January 3rd, 2016: Research conducted by a team of academics led by Canadian University Dubai (CUD) Assistant Professor, Ms. Jeanette Teh, has revealed that universities could help stimulate entrepreneurship in the Middle East by providing students with training and support in the field.
The research set out to determine if having an entrepreneurial attitude has a positive impact on the intentions of undergraduate students in Dubai to become entrepreneurs, and whether universities and role models have a part to play in evolving entrepreneurial attitudes into entrepreneurial intentions.
Alongside Ms. Teh in the research team was Dr. Hassan Al-Dhaafri, Assistant Professor in the College of Business Administration, American University in the Emirates, and Dr. Adrienne A. Isakovic, Lead Faculty in the School of Management, Walden University, USA. The findings of the study were presented by Ms. Teh and Dr. Hassan at the 9th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference held in Singapore in November.
Based on a survey of 135 students, the research found that, “Entrepreneurial attitude is positively and significantly related to entrepreneurial intentions. Further, having a university play a greater role in providing entrepreneurship training and assistance would also increase students’ intentions to become entrepreneurs.”
However, the research also concluded that, contrary to expectations, having a family member as an entrepreneur did not increase the respondents’ intentions to be an entrepreneur themselves. These findings, says Ms. Teh, hold some important messages for educators and policy makers in the region.
She commented that “role models did not have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions was surprising, but perhaps helpful for policy makers interested in increasing the rate of entrepreneurship, since we have very little ability to change family or personal circumstances.”
She continued, “Nevertheless, there is much that governments and institutions can do to foster more entrepreneurial intentions and by extension, more entrepreneurial activity. Greater attention can be paid to identifying potential entrepreneurs early during their education and providing specialized training to encourage and develop their entrepreneurial skills.”
CUD is among those institutions promoting a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship from an early stage in students’ studies. The General Education course, Entrepreneurial Theory and Practice provides students with the unique opportunity to learn about the world of business enterprise from Dubai’s own young entrepreneurs.
One group of students is currently putting these entrepreneurial skills to the test as part of the region-wide Ripples of Happiness initiative. Through a social enterprise model they are working to unite the deaf and non-deaf communities of the UAE through the development of an innovative mobile application, Efhamni – Arabic for ‘understand me’ – which teaches users the fundamentals of Emirati sign-language.
Read more about Efhamni: http://www.cud.ac.ae/news/students-develop-app-support-emirates’-deaf-community
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