make them more willing to take on the risky business of entrepreneurship.
On a broader level, this research contributes to previous studies by suggesting that risk taking propensity can be positively
impacted by entrepreneurship education. Previous research commonly implemented risk taking as a static characteristic of the
learner. Our findings suggests that a student's propensity to take risks can be enhanced through exposure to technology-supported
experiential entrepreneurship courses, positioning risk taking propensity as an important outcome of entrepreneurship education for
the educator to measure and influence.
This research also helps explain the conflicting relationships reported in the literature between the entrepreneurial self-efficacy
trait and the illusion of control cognitive bias, both which increase with the mastery of skills, and risk perception. Mastery of ICT
increases self-efficacy in settings where these skills determine successful outcomes, such as distance learning. Of the three courses in
our studies, only students in Course H demonstrated a statistically significant increase in entrepreneurial intent and risk tolerance.
These honors students enrolled in the course after vetting their innovations and business plans for at least three semesters, and thus
appreciated the obstacles facing the commercialization of their innovations. Their exposure to entrepreneurship ICT tools and the
EDC may have given them self-efficacy without the illusion of control. To a lesser degree, students in Course G also demonstrated an
increase in entrepreneurial intent and risk tolerance. Even though these graduate business students did not have a vetted business
concept upon enrollment, their exposure to ICT also gave them self-sufficiently, and witnessing the daily realities of entrepreneurship
in the EDC may have dispelled any illusion of control. Students in Course U demonstrated an increase in risk tolerance but a drop in
entrepreneurial intent. These students did not enroll with a vetted business concept as did Course H students, and while they may
have been enthusiastic during Study 1, many appreciated the intractability of their concepts by Study 2. Course U student behavior is
thus also consistent with increased self-efficacy from exposure to ICT and the EDC without the illusion of control.
6.2. Limitations
Being exploratory in nature, this research suffers from limitations that may impact its generalizability. One limitation to the
external validity of these two studies is the impact of sample bias; the students and the courses may not be representative of the larger
population. Another limitation to the external validity of this research is that it deals only with self-reported perception data, and as
such is subject to exaggeration bias as well as selective memory bias, particularly for the retrospective questions. Replicability is also
a limitation; because all three courses were taught by one instructor, the same courses taught by other instructors could yield varying
results.
6.3. Future research
Reflecting an increasing interest in entrepreneurship, more students are enrolling in entrepreneurship courses having already
formed ventures and/or market-tested their innovations. Entrepreneurship instructors may thus find increasing variability in stu-
dents’ entrepreneurial intentions, risk perception, self-efficacy, and illusion of control. Moreover, the diversity in these attributes
found among the three different courses considered in this research might be found within a single course. Future research can exploit
this trend by repeating within a course the experiments described in this paper; additional survey questions will measure this prior
entrepreneurial activity. The resulting instrument will allow instructors to assess the disposition of her/his students in different
institutional settings (i.e., without requiring contrasting parallel courses such as those of this research), which in turn can predict how
students will respond to ICT and experiential exercises (Hypotheses H3a, H3b, H4a, and H4b) with the ultimate goal of promoting
self-efficacy and risk tolerance among students (Hypotheses H2) while avoiding the illusion of control.
236
7. Summary and conclusions
Some researchers have previously theorized that the mixed effects of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention
could be the result of students developing more realistic understandings of the risks of entrepreneurship, as well as more objective
assessments of their own skills in these areas, after being exposed to entrepreneurship courses (Oosterbeek et al., 2010). Other
researchers have found variability in learner's post-course entrepreneurial intentions based on the orientation (theoretical or prac-
tical) of the entrepreneurship course (Piperopoulos & Dimov, 2015). This research moves beyond the bimodal classification of
entrepreneurship courses along the theory/practice divide by evaluating the effects of three distinct courses with different goals but
which integrate information and communication technologies as well as experiential learning opportunities to create a more realistic
entrepreneurial experience for entrepreneurship students, with more realistic assessment of external risks and internal skills.
While entrepreneurial intention appears to be sensitive to students’ more realistic evaluations of entrepreneurship after com-
pleting an entrepreneurship course, their propensity to take risks is positively impacted by entrepreneurship courses, suggesting that
risk taking can be an alternative metric for assessing the efficacy of entrepreneurship courses. Although entrepreneurship is a risky
business, educating students about these risks and preparing them to deal with them through learning opportunities enhanced with
critical entrepreneurial technologies and experiences with real world start-up companies may give students the increased confidence
in both their technical and business skills that will ultimately lead them to become successful future entrepreneurs.
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The International Journal of Management Education 16 (2018) 224–238

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The International Journal of

Risky business: Experiential learning, information and

2.1. Entrepreneurship education

2.1.1. Experiential entrepreneurship courses

2.1.2. The role of ICT in entrepreneurship education

2.2. Key outcomes of entrepreneurship education

2.2.1. Entrepreneurial intention

Pedagogical Dimensions Sample Activities Technologies Supporting Sample Activities

2.2.2. Risk taking

2.2.3. Learner entrepreneurial characteristics

3. Research questions and hypotheses

Variable Deﬁnition Sample Questions Source

Fig. 1. Proposed predictive model.

4.1. Experiential activities in participating courses

Attribute Course U Course G Course H

Attributes of Students at Start of Course

4.2. Information and communication technologies in participating courses

4.4. Statistical techniques

5.1. Attitudes and perceptions (study 1)

5.2. Predictive model analysis (Study 1)

5.3. Attitudes and perceptions (Study 2)

Fig. 2. Predictive model with entrepreneurial intention as outcome (Study 1).

5.4. Predictive model analysis (Study 2)

Fig. 3. Predictive model with entrepreneurial intention as outcome (Study 2).

Interactions with EDC 0.8191 0.9311 0.8880

Path (* Signiﬁcant) Original Sample Sample Mean St. Dev. T-statistic

Attitudes - > EDC* 0.4145 0.4178 0.0912 4.5442

* denotes p < 0.05.

6.1. Research implications

6.3. Future research

7. Summary and conclusions

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