Exploring team behavior through entrepreneurship education in a longitudinal study: Leadership, communication barriers, networks and team performance

Autor: Somya Agrawal, 宋瑪雅
Rok vydání: 2018
Druh dokumentu: 學位論文 ; thesis
Popis: 106
With the sharp increase in the number of entrepreneurship programs over the past few decades, researchers have put in more concerted effort to develop an empirically grounded research on the impact of entrepreneurship education. The notion that entrepreneurs are not essentially born but can also be developed creates a window of opportunity for educationists aimed at imparting entrepreneurship education. Based on the group development and related theories, this longitudinal research incorporates several team variables (leadership, network ties, team cohesion, etc.) and attempts to examine the impact of entrepreneurship education on students. This research presents empirical studies investigating several interrelationships and provides insights on the order of events that contribute to perceived team performance, team learning and team creativity. An attempt was also made to extend the group theories by exploring the effects of leadership during the early stages of team development on various team constructs. Adding on to this, creativity has also become a topic of ever-increasing interest in educational settings. Previous researchers have purported that creativity can be learned and taught through training programs; however, the question remains as to how it can be kindled within an entrepreneurial educational context. Although several factors shaping team creativity have been examined before, communication barriers have received relatively less attention. Therefore, we tested this interrelationship and also explored the impacts of several intervening team variables on team creativity in the long run. Data was collected six times in a longitudinal fashion from the same set of forty undergraduate students enrolled in an entrepreneurship course. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to estimate the fit of structural model to the data. We also carried out hierarchical linear regression analysis to test interaction effects on the proposed hypotheses. Findings suggest that during the early stages of team development, an entrepreneurial leader plays a proactive role and directs student behavior. Further analysis revealed that a high level of task conflict during the mid-point transition phase reduced the positive effects of entrepreneurial leadership on team cohesion. During the pre-final stages of teamwork, students were more eager to share knowledge with team members when they were bound by a stronger cohesion with each other. The above variables acted as crucial antecedents to perceived team performance. Results also revealed that communication barriers during the initial stages of teamwork affected knowledge sharing and expressive ties negatively. Leadership during the early stages of teamwork was unable to overcome their deleterious effects. It becomes imperative for the course facilitators to focus on team communication and convalesce it from the beginning of the course itself. It was found that knowledge sharing and expressive ties facilitated team learning during the middle stages of teamwork. Team learning acted a mediator to instigate creative minds in students. All the above-mentioned variables acted as crucial antecedents to team creativity. We conclude that entrepreneurship programs do have a positive impact on student behavior over a period of time and provide a suitable environment to stimulate creativity and team skills. Showcasing the dynamics of student’s team behavior during different stages of team development, this study highlighted the importance of teamwork in students and provided useful insights to course facilitators and teachers. Educators should take account of team dynamics when designing effective teaching methods and incentives.
Databáze: Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations
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