| Abstract |
Introduction: The academic literature that has studied and described entrepreneurship as a business and social phenomenon has been very prolific during the last 15 years. However, research on the characteristics, attitudes, traits and behaviors of people who can be considered as entrepreneurs remains an important element in continuous updating that facilitates the definition of factors that integrate business ecosystems.\n Likewise, studies that analyze the influence of entrepreneurship training in university context are necessary and help, in a specific way, to define the factors and public policies that favor or hinder the development of business ecosystems in terms of growth of Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA).\n An interesting challenge is to select and define the most relevant variables and factors that are related to the characteristics, traits, behaviors and skills defined as entrepreneurial spirit.\n Objectives: This work has as main objective to analyze a series of characteristics, personality traits and behaviors associated to the entrepreneurial profile in postgraduate university students. The postgraduate students of the sample have been classified and grouped considering their entrepreneurial characteristics in order to analyze the existence of statistically significant differences between the groups defined and the variables or characteristics with greater capacity to differentiate the people with entrepreneurial profiles of those who do not are considered entrepreneurs.\n Methodology: To analyze the profile and the entrepreneurial characteristics of postgraduate university students, a questionnaire has been constructed based on three different questionnaires. The first part is an adaptation to the Spanish language of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) prepared by Gosling et al. (2003). The second instrument is an adaptation to the Spanish language of the Measure of Entrepreneurial Tendencies and Abilities (META), prepared by Ahmetoglu et al. (2011). Finally, the third questionnaire has been elaborated, taking as reference the graduated behaviors contained in the rubric or check list of entrepreneurial behaviors proposed by Villa and Poblete (2007).\n The questionnaire was completed by 245 postgraduate students (MBA) enrolled in three different Central American universities (Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador).\n Results: Each country sample has been divided into three groups and we have compared and analyzed the existence of significant differences between groups. Total groups from different countries have also been compared, and the characteristics, personality traits and entrepreneurial behaviors that present statistically significant differences have been pointed out.\n Conclusions: The results confirm, on the one hand, the existence of profiles with different entrepreneurial intensity or strength. There are also some statistically significant differences between the entrepreneurial characteristics of subgroups from different countries. The existence of different entrepreneurial profiles in postgraduate university students demonstrates the differential influence of postgraduate training and the development potential of this training in the generation of new entrepreneurs. There is also some influence of the country context in the development of the entrepreneurial profile. It can be concluded that postgraduate training is important in the development of the entrepreneurial profile, although it is not the only factor or variable that influences the emergence and development of new entrepreneurs. |
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