What Influences Entrepreneurial Career Choice?: An Exploratory Analysis of the Sally Caird's GET2 for Japanese High School Students

ABSTRACTTo spread entrepreneurship education further amongst secondary education institutions in Japan, it is necessary to demonstrate its educational benefit. Therefore, we assess the participants' entrepreneurial abilities and personal qualities before an entrepreneurship educational program was launched. In particular, we conducted the Caird's (2013) GET2 (General measure of Enterprising Tendency test) for Japanese high school students.The main purpose of this study is to reveal which characteristics influence the entrepreneurial career choice of high school students most by comparing the students who have the willingness or confidence to be entrepreneurs with those who do not. The results are expected to suggest the keys to develop effective contents of entrepreneurship education.The current survey was conducted in June 2013, for 2,578 Japanese high school students in Aomori prefecture, which is located in the northern area of Japan. The study reveals that the biggest factor which influences the students' entrepreneurial mindset is the "ability to create ideas and put them into action ". In other words, a student who thinks of himself/herself as "being good at creating ideas and putting them into action " tends to significantly have the willingness or confidence to be an entrepreneur.Based on these findings, it appears that the entrepreneurship education for high school students should contain programs which encourage students to explore creative opportunities, to make ideas become a reality, and to receive practical training on created ideas.Keywords: Entrepreneurship education, career choice, Japanese high school studentsINTRODUCTIONMany statistics and studies are indicating that the Japanese are less entrepreneurial than most of the people in other countries. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor annual report (Amoros et al., 2014), which generates relevant primary information on entrepreneurship, providing harmonized measures about the attitudes, activities and characteristics of individuals who participate in various phases of entrepreneurship in 70 economies, the Japanese figure for the Total Early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) rate (percentage of adult population (18-64 years of age)) is 3.7%. The figure is the second lowest one amongst the surveyed economies.According to the Japanese government statistics, the exit rate of Japanese enterprises is higher than the entry rate of that since the late 80's continuously for about two decades (Japan small business research institute, 2013). As the result, the number of Japanese enterprises in 2012 has been reduced by 1.56 million compared to its peak in 1986.Considering a rapidly changing world business environment, however, it goes without saying that to cultivate entrepreneurship for Japanese is becoming increasingly important. With this background, the entrepreneurship education is attracting attention in Japan in these days, though the teaching fields do not accept the educational programs fully up to present. To spread entrepreneurship education further, it is necessary to demonstrate its educational benefit. To measure the effect correctly, we assess the participants' entrepreneurial conditions and personal qualities before the entrepreneurship educational program is launched. Therefore, we conducted the Caird's (2013) GET2 (General measure of Enterprising Tendency test) for Japanese high school students.In this study, we reveal the entrepreneurial tendency of Japanese high school students, and compare the students who have the willingness or confidence to be entrepreneurs with who do not. The results are expected to suggest the keys to develop the effective contents of entrepreneurship education.LITERATURE REVIEWSome literature focused on childhood experiences, in terms of the willingness or confidence to be an entrepreneur at the time of adolescence. Dyer (1992) found that significantly more entrepreneurs came from the families where their fathers or mothers were self-employed. …