Citation
Kerrick, S., Cumberland, D., Church-Nally, M., & Kemelgor, B. (2014). Military veterans marching towards entrepreneurship: An exploratory mixed methods study. International Journal of Management Education, 12(3), 469-478.
Highlights
- The study examined the relationship between an entrepreneurship education program for military veterans, VetStart, on entrepreneurship attitudes and behaviors. The VetStart program included 10 weeks of entrepreneurship courses followed by nine months of business mentorship and reimbursement of start-up business costs. Fourteen military veterans from a Midwestern community participated in the study over an 18-month period from spring 2012 to spring 2013.
- The authors used participants’ survey responses before and after participation in the program to measure participants’ level of entrepreneurial passion and frequency of consultations with informal networks (which included family, friends, business associates, and other entrepreneurs) about their new business ideas. The authors defined entrepreneurial passion along three dimensions: founding passion (interest in creating a new organization as an entrepreneur), inventing passion (interest in developing new products or ideas as an entrepreneur), and developing passion (interest in expanding an existing entrepreneurial idea or organization).
- The study found that the VetStart participants had higher levels of founding, inventing, and developing passion after the program than they did before it.
- The study also found that the VetStart participants consulted their informal networks regarding their business ideas more after the program than before it.
Reviewed by CLEAR
April 2016