Research Article: 2019 Vol: 22 Issue: 4
Vladimir B. Zotov, State University of Management
Mariia N. Koniagina, North-West Institute of Management of the Russian
Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Elena A. Shapkina, Lomonosov Moscow State University
Elena A. Pikalova, Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University
Diana I. Stepanova, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
This article studies the problem of the lack of practice-oriented education in entrepreneurial education on the example of developing countries. This happens due to the increasing need to form a middle class and an increase in the number of entrepreneurs, which society cannot cope with. The standard of living of citizens falls everywhere in the world. Unemployment and social tension are rising. The ineffectiveness of methods of engaging citizens in entrepreneurial activity and the growing number of unemployed led to the emergence of such a phenomenon as entrepreneurial education. This type of education became a new form of directional stimulation and justification for the need to study, promote and introduce the practice of practice-oriented education. Therefore, the aim of the article is to develop proposals to stimulate this important for developing countries type of education, based on a quantitative experience analysis of introducing practice-oriented education in entrepreneurial education in developing countries. Furthermore, determining the immediate prospects for implementing practice-oriented learning experience is essential.
The authors of the article have explored the development of entrepreneurial education in developing countries as an effective way to solve social problems by means of motivation. In particular, the article deals with the problem of the lack of practice-oriented education in business education on the example of developing countries. At the present stage of development of universities, the development and adaptation of training courses, including practical training, shows the program of entrepreneurial education to be of particular importance. The experience of the student business incubator at the university is summarized. The project and educational components of the structure of student business incubators are defined.
Successful work was noted to share both educational and business activities. The group of indicators were proposed to assess the effectiveness of their activities on the basis of regular monitoring.
Entrepreneurial Education, Higher Educational Establishment, Entrepreneurial Competence, Practice-Oriented Learning, Infrastructure to Support Entrepreneurship, Business Incubator.
Business education in the Russian Federation developed on the basis of economic education adopted in the post-Soviet countries. In this regard, at the initial stage of the formation and development of entrepreneurial education, methodological developments of Soviet economic education were used, and already in the development process, foreign developments were borrowed as those recognized as the best. At the same time, the lack of practical experience is the reason for the lack of development of entrepreneurial thinking and a holistic vision of entrepreneurial activity that develops only in the context of practice-oriented learning. According to Johannisson in the fundamental work on entrepreneurial education (Johannisson, 1991), to ensure the proper quality of education, it is necessary for the student to have appropriate motivation, have relevant theoretical knowledge, understand the mechanisms of business interaction, feel when and how to run a business processes. The European Parliament (European Parliament and the Council, 2008) has developed competency requirements for a student who has received an entrepreneurial education, one of which is the ability to see opportunities for activity and to have a good knowledge of infrastructure, conditions and the labor market. Obviously, these skills are not achievable without entrepreneurial experience. In domestic practice, there is a situation in which university students receive mainly theoretical education with a clear lack of practical experience, and entrepreneurs take part in various business trainings and short-term courses (including online) to gain theoretical knowledge. At the same time, some domestic higher educational establishments integrate the best foreign practices into their activities, including actual training in practical entrepreneurial skills. This article is devoted to the generalization of the experience gained and the development of recommendations for the implementation in practical work of universities.
In the scientific literature, the problem of ensuring the entrepreneurial education quality is complex and is considered as interdisciplinary (Komarkova et al., 2015), while the requirements for entrepreneurial education are considered in international regulatory documents (Watkins, 2006; Rasmussen, 2011).
In the scientific literature devoted to the problem of the effectiveness of entrepreneurial education, from time to time the question arises about the very possibility of teaching entrepreneurship (Haase & Lautenschläger, 2011), and whether it is even possible to develop entrepreneurial skills in the learning process (Gibb & Hannon, 2006; Hindle, 2007).
