University students’ perception of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and social entrepreneurial intention

Abstract

Entrepreneurship today has become a priority to promote the sustainability of countries. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Ecuadoris the country with the highest level of entrepreneurship in Latin America. Specifically, social entrepreneurship has gained momentum as an alternative to satisfy needs that have not been addressed at the governmental level. In this context, the article analyzes the relationship and the significant differences between theentrepreneurial ecosystem and the social entrepreneurial intention of the students of the University of Cuenca; using the variables gender and faculties as transversaltreatment. To meet this objective we worked with a representative sample of 856 students, which was filtered, generating a robust sample of 543 students.The analysis of results used inferential statiscal techniques such as: ANOVA one way, Student´s t test and Pearson correlation, which show that there are no significant differences by sex in the students´ perception of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the social enterpreneurial intention. In addition, students considerthat the entrepreneurial ecosystem differs among the twelve faculties, identifying the faculty of Dentistry and faculty of Arts with a suitable ecosystem comparedto the perception that more intervention is required in the ecosystem of the faculty of Philosophy and faculty of Jurisprudence. Finally, the positive relationshipbetween the two variables is an indicator that should be worked on in strategies to promote the social entrepreneurial culture at the university.