Suporte organizacional e desenvolvimento de competências empreendedoras em empresas juniores no Brasil

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the development of entrepreneurial competencies of college students who participate of junior enterprises in Brazil. These companies present themselves as college students’ initiatives for practical application of theoretical knowledge of the graduation by providing services in the acting area allowing learning and skills development. This scenario brings us to the following question: beyond the professional development, the junior enterprises allow a relative development to entrepreneurship? In order to tailor the questionnaire on the format and understanding among the respondents a face pretest was conducted with 20 junior entrepreneurs and egresses of the movement. Then 796 junior entrepreneurs of the five Brazilian regions were investigated, they responded to an online survey containing a four dimensions questionnaire: demographic and contextual data of the junior entrepreneur, junior enterprise data, learning support and entrepreneurial competencies. Factorial analysis to validate the instruments and correlational analysis to identify relationships between the main constructs were conducted. It was found that the junior enterprises play an important supportive role for the development of entrepreneurial competencies and that these competencies, in turn, are developed primarily from the daily practical implementation of activities in the junior enterprise. With the results of this study it is expected to contribute at four levels: the forming agents, the junior enterprise movement it self, the students and literature on junior enterprises and the entrepreneurial competencies.