Submitted:
02 November 2025
Posted:
06 November 2025
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Abstract
Women's entrepreneurship drives inclusive economic development and creates positive ripple effects throughout society. This study investigates the effects of entrepreneurship education in sustainability on female students, with particular emphasis on determining whether changes in entrepreneurial intentions were driven by the changes of the factors of the Theory of Planned Behavior. We employ a comparative framework with male students to contextualize our findings. The survey employed a pre-test/post-test group design (before and after the entrepreneurship course). The sample consisted of 271 business students from a Greek university (157 female students, 114 male students). After the course, women indicated positive changes in attitude, perceived behavioral control and entrepreneurial intention. MEMORE macro revealed that both the positive changes in attitude and perceived behavioral control affected the positive change in entrepreneurial intention. Conversely, men indicated only positive effect in perceived behavioral control. Notably, the levels of the attitude, perceived behavioral control and entrepreneurial intention in women before the course were much lower than men. These findings underscore the importance of entrepreneurship education in sustainability, as a tool with a transformative force in the positive impacts in women's entrepreneurship and gender equity that leads to sustainable growth.
Keywords:
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Background
2.1. The Theory of Planned Behavior in Entrepreneurship Context
2.2. Gender Dimensions in Entrepreneurial Intention
2.3. Entrepreneurship Education as a Transformative Tool
3. Methods
4. Results
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
Appendix A.1
| Attitude | Subjective Norms | Perceived Behavioral Control | Entrepreneurial Intention | |
| 1st Questionnaire Before Entrepreneurship Education | ||||
| “Being an entrepreneur means more advantages than disadvantages” | 0.85471 | |||
| “Entrepreneurial career is very desirable” | 0.68552 | |||
| “If I could become an entrepreneur, that would be great satisfaction for me” | 0.57922 | |||
| “My friends would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.88572 | |||
| “My family would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.89301 | |||
| “People who are very important to me would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.89606 | |||
| “I believe I have all the qualifications to start a business” | 0.82300 | |||
| “I believe I can control the process of starting a business” | 0.81595 | |||
| “If I would start a business, the chances of success would be very high” | 0.79372 | |||
| “I know all the practical details needed to start a business” | 0.67455 | |||
| “It is easy for me to start a successful business” | 0.79909 | |||
| “Becoming an entrepreneur is my professional goal” | 0.84007 | |||
| “I am determined to start my own business in the (visible) future” | 0.88249 | |||
| “I am seriously thinking to start my own business” | 0.89210 | |||
| “I have the intention to start a business in the future” | 0.87720 | |||
| 2nd Questionnaire After Entrepreneurship Education | ||||
| “Being an entrepreneur means more advantages than disadvantages” | 0.79744 | |||
| “Entrepreneurial career is very desirable” | 0.69610 | |||
| “If I could become an entrepreneur, that would be great satisfaction for me” | 0.66029 | |||
| “My friends would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.80907 | |||
| “My family would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.83774 | |||
| “People who are very important to me would approve my decision to start a business” | 0.84622 | |||
| “I believe I have all the qualifications to start a business” | 0.82229 | |||
| “I believe I can control the process of starting a business” | 0.79246 | |||
| “If I would start a business, the chances of success would be very high” | 0.77798 | |||
| “I know all the practical details needed to start a business” | 0.77341 | |||
| “It is easy for me to start a successful business” | 0.78297 | |||
| “Becoming an entrepreneur is my professional goal” | 0.72067 | |||
| “I am determined to start my own business in the (visible) future” | 0.84661 | |||
| “I am seriously thinking to start my own business” | 0.87519 | |||
| “I have the intention to start a business in the future” | 0.84384 | |||
| Component | Items | Cronbach's Alpha |
| Attitude (Before) | 3 | 0.80356 |
| Subjective Norms (Before) | 3 | 0.89049 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control (Before) | 5 | 0.87609 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention (Before) | 4 | 0.95016 |
| Attitude (After) | 3 | 0.81742 |
| Subjective Norms (After) | 3 | 0.84695 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control (After) | 5 | 0.89141 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention (After) | 4 | 0.93926 |
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| Components | Men (114) | Women (157) | ANOVA |
| Attitude Before Education | 5.35088 | 4.95754 | <0.01 |
| Subjective Norms Before Education | 5.14620 | 5.37367 | 0.21203 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control Before Education | 4.18070 | 3.88662 | <0.05 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention Before Education | 5.03509 | 4.23567 | <0.01 |
| Attitude After Education | 5.41520 | 5.11890 | <0.05 |
| Subjective Norms After Education | 5.32456 | 5.22930 | 0.46370 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control After Education | 4.44561 | 4.16051 | <0.05 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention After Education | 5.05482 | 4.59076 | <0.05 |
| Paired Differences for Men | ||||||||
| 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference | ||||||||
| Mean | Std. Deviation | Std. Error Mean | Lower | Upper | t | df | Sig. (2-tailed) | |
| Attitude (After - Before Education) | 0.06433 | 0.72445 | 0.06785 | -0.07010 | 0.19875 | 0.94807 | 113 | 0.34512 |
| Subjective Norms (After - Before Education) | 0.17836 | 1.52022 | 0.14238 | -0.10372 | 0.46045 | 1.25271 | 113 | 0.21290 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control (After - Before Education) | 0.26491 | 0.93600 | 0.08766 | 0.09123 | 0.43859 | 3.02188 | 113 | <0.05 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention (After - Before Education) | 0.01974 | 0.96001 | 0.08991 | -0.15840 | 0.19787 | 0.21951 | 113 | 0.82665 |
| Paired Differences for Women | ||||||||
| Mean | Std. Deviation | Std. Error Mean | 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference | |||||
| Lower | Upper | t | df | Sig. (2-tailed) | ||||
| Attitude (After - Before Education) | 0.16136 | 0.95453 | 0.07618 | 0.01088 | 0.31184 | 2.11814 | 156 | <0.05 |
| Subjective Norms (After - Before Education) | -0.14437 | 1.46092 | 0.11659 | -0.37468 | 0.08593 | -1.23826 | 156 | 0.21748 |
| Perceived Behavioral Control (After - Before Education) | 0.27389 | 0.90420 | 0.07216 | 0.13134 | 0.41643 | 3.79536 | 156 | <0.01 |
| Entrepreneurial Intention (After - Before Education) | 0.35510 | 1.15821 | 0.09244 | 0.17251 | 0.53768 | 3.84156 | 156 | <0.01 |
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