CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.4 Research Hypothesis
2.4.1 Research Hypothesis on the Relationship of Entrepreneurship Curriculum
Entrepreneurial Competence
Figure 2.5 Relationship between Curriculum and Competence
According to human capital theory, ability is a self-induced resource which can be acquired through education or practice. When an individual believes that certain knowledge, skills or experience can bring higher returns in the future, that is, when the expected return on investment of human capital is higher, he will invest in it. otherwise, he will not invest. In fact the relationship between knowledge and ability has always been a classic issue in education. It is generally believed that the relationship between knowledge and ability can be summarized as: knowledge is the basis and premise of ability, the ability is the basis and premise of knowledge, that is,
knowledge and ability are the premises of each other. In practice, the relationship between “mastering knowledge” and “developing ability” is dialectical and unified.
As the first person to study the relationship between knowledge and ability, Locke advocates taking ability as the research object. The nature and ability of the human mind is the starting point of philosophical research (A. Seth et al., 2020). Based on the theory of “personal knowledge”, it shows the important value of individuals in the process of knowledge formation. While emphasizing the role of individual knowledge, it also highlights the importance of tacit knowledge in individual knowledge seeking. Since the 1980s, China began to study the relationship among knowledge, ability, and intelligence, mainly including the following consensus. First, knowledge is the basis of developing ability. Competence is, to some extent, a category of knowledge. Without knowledge, there is no ability, and there is a dialectical unity between knowledge and ability. Based on collaborative innovation ability, Chang Xiyin proposed that knowledge diffusion plays a promoting role in improving ability, and the ability of collaborative innovation is also a beneficial supplement to knowledge creation and diffusion. Knowledge and capability play a mutually promoting role in the perspective of collaborative innovation (Chang & Sun, 2018).
Second, the transformation between knowledge and ability needs to be based on certain premises. Namely, the mastery of knowledge and the ability to form is an indispensable prerequisite factor. That is to say, knowledge, intelligence, and ability are interdependent and transform each other, and knowledge growth and ability development have a proportional relationship in a certain dimension. Zhenji, starting from the orientation of college students’ employability, proposed that employability reflects the knowledge background and level of the employees, and specifically reflects their practical skills, humanistic quality, creativity, communication skills, and other abilities. That is, the ability is the performance of comprehensive quality, which is the combination of knowledge and core quality in a certain environment (Z. Yin, 2017). Based on the level of knowledge sharing, aiming at the research on knowledge and ability, Zhou Bo proposed that regarding knowledge sharing among different individuals, organizations solidify member knowledge through text, information technology, and other means. The organizational knowledge memory formed in this
way can guide the members of the organization to take this as a starting point and improve the absorptive capacity of the organization. In other words, individual absorptive capacity mediated by individual knowledge sharing has a positive effect on the absorptive capacity of the organization (Bo Zhou, Zhang, & Gong, 2019). Finally, there are connections and differences between knowledge and ability. Connection means that knowledge and ability are synchronized. The process of knowledge learning and accumulation is also the process of ability development and cultivation.
The difference means that knowledge acquisition and ability development are not necessarily synchronized, but there are differences between them. From the perspective of knowledge management, G. Liu believe that ability is a kind of abstract knowledge and experience. And knowledge is the systematic arrangement and solidification of valuable information, that is, a guiding plan for ability. The essential attribute of ability is knowledge, which is tacit knowledge with individual characteristics. Knowledge can effectively integrate the management and core competence of the industry in which the knowledge owner is engaged and point out the path for the cultivation of core competence. The relationship between knowledge, ability, and entrepreneurship can be simply summarized. Entrepreneurs exploit and create new resource combinations and business opportunities in the market by their knowledge, resources, and cognitive ability of entrepreneurial behavior. They actively explore innovation and entrepreneurship through actual participation in entrepreneurial activities or through business activities in the enterprise, to achieve the innovation and entrepreneurship goals (G. Liu, Li, & Liu, 2016).
Entrepreneurship is not an innate ability but can be learned. Entrepreneurship can be taught. Entrepreneurship education curriculums can be developed in higher education institutions such as universities or business schools. As research deepens, the question of whether entrepreneurship can be taught or learned is no longer a question. It has gradually become a consensus that entrepreneurship can be taught and learned. People can cultivate entrepreneurial quality, entrepreneurial ability, and entrepreneurial spirit through learning. Timmons, an American scholar, curricular entrepreneurship education. The curriculum content is the core of the curriculum, and the specific curriculum content carries the specific curriculum orientation and curriculum objective system. Curriculum content is not a single knowledge system or
cultural capital, but a content system selected and organized according to a specific curriculum orientation and curriculum objectives. The curriculum contents are selected directly according to the curriculum objectives and reflect the requirements of the curriculum objectives to a certain extent (Z. Yang, 2021). The different nature of curriculum content also affects the way of teaching and learning activities in curriculum implementation. Reasonable design of curriculum content is the core of curriculum construction and the key to curriculum implementation. The choice and determination of curriculum content cannot be separated from the guidance of goals.