A number of researchers believe that quantitative data on the effectiveness of business education are biased because they were sponsored mainly by companies associated with universities or their employees. At the same time, the authors cite statistics, that in general higher education does contribute to the development of entrepreneurial skills (Åstebro et al., 2012). It is statistically established that entrepreneurial education is not a priority among entrepreneurs, while students expect more from entrepreneurial education (Küttim et al., 2014; Shubaeva & Evstafieva, 2017).
In the majority of domestic universities, the course of disciplines related to entrepreneurial activity is fragmented and does not provide an opportunity to get an idea of entrepreneurial activity in general (Chepurenko, 2017). Foreign authors, however, put forward the concept of an entrepreneurial university as a regional center for entrepreneurial activity, providing interaction between the academic and economic worlds through such structures as science and technology parks, technology transfer centers, incubators for beginning young entrepreneurs, etc. (Kuratko, 2005; Bercovitz & Feldman, 2006; Decter et al., 2007). For the domestic entrepreneurial education, such an approach is being complicated by the lack of a business environment, the lack of an entrepreneurial culture of honest business, the absence of a large regional business, etc.
At the same time, studies of the profitability of startups developed by students together with teachers in the framework of educational activities showed that a major part of these startups was not effective. Thus, the authors questioned the feasibility of increasing the number of study hours specifically for practical work seems dubious (Küttim et al., 2014). This underlines the serious potential of the university as a mediator and assistant in the promotion of ideas, as well as the basis for their approbation (Naumov & Shubaeva, 2014).
Despite this, according to Forbes, entrepreneurial education is ineffective in practice (Yang, 2016). And although for business education various technologies were used (for example, interactive, computer, etc. (OECD, 2009; Kozlinska, 2011; Bae et al., 2014; Blenker et al., 2014; Maresch et al., 2016), today there are no corresponding pedagogical methods and technologies, the use of which ensured the efficiency of education (Neck & Greene, 2011). The modern trend of entrepreneurial education is the expansion of the share of practical training, the use of practical experience (Fayolle et al., 2006; Noyes & Deligiannidis, 2013).
Changes in the field of world education, problems in the methodology of entrepreneurial education put forward new requirements for domestic entrepreneurial education (Shubaeva & Evstafieva, 2017), as characterized by the following:
• Lack of a developed business environment in the region, and as a result of this lack of a ground for practical training for students and exchange of experience with teachers.
• Lack of practical experience in doing business with the teaching staff of universities.
• Unavailability of higher educational establishments to function in a market economy.
• Reducing the quality of education and competitiveness of educational establishments in the global market.
• Lack of effective partnership between the state, higher education establishments and business.
• The discrepancy between the offer of educational services and the demand for them from the labor market.
• Lack of highly qualified personnel.
• Obsolete material and technical base.
• Lack of a sufficient proficiency level in foreign languages (particularly English) for the Implementation of best practices, international experience and theoretical developments in business education.
Due to these problems, development and adaptation of training courses, including practical training, in the program of entrepreneurial education is of particular importance. The conducted literature review allowed us to conclude that the problem of introducing practice-oriented education in business education is insufficiently developed, which is especially important for developing countries.
The aim of the work is to analyze the experience of implementing practice-oriented education in business education on the example of developing countries.
The article summarizes the experience of introducing practice-oriented education into entrepreneurial education in one of the universities of developing countries, which became basis for conducting empirical research in the field of business education. Additional methods of developing problems were: systematization, synthesis and visualization of primary information, as well as the systematization of secondary information.
In order to ensure the relevance of the information, the authors followed the principles:
1. Credibility, which is implemented through independently conducted field research, which monitored the quality and completeness of the information received.
2. Relevance of the information that has been collected and processed for 5 years (2014–2018).
3. Focus of information, which means the compliance of the collected information to the goals and objectives of the study.
All information was collected according to a uniform methodology, which makes it possible to carry out a correct comparative analysis of data obtained from an empirical study. This made it possible to evaluate the results and interpret them in a form understandable to a wide range of people. The reliability of the data obtained is confirmed by the high correlation of the values of their series. Thus, using standard statistical software packages confirmed the reliability of data on the dynamics of the number of student startups in the framework of the business incubator: the result of the correlation coefficients varied around the value of 0.97 (from 0.96 to 0.98).
