Attitudes of MBA Students toward Entrepreneurship: A Cross-Cultural Study.

This paper discusses a study that assessed the attitudes of MBA (Masters of Business Administration) students across two cultures, Germany and the United States, toward entrepreneurship. Specifically, the paper examines the motives for and the reservations about going into business for oneself in these countries. It is hypothesized that attitudes toward entrepreneurship vary across boundaries. Results are provided from a survey of 114 current MBA students enrolled in a German university and 84 MBA students from 2 southeastern U.S. universities. The study's results show that the a majority of German students would not consider going into business for themselves, while over 57 percent of the U.S. students indicated that going into business for themselves was at least a possibility. Some of the findings are as follows: (1) German students saw a future in the computer field while U.S. students looked at merchandising and exporting; (2) German students expressed a low interest in manufacturing; (3) lack of start-up capital was the primary fear of both U.S. and German students for going into business for themselves; and (4) both groups of students gave the ability to realize their own ideas, freedom of action and decision making, and economic independence as important motives for self-employment. Contains a 19-item bibliography. (GLR)