The Effect of Role Models on Social Competence and Entrepreneurial Attitude : Focused on Korean and Japanese University Students

A bunch of studies have suggested the importance of role models in entrepreneurial decision of young people. Exposing to entrepreneurial role models enables individuals to not only emulate their skills and knowledge but also get invaluable information and inspire confidence which are requisite in the process of being entrepreneurs. Consequently, role models stimulate young people to prepare for their anticipatory future careers and identities. Despite of the significant play of role models, there has been lack of empirical evidence that verified the importance of real-life role models in terms of nurturing dynamic entrepreneurship of university students. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of role models in promoting entrepreneurship of university students using multiple regression analysis. Particularly, we explored the effect of role models on forming a positive entrepreneurial attitude as well as increasing social competence of young people. This study has been designed for a cross-cultural study between Korean and Japanese university students who live under rapid changes of global environment. The findings of this empirical study presented that role models have a significant influence on social competence and entrepreneurial attitude of university students in both countries. Likewise, social competence has a positive relationship with entrepreneurial attitude. Therefore, our findings confirm that role models play as a strong predictor of entrepreneurship promotion for university students in both countries. The results not only reiterate the effect of role models in promoting entrepreneurship of university students, but also enrich entrepreneurship literature by examining and adding the role of key variables related to affecting entrepreneurship of university students. Thus, our study provides an insightful theoretical consideration. The theoretical implications can be suggested as followings. First, role models influence entrepreneurial attitude positively. This finding is in line with the previous studies claiming the positive effect of entrepreneurial role models on the entrepreneurial career expectation as well as facilitating entrepreneurial activities of university students. Second, role models also affect social competence positively. This finding supports the claims of prior studies that individuals can learn new skills, norms and behaviors by observing the role models as well as get motivated and inspired, and define his or her self-concept through role models. Third, social competence has positive relationship with entrepreneurial attitude. This finding also supports the suggestions of previous researches that social competence, a core component in entrepreneurship, affects not only the outcomes of interpersonal exchanges but also identifying and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. By the same token, this finding supports the prior studies that argue social competence and skills are crucial and applicable to exploring and exploiting the entrepreneurial opportunities and so, thus, social competence is useful and valuable to entrepreneurs especially in new venture creation process. With regards to the practical implications of our findings, our study presents the crucial play of role models in increasing entrepreneurial competence and promoting entrepreneurship of university students. Considering the fact the entrepreneurship education has been traditionally slanted towards theoretical aspects, we suggest that role models need to be put on as high order bit as entrepreneurship education in formal entrepreneurship promotion program. Listening to their success stories composed of both favorable and unfavorable experiences, and hands-on training even in short period of time through observing daily business operations in real life could serve as powerful means in nurturing entrepreneurial competence of university students.