According to statistics, certain companies are trying to build a dialogue with universities and create staffing for their activities. Though, the level of activity of such a single cooperation is quite low, because only about 30% of the total student flow is used, mainly from leading universities. In addition, the practice of cooperation in most higher educational establishments has been narrowed mainly to the more familiar concept of student mobility, that is, providing students with the opportunity to study or work in a short-term basis on the basis of enterprises. Other cooperation initiatives, such as joint scientific research, their commercialization, development of educational programs, promotion of entrepreneurial initiatives, are not common, and this does not allow re-creating a complete picture of the needs of the business environment.
The most common form of cooperation of business organizations from universities is assistance in organizing production practices (internships) of students, which is implemented by 71% of enterprises, although quite often this happens formally by signing documents (practice contracts and reports). Only about a third of enterprises engage in attracting students to work in an enterprise. The main obstacle in the implementation of the first two forms of partnership are the attempts of the heads of business organizations to protect commercial secrets, the threat to which they see in third parties (students). Even less common forms are individual selection of young specialists at the request of the enterprise (18%), conclusion of contracts on contract-oriented training of specialists (18%), company presentations in universities (17%), participation of enterprise specialists in the educational process at universities (10% ). Other types of cooperation account for only 3%, but this includes the most important forms of cooperation for the development of the innovation component of the national economy. It is related to conducting scientific research commissioned by business organizations, transferring knowledge and their commercialization.
To solve these problems, as well as to improve the competitiveness of the university, the curricula of many disciplines of the specialty "Entrepreneurship" was changed. Therefore, disciplines for this specialty were divided according to the blocks of competences, and were implemented consistently:
• General disciplines containing general information about entrepreneurship, legislation, forms and methods of doing business, external and internal conditions and restrictions.
• Disciplines containing information necessary for the development of a business plan: legal disciplines; information on lending, including preferential, analysis and development of projects and business plans.
• Workshops, consultations and practical exercises. The form of control at this stage is to develop your own startup or develop a project business plan.
To ensure and support students in practical implementation, the so-called business incubator was opened, where the following activities were envisaged:
• Technical support of small and medium-sized businesses through cooperation programs with various public and innovative funds.
• Specialized training programs and seminars on the basics of entrepreneurship.
• Provision of office space, furniture, office equipment, free access to the Internet for students to prepare business plans in working groups.
• Consultations on legal issues of business organization, accounting, taxation, lending (the optimal choice of loan resources) and on modern business planning.
• Implementation of marketing research.
• Search for potential partners, investors, grants, programs for the implementation of business projects.
• Organization of training programs for advanced training in the basics of entrepreneurship (business planning, business economics, the fundamentals of modern management and marketing, the basics of tax legislation).
• Organization of training and practice of students in foreign universities of economic profile.
• Ensuring the participation of university students and city youth in scientific and practical conferences, seminars, competitions at local, international levels.
• Assistance in the employment of students.
• Conducting trainings, master classes, lectures with the participation of successful entrepreneurs of the city.
The basis for the functioning of the student business incubator considered that 16.7% of the total number of students take part in the implementation of research. Project partners are:
• AIP: Network of academic business incubators (incubatory.pl) (Poland).
• BusinessLink: Accelerator Network (blpoland.com) (Poland).
• CRIS: Center for the Development of Community Initiatives (cris.org.pl) (Poland).
• StarTAU: Center for Entrepreneurship Development, Tel Aviv University (startau.co.il) (Israel).
