Assessment of Entrepreneurial Success perceptions at Umeå University : A quantitative study on student’s perceptions of entrepreneurial success

This research focused on assessing the perception of student´s at Umeå School of Business and Economics towards entrepreneurial success. Moreover this research focused on comparing student’s perception and perception of importance of entrepreneurial success, which has been defined three dimensionally. The conceptual definition of entrepreneurial success has emerged from the existing literature and could be explained as follow: entrepreneurial success is a cluster of financial performance, operational performance and Satisfaction (which refers to the entrepreneur’s satisfaction. We identified that the literature was remaining in some ways nebulous when it was to officially define the notion of entrepreneurial success. This notion has been somehow associated to the perception of entrepreneurial success, because of the approach or methods that have been used to assess it. Moreover, we have identified that some factors have been confirmed as influencing the perception of entrepreneurial success, however these results were not targeted students, but mainly entrepreneurs. We formulated the following research question: Which factors influence the perception and the perception of importance of entrepreneurial success, among Umea University‘s students? This research has been conducted by including all master program students and bachelor students in graduating class at Umeå School of Business and Economics, to examine their perception of entrepreneurial success generally and additionally compare their perception in order to determine whether some factors were influencing their perceptions. The conceptual model has been created in order to determine whether the selected variables: Gender, age, background and perception of entrepreneurship as a culture is influencing two aspects: the perception of entrepreneurial success and the perception of importance of the entrepreneurial success. These two aspects have been underlined by the two first questions of our questionnaire, and have been defined according the same dimensions: Financial performance, Operational performance and satisfaction These previous four variables have permitted to form groups in order to attest of potential differences of perceptions. From all the analysis that have been proceeded. It has been found that not all the components from the conceptual model were likely to be considered as influencing the perception of entrepreneurial success and the perception of importance of entrepreneurial success