Are the young people of Latvia ready and would like to start a business in the future? The researchers of the Faculty of Engineering Economics and Management (IEVF) of the Riga Technical University (RTU) were looking for an answer to this question, by surveying first-year students in an international study, how ready they are to get involved in entrepreneurship. Young people's vision of their future career was measured in the international study "Students Entrepreneurial Attitude Survey" (SEAS) using specific criteria - innovativeness and creativity, risk-taking and proactivity. The study was conducted by RTU IEVF professor Inga Lapiņa and researcher Tatjana Ņikitina together with colleagues from the Gdańsk University of Technology.
138 (37%) women and 232 (63%) men participated in the survey on the readiness of young people to become entrepreneurs in the future in Latvia. In total 3631 young people from different countries participated in this study, of which 28% were from Poland, 21% from Ukraine, 10% from Latvia, 6% from Bulgaria and 35% from Lithuania. 44% of women and 56% of men were interviewed in the sample. A similar study is planned to be repeated in all countries in order to be able to compare the dynamics of the results.
Latvia values proactivity the most
In the survey Latvian students rated their proactivity the highest, followed by innovativeness and creativity, and only after that – the ability and willingness to take risks. Latvian youth, just like Polish, assessed their readiness and desire to become entrepreneurs with 3.34 points, which "cannot be evaluated as 100% readiness", says researcher T. Ņikitina.
"If you interpret these survey data, you could say that young people in Latvia are not quite ready to start a business in the future. The answer is rather "medium readiness", T. Ņikitina assesses.
Closer to "one hundred percent yes" are, for example, the Lithuanians. "The study revealed that students in Lithuania are the most ready to do business in the future - the total number of points achieved in the survey was 4.09 points," says T. Ņikitina.
Evaluating their proactivity, young people rated themselves higher in Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine and Bulgaria, while innovativeness and creativity, as well as risk-taking and general readiness to do business in the future were rated higher in Lithuania and Ukraine.
Students of various fields want to become entrepreneurs
In the survey, male students had higher indicators in the questions about their innovativeness and creativity, risk-taking, as well as the overall individual orientation to entrepreneurship, while both young men and women rated their proactivity at approximately the same level.
The research also revealed that both young people who chose to study business and those who study technology, engineering or mathematics are equally ready to become entrepreneurs. "In a sense, this is unexpected - one would think that young people studying business could be more oriented towards starting a business," says the IEVF researcher.
In recent years, there have been more applications to study entrepreneurship
"In recent years there are more people who want to study in the undergraduate study programs of the Faculty of Engineering Economics and Management of RTU, which prepare future entrepreneurs and managers. For example, 14 young people applied for one budget place in the study program "Entrepreneurship and management" last year," says IEVF dean Jānis Caune, adding that similar activity is expected this year as well.
The number of applications for programs where studies are conducted in English has also increased. Last year these programs had the largest increase in the number of students in recent years, that is 251 students started their first year of study at RTU IEVF.
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