The algorithm for organizing student work is as follows:
1. Receipt of the application-appeal from the student.
2. Analysis and processing of applications, assistance in drawing up a business project.
3. Examination of business projects according to approved criteria.
4. Selection of the most competitive projects, the formation of presentation materials.
5. Completion of projects that have passed the examination and determination of their strategy promotion.
6. Project implementation.
7. Holding presentations with investors, partners, potential customers, etc.
8. Consulting on selected projects in the following areas: business development, product market development, technical and technological support, intellectual property protection, marketing (strategy, positioning, market, sales channels, PR), legal consulting, financial mechanism, accounting aspects of activities.
The educational component includes measures to prepare students for project implementation and includes:
1. The recruitment of a group of students who submitted their projects.
2. Recruitment of a group of potential managers-entrepreneurs willing to engage in entrepreneurship.
3. Conducting training activities (master classes, trainings, meetings).
4. Conducting educational and training activities on the formation of a pool of student entrepreneurs.
At the same time, business incubator actively attracts students to the development of various business plans, marketing research and other services that are provided to the business. In this case, the goal of the business incubator is to create 20 new enterprises annually and increase the number of enterprises in the business incubators. The selection criteria is young promising enterprises (there are 1-3 years). The contract is for 2 years. The company pays a stay in the business incubator of 170 euros per year, as well as separately-for the rental of premises.
Over the past 5 years, 194 regional small business enterprises have become clients of a business incubator. The main clients of the business incubator are companies from the following Industries (Figure 1):
• Industrial services: 24 enterprises.
• Information technology: 58 enterprises.
• Consulting: 45 enterprises.
• Tourism: 29 enterprises.
• Cultural recreation: 24 enterprises.
• Other professional services: 14 enterprises.
Business incubator is managed virtually-enterprises do not have to be under the same roof. A specially developed computer-based Internet client management system is used. During the year, the customer base is replenished to 50-60 new enterprises.
During the reporting period, 10 business plans were developed for investment and 4 business plans for competitive selection. Conducted 1 marketing study: "Mystery shopper" for furniture stores, sales training. 5 services for the preparation of documents for registration and re-registration of a legal entity were rendered on a reimbursable basis.
Over the past 5 years, students under the supervision of teachers have conducted a total of 1368 consultations free of charge for individuals (including 72 on legal matters and personnel workflow, 61 on business planning and organization of business processes, 764 courses and seminars, 35-on accounting and taxation, 436 - on business incubation, rental of premises).
During the same period, the total number of participants in paid programs was 3802 people. Of them:
• The number of participants in refresher courses-82 people (in groups and individually).
• The number of participants in courses for unemployed citizens-7 people.
• The number of participants in training activities (seminars, trainings, club meetings) for existing and aspiring entrepreneurs and their employees-3,713 people.
Within the framework of cooperation with the city administration, meetings and trainings are planned, as well as information campaigns.
Subjects of training events concern business planning, financial literacy of entrepreneurs, modern technologies of successful business management, etc. Currently, 6 seminars have been held-trainings on starting their own business, establishing business relations, marketing, etc.
More detailed information on the events is given in Table 1 and Table 2.
