THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENTREPRENEUS’ EDUCATION LEVEL ON SMALL BUSINESS OWNER’S PERCEPTION

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to help understanding entrepreneur behaviour towards small firms’ management, trying to identify relationships between the entrepreneurs’ education level and their perception of the business world. The theoretical reference aimed at identifying the state-of-art of the research field, which suggested a retaking of the behaviourist interpretation of entrepreneurship. A descriptive study was carried out focusing on a sample of forty-seven small businesses’ owners operating in a medium-sized city in the interior of São Paulo State. The economy of this city is historically and economically influenced by sugar and metal industries. The city’s business structure is characterised by the prevalence of small firms. Industrial, commercial and services sectors are homogeneously represented in the sample. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire answered by businesses’ owners, focusing on their main personal motivations to start the business, their private goals and biggest difficulties faced in running their firms. The following statistical methods were used for data analysis: Mann-Whitney, Exact of Fisher and Kruskal-Wallis. The results stimulate the debate about the relationship between education level and entrepreneurial drive, considering the low level of correlation identified between them.