Analysing impacts of the economic crisis on the pre–start ups process of business students in Germany.

The article is part of the empirical research project “Starting up Businesses and Entrepreneurship by Students” (GESt–study) and analyzes potential impacts of the economic crisis on the pre–start–up process of business students surveyed before and during the downturn at four German universities (of applied sciences), what supports the advancement of entrepreneurship education and support within two different macroeconomic contexts. Though in Germany recessions typically animate more persons to self–employment, these business start–ups are mostly based on necessity–driven entrepreneurship. But particularly opportunity entrepreneurship has positive effects on economic growth and employment. Whereas no significant differences can be detected regarding their start–up propensities, the economic crisis indeed has heightened the intended start–up time as well as the necessity–driven start–up motivation of the surveyed business students, but not their start–up motivation from economic self–realization. Therefore, self–employment as vocational alternative has to be highlighted stronger and entrepreneurial basic knowledge has to be taught adequately to the students so that they are able to mature as potential entrepreneurs at their universities – the location where specialized knowledge about their subsequent professionalism is imparted – what facilitates them to generate future innovations accompanied by enduring and high–skilled employment