Table 1: Number of Events that were held on the basis of a Business Incubator with the Participation of Students | |||||||||||||||
# | Specialty, course, seminar | Per year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
Total | Inc. from EC | ||||||||||||||
Advanced training courses (in groups) | |||||||||||||||
1 | Realtor | 9 | - | - | - | - | 9 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2 | Landscape Design | 7 | - | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
3 | Accounting | 7 | - | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
4 | Human Resources Specialist | 8 | - | - | - | - | - | 8 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
5 | Basics of Business | 11 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 11 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
6 | Computer graphics | 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
7 | Features of accounting and reporting of non-profit organizations | 25 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 25 |
Total: | 74 | - | - | - | - | 23 | 8 | 18 | - | - | - | - | - | 25 | |
Training courses (individual) | |||||||||||||||
1 | 1C: Accounting | 2 | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - |
2 | 1C: Trade Management | 2 | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
3 | Changes in tax legislation in 2015 | 1 | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
4 | Office work | 1 | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
5 | Computer literacy | 1 | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
6 | Human Resources Specialist | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - |
Total: | 8 | - | - | 2 | 2 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | |
Courses for unemployed citizens from the employment center (EC) | 7 | 7 | - | - | 5 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
Training activities for small businesses and their employees | 3713 | - | 40 | 88 | 283 | 95 | 543 | 84 | 142 | 39 | - | 511 | 1568 | 320 | |
TOTAL: | 3802 | 7 | 40 | 90 | 290 | 122 | 551 | 102 | 142 | 39 | - | 511 | 1570 | 345 |
Table 2 The list of training activities for small and Medium-Sized Businesses and Individuals | |
Theme of the event | Number of participants |
1. Legislation requirements in the field of entrepreneurial activity seminar | 25 |
2. New Vision business game | 7 |
3. Strategy and technology of business promotion in social networks workshop | 15 |
4. Meeting of the club of entrepreneurs | 18 |
5. Marketing strategies for increasing revenue seminar | 18 |
6. Current issues in promotional activities seminar | 1 |
7. Current issues in consulting activities seminar | 24 |
8. Actual issues of IT-startups seminar | 19 |
9. Seminar on the removal of excessive administrative barriers to business activities | 15 |
10. How to start an online business: freelancers exchanges workshop | 10 |
11. Freelance at the present stage seminar | 37 |
12. Effective advertising campaign in social networks training | 19 |
13. Legal Security in Business seminar | 14 |
14. Meeting of the Club of entrepreneurs Business to share experience | 17 |
15. Generation of business - ideas seminar - training | 2 |
16. Tourism Manager Academy of Tourism course | 3 |
17. Organization of business activities in the field of trade seminar | 10 |
18. School of Sales Managers practical express-course | 9 |
19. Sales. Conversation express-training | 7 |
20. Competition for the Negotiation Champion title | 14 |
21. Management fights express-training | 9 |
22. Competition on fast managerial struggle (express fights) for the Champion title in managerial struggle | 24 |
23. Shows and Holidays for Attracting and Retaining Customers educational program | 20 |
24. Tourism Manager Academy of Tourism (continued) course | 22 |
25. Tourism Manager Academy of Tourism (continued) course | 16 |
26. B2B: Business for Business exhibition | 16 |
27. E-commerce seminar | 79 |
28. Electronic auction as the main method of procurement ⃰ seminar | 41 |
29. Sales Training | 15 |
30. Changes in tax legislation in 2018 seminar | 26 |
31. Round table for managers of small and medium business Workshop *** | 23 |
32. Project Session | 10 |
33. Project Session | 8 |
34. Analysis of business-business models | 22 |
35. Republican contest of professional skills of specialists of bodies for youth affairs | 15 |
36. Business Forum | 70 |
37. Active sales by phone workshop | 41 |
38. B2B: Business to Business exhibition | 20 |
39. Active sales by phone seminar | 18 |
40. Qualifying tests in the form of expert sessions and competitions of business ideas. | 128 |
41. Meeting of the club of entrepreneurs (presentation of the projects of residents of the business incubator) | 20 |
42. Business-Navigator business school | 49 |
43. Tips and recommendations from regulatory authorities panel discussion | 32 |
44. Secrets of successful financial management workshop | 59 |
45. Secrets of successful financial management training | 24 |
46. Entrepreneurship in the field of art business training | 30 |
47. Designer selling text. (Rules for creating advertising texts to attract customers) training | 13 |
48. STARTUP Forum away forum | 80 |
49. Secrets of the personal effectiveness of the entrepreneur: How to double the performance of intellectual work training | 27 |
50. Meeting of the club of entrepreneurs | 31 |
51. Business projects conveyor | 65 |
52. Meeting of the club of entrepreneurs | 18 |
53. Professional environment master classes of professions and specialties of professional educational organizations (with video broadcasting in the YouTube platform) | 40 |
54. Business Intelligence 2.0. (Conducting competitor analysis on your own) training | 28 |
55. Tips on finding and attracting customers in social networks *** training | 29 |
56. Features of doing business in the Middle East educational program | 11 |
57. Club of entrepreneurs | 24 |
58. School of sales managers training | 54 |
59. Fair of business ideas and projects | 41 |
60. Efficiency manager training | 22 |
Total: 60 workshops | 3713 people |
Experience has shown that the most promising are those projects that offer products manufactured using new technologies. At the same time, students-entrepreneurs tend to cooperate with students of technical specialties. Classes on testing business hypotheses and prototyping helped teams form an approach to building business hypotheses for projects, analyzed solutions using the Lean Startup methodology, to make quick and low-cost efforts to attract first users.
