Author(s): Sebastian Walther, Stephan Haubold, Renata Dobrucka
The expectations of universities, as educational institutions, are to train chempreneurs, entrepreneurs from chemistry faculties. These chempreneurs are expected to transform the chemical industry towards sustainability in the future and change their respective industries. Despite over 20 years of progress, entrepreneurship in the STEM community remains male- dominated (Beede et al. 2011; Minniti et al. 2005; Kelley et al. 2017). German chemistry students are 54% less likely to start their own business than the average German student. Therefore, we conducted a comparative study among male and female chemistry students of all grades in Germany and compared them with samples of male and female Polish chemistry students to understand motivations, barriers and intentions and to identify possible differences between men and women. By including samples of students with significant differences in culture, economics and educational background, we developed and tested hypotheses about the influence of these factors on the intentions, perceptions, motivations and barriers of four groups. A random sample of chemistry students was included for both Germany and Poland. We distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic factors. We found a number of significant differences between the four groups. We discuss the results and suggest new approaches for the education of chemistry students and for future research approaches.