According to Bloom’s taxonomic theory of educational goals, educational goals are divided into three fields, including “cognitive”, “affective” and “psychomotor”.
Therefore, the construction of university innovation and entrepreneurship education curriculum should take human development as the overall goal and give full consideration to the development of students in cognition, skills (ability), and emotion (H. Liu, 2017). In English, entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial competency are very similar terms, with slight differences. Competency means ability, skill, also called ability, aptitude, talent, etc. It is often used in conjunction with competence, skill, ability, talent, etc. In relevant researches, entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial competency often refer to the same content, but competency is more focused on the ability that is more critical to entrepreneurial success. The concept of entrepreneurial competence has a broader connotation. The significance of research on entrepreneurial competency lies in that people have been able to analyze the individual characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and their competence characteristics. If we can further identify and define these individual characteristics, then we can learn how to train and develop entrepreneurs and focus on what aspects. This can significantly improve the most critical elements of their entrepreneurial ability to achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Internationally, since the 1990s, the research on entrepreneurial competence has experienced the trait view, sentiment view, and process view. Sentiment view researchers represented by (Muzychenko, 2008) believe that entrepreneurs’
competence should be judged by their fit with the environment. That is, under the reality of economic globalization and production globalization, entrepreneurs should have a global vision, as well as cross-cultural communication and processing ability.
Chinese scholars’ research on entrepreneurial competence is complex. Jun Z. argued that the differences in entrepreneurs’ resource endowments were the fundamental reason for the differences in entrepreneurial behaviors at the micro-level and the success of entrepreneurship (Jun Zhang & Yang, 2004). Zhang Han and other researchers studied competencies from the perspective of entrepreneurial teams. It is proposed that the competency of an entrepreneurial team is formed based on the promotion of manpower. To evaluate the competence of entrepreneurial teams, we need to pay attention to the differences, flexibility, integrity, and complementarity of entrepreneurial teams (H. Zhang, 2011). Based on summarizing domestic and foreign researches on entrepreneurial competence, Shasha proposed that there are three main trends in the current research and development of entrepreneurial competence. First, focus on future entrepreneurial competence, gradually replacing a focus on current entrepreneurial competence. Second, research on entrepreneurial competence at the level of organization and team has become a hot topic. Third, the research on entrepreneurial competence under specific circumstances replaces the research on entrepreneurial competence under general circumstances (S. Liu, 2015). In general, the research fields of entrepreneurial competence in China mainly focus on five categories. Entrepreneurial relationship competence, entrepreneurial organization competence, entrepreneurial opportunity competence, entrepreneurial strategy competence, and entrepreneurial identity competence. The main research direction is the premise of entrepreneurial competence, the process of entrepreneurial competence, and the results of entrepreneurial competence. That is the investment, process, and result of entrepreneurial competence research.
Based on the description of the concept and connotation of entrepreneurial competence at home and abroad, the connotation of entrepreneurial competence is described as the following three aspects according to the entrepreneur’s personality characteristics, skills characteristics, knowledge characteristics, and group characteristics. Entrepreneurial potential competence, knowledge competence related to entrepreneurial knowledge and cognition, entrepreneurial skills and competencies related to opportunity identification and utilization, resource mix utilization and new business creation. Based on the above analysis, this paper puts forward the following
hypotheses on the relationship between entrepreneurship curriculums in universities and entrepreneurial competence of college students (Figure 2.6):
Figure 2.6 Relationship of Entrepreneurship Curriculum Directly Affecting University Students’ Entrepreneurial Competence
Hypothesis 1: College entrepreneurship curriculums directly and sigificantly affect college students’ entrepreneurial competence
Hypothesis 1-1: Entrepreneurial physical and mental quality curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect college students’ entrepreneurial potential competence in entrepreneurial competence
Hypothesis 1-2: Entrepreneurial physical and mental quality curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial knowledge competence in entrepreneurial competence of college students
Hypothesis 1-3: Entrepreneurial physical and mental quality curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial skills competence in college entrepreneurship
Hypothesis 1-4: Entrepreneurial knowledge literacy curriculums in entrepreneurship curriculums in universities directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial potential competencies in entrepreneurial competence of college students
Hypothesis 1-5: Entrepreneurial knowledge literacy curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial knowledge competence in college students’ entrepreneurial competence
Hypothesis 1-6: Entrepreneurial knowledge literacy curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial skills competence in college students’ entrepreneurial competence
Hypothesis 1-7: Entrepreneurship development curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial potential competence in college entrepreneurship
Hypothesis 1-8: Entrepreneurship development curriculums in entrepreneurship curriculums in universities directly and significantly affect entrepreneurial knowledge competence in entrepreneurial competence of college students
Hypothesis 1-9: Entrepreneurship development curriculums in college entrepreneurship curriculums directly and significantly affect entrepreneurship skills competence in college entrepreneurship competence
2.4.2 Research Hypothesis on the Positively Relationship of