Purpose – The purpose of this study is to verify the parental influence on the entrepreneurial intention of technical degrees students in Spain. In an economic crisis context such as the one Spain is currently suffering, entrepreneurship is often regarded as an opportunity for productivity increase and wealth generation, especially if it is technology-based. Therefore, the research of factors that may determine young engineers’ attitude towards entrepreneurship is of great interest. Special attention is paid to parents’ role as knowledge transferors, as their experience may have a positive effect on the entrepreneurial intention of their children.
Design – The proposed approach is the statistical analysis of a survey conducted on 1004 students in five different technical degrees at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), the biggest technical university in Spain.
The survey explored the students’ entrepreneurial intention and their perception of the support provided by their closer environment (family and friends) in case they decided to found a new company. Special attention is paid to the parents’ current occupation as entrepreneur or civil servant, as this is believed to be relevant for the success of entrepreneurial knowledge and attitude transfer from one generation to the next.
Value – The existence of positive role models for entrepreneurship that through the transference of knowledge transmit the willingness to become self-employed have been found long before in the literature. Negative role models also exist, in the form of entrepreneurs that failed. In this research we present a new type of negative role model, which are the parents that work for the public sector. Empirical evidence is provided that, while self-employed parents grow children with higher entrepreneurial intentions, civil servants tend to have children who do not feel the entrepreneurial professional perspective so intriguing.
Practical implications –A distinction can be made between the technological start-ups with high growth capabilities, which lead to productivity increase and wealth generation and those new companies in which the main scope is self-employment. In the foundation of the former is where technical universities can play a key role on economic development as a technology transfer vehicle to the society. However, universities can only foster entrepreneurial intentions in those students in which it is not hindered by their closer family. Therefore, it is crucial to assess to what extent parents’ knowledge transfer can affect the entrepreneurial intention of technical degree students.
Keywords – knowledge transfer, entrepreneurship, family ties, technology-based companies, role models