The winner of last year’s student start-up competition was the One Shop project, a marketplace for local manufacturers of handmade goods and brands. According to the developers of the project, One Shop should simplify life for those who produce or, on the contrary, search for creative products online and order them, as well as facilitate the process of ordering and delivering such goods. The second place was also taken by the students of the IT program of the project chain-a blockchain-based platform for reliable and quick verification of authenticity of things.
The dynamics of the number of submitted projects is presented in Table 3 and Figure 2.
Table 3 Student Startups in Business Incubator Framework | |||||
Indicator | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
Number of projects | 3 | 11 | 30 | 48 | 59 |
Absolute change | 8 | 19 | 18 | 11 | |
Growth, % | 366,67 | 272,73 | 160 | 122,92 |
Startups of students who often become winners of start-up contests and the active participation of students in such events are a feature of learning in innovative cluster programs. Students get motivated to work on their own projects, generate ideas, work in teams and be able to present their projects publicly.
The following projects are being developed this year:
• Telegram-bot, which helps to choose the best gift for a particular person.
• Online medical consultation service.
• Smart Home service.
• A sensor system to detect unwanted activity in the house and alarm system alerts.
• Online room watering control system.
• Feed management system for feeding animals online.
• An online platform on which designers can upload their 3D projects, and users can change their appearance to their liking and print them on their devices.
• A platform that is designed to store the source code of projects in the "cloud". The validity of the development is obvious: every time developers make changes to the project code, these changes are reflected to other participants. This is especially important in large companies, where each project is developed by the efforts of a large number of developers.
• Service to find local and online tutors. It helps with a few clicks to find a suitable teacher or place an application for finding a specialist in foreign languages for a hobby, school curriculum and even business. The advantage of the platform is the ability to choose a tutor not only from local teachers, but also online tutors from other countries. Now Web education is one of the main trends in the global startup market.
• A platform for websites and mobile applications, where buyers can pay for goods or services on the Internet in any way-bank cards, electronic money, through self-service terminals or on credit, and the seller receives money to the account of funds in a convenient form.
• Online service to pay for collective purchases. With the help of the service, the user can choose a gift in the online store and tell friends about it in social networks so that they can throw money on him.
• An online service for conducting and modeling virtual experiments for physics lessons in schools.
Within three years, innovative projects in the business incubator should be developed and transferred to the format of an innovative enterprise. The functioning of the student innovation business incubator-the places where knowledge will be formed, generated and mastered, will allow you to get promising developments that can become the basis of small business. Students will be able to demonstrate their abilities not only in innovative developments, but also as entrepreneurs. The creation of such an innovative structure will help to unite the efforts of students of engineering, economic, legal, linguistic specialties and to provide practical experience in the field of study while still being educated at the university.
At the same time, it is possible to point out the main directions for determining indicators of the development of business incubators and their impact on the economy of the region.
1. Assessment of the impact of activities on the university, on the basis of which it was created: the number of accepted research projects and the work of students to perform; the number of grants received by students; the quality of training; the amount of income received.
2. Activation of small innovative business: the number of small enterprises created in the student business incubator (during the established period); the percentage of enterprises that survived the release from the business incubator and beyond; the volume of products sold by small innovative enterprises in the regional, domestic and global markets.
3. Assessment of personnel potential: the number of students involved in the work of the business incubator (in areas of specialization, training courses); the number of jobs created.
