Taketo Sugawara

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an entrepreneurship education program primarily composed of guest lectures by entrepreneurs. Such lectures expose university students to role models, while providing them with a vicarious experience. Educators expect students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy to increase, which positively affects entrepreneurial intent and leads to action. A quasi-experiment was conducted using difference-in-differences analysis with a control group of students from the same learning environment. A large-class, 7-week entrepreneurship course with four guest lecturers was assessed. No significant differences were found in the entrepreneurial intent of the students in the treatment group. In addition, entrepreneurial intent decreased in students who scored high in entrepreneurial intent prior to the course. The results suggest that educational programs that rely on guest lectures by entrepreneurs are not achieving the effects anticipated by educators. For students who already come with high entrepreneurial intent, such lectures gave them an opportunity to reassess their individual competencies and determine how well-suited or not they are as entrepreneurs.