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STEM Student Startup Involvement: The Role of Entrepreneurial Education and Social-Economic Missions

By Dr. Rosanna Garcia Paul R. Beswick Endowed Chair of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Warich Ngamkanjanarat Ph.D. Student in Business Administration – Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Program Manager, WPI’s i3 Lab Startup Incubator Friday, June 27, 2025, 9 – 10 AM Venue: Room 201 at Sasin School of Management or online via Zoom Register here to reserve your seat Abstract: Drawing on the Resource-Based View (RBV), this study explores how universities can effectively foster startup involvement among STEM students, who often excel in technical innovation but lack business acumen. Using a validated structural equation model, we find that perceived entrepreneurial education support (PEES) enhances students’ market and technical knowledge, while having indirect effects on social and economic missions and ultimately on startup involvement. Economic mission, in particular, emerges as the strongest driver of startup involvement. Social mission, by contrast, shows no significant effect. These findings suggest that universities should take a proactive approach to providing entrepreneurial education support. Doing so can help students build confidence in their knowledge, develop a clearer sense of mission, and become more likely to participate in startup activities. By integrating entrepreneurial education into STEM curricula, universities can position entrepreneurship as a natural extension of innovation, making it more likely that students will pursue their startup ideas. Future research should consider a longitudinal design to examine how students’ perceptions of resources, knowledge acquisition, mission orientation, and startup identity evolve over time. The absence of significant indirect effects along individual paths suggests that students may need a combination of both market and technical knowledge, or both economic and social missions, to meaningfully engage in entrepreneurship. Exploring these potential interaction effects may yield a more complete understanding of how resource perceptions and motivational drivers work together to influence entrepreneurial outcomes. This direction can help universities refine their strategies to more effectively support STEM students in pursuing entrepreneurial pathways.   For more information please contact +66-2218-4000 ext. 84095 or researchseminar@sasin.edu.