4. Assessment of financial resources: the volume of attracted investments, grants; the volume of expenses and income of the business incubator; the amount of income received by established enterprises.
5. Evaluation of scientific and technical products: the number of scientific and technical developments (Innovative projects), developed industrial designs and accepted for production; the range of products and services.
6. Assessment of the impact on the socio-economic development of the region and the country: changes in the direction of the development of knowledge-intensive business in the region; implementation of socio-economic, innovation and scientific-technical programs and projects of the region; activities in priority areas of scientific, technical and innovation activities of the country.
The advantages of the innovative development of the economy can be realized provided that educational and scientific establishments are most fully integrated into the economic relations of the regions and the country. But while in developing countries they are excluded from these processes, therefore even the activity of the existing innovation infrastructure is not full-fledged, as in the practice of many other market economies.
To improve the innovation infrastructure based on the integration of educational, research and production activities, the author proposed the creation of student innovation business incubators on the basis of the leading universities of the country.
The functioning of student business incubators in universities as the place, where knowledge will be generated, will allow to obtain promising developments that can become the basis of small business. Students will be able to demonstrate their abilities not only in innovative developments, but also as entrepreneurs. The creation of such an innovative structure will help to unite the efforts of students of engineering, economic, legal, linguistic specialties and to provide practical experience in the field of study while still being educated at the university.
Results in this study concerning the importance of practice-oriented education correlate with previous findings (Piperopoulos & Dimov, 2015). Authors show that higher self-efficacy is associated with lower entrepreneurial intentions in the theoretically oriented courses and higher entrepreneurial intentions in the practically oriented courses.
Thus, the functioning of student innovation business incubators will help increase the level of innovation commercialization, increase inventive and rationalization activities, improve students' well-being, as well as combine educational, scientific and innovative activities, increase the prestige of the university and enable employment of specialists from the innovative sector of the economy. This, in turn, will provide an opportunity to form a stratum of innovative-minded specialists of various specialties who will have a certain level of competence in the production of their professional activities in the economy. In our opinion, the functioning of student innovation business incubators will create a favorable and effective mechanism for interaction between education, science and industry.
Student innovation business incubator will have certain tasks, namely:
• Perform the center of the formation, generation and development of knowledge, in which there will be an exchange of ideas, technical and managerial know-how.
• Help the maximum possible number of students to create their own innovative enterprise that can operate independently outside the incubator.
• Present to investors prepared business projects of students.
• Create a territorial cluster of innovative enterprises, develop and influence the development of local and regional technological base. Student Innovation Business Incubator can provide services for creating innovative business.
• Provision of separate premises (for meetings, negotiations, etc.).
• Assistance in gaining access to technological equipment.
• Training for grants, attracting investment and experienced participants in innovative entrepreneurship.
• Advising on issues of registration of intellectual property rights.
• Training managers-entrepreneurs for starting their own business, providing advice to future entrepreneurs on the registration of enterprises, accounting, business planning; attraction to the exchange of experience of participants.
Summarizing the results of the study, success factors of business incubators at universities are determined as:
• Consolidation (cooperation of local authorities, scientists, small entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations).
• Synergies (formation of a regional innovation system, creation of joint projects by several territorial units).
• Motivation (clear understanding of the need for cell innovation for the city and informational work with key audiences).
• Marketing (use of all marketing functions, and first of all - analysis of the city needs, its competitive advantages, strengths and weaknesses in order to choose the right specialization of the innovation cell).
• Information technologies (make it possible to simplify and make low-cost the process of managing the system, on the one hand and to provide access to information and services to more users-on the other).
• Financial support (from the local government, state, private business, venture and charitable foundations, international organizations).
• Investment climate (creation of a favorable legal and economic climate, respect for investors' rights).
• Professional staff (qualified project managers help create successful innovations and business).
• Orientation to the result (achievement of goals and volumes in accordance with the developed business plan).