In a nutshell
Resilience is not a direct outcome of entrepreneurship education. It emerges when education builds the psychological resources that shape how students respond to challenges.
There’s an implicit belief in this field that entrepreneurship education builds resilience. It makes sense, too, because of course students who are trained to deal with uncertainty and failure should become more resilient, right? The problem is that this logic skips a step: it assumes that exposure automatically leads to change. That if students are placed in uncertain situations, something in them will simply shift. But that’s not quite how it works.
In a recent study of student entrepreneurs in Indonesia – a context where entrepreneurship education is heavily invested in, yet many ventures still fail due to a lack of resilience rather than a lack of opportunity – researchers took a closer look at what actually happens between education and resilience. Not just whether students become more resilient, but how that change takes place. Drawing on data from 180 students already running their own businesses, they tested whether a set of psychological traits could explain the relationship between entrepreneurship education and resilience. These included self-efficacy, internal locus of control, risk-taking behaviour, need for achievement, and innovativeness – factors often associated with entrepreneurial behaviour, but rarely examined together as part of the same process.
What they found is that entrepreneurship education does have a positive effect on resilience, but that this relationship is not just direct. All of the psychological traits they tested also played a significant role, both as outcomes of education and as contributors to resilience. In other words, education does not lead to resilience on its own. It does so by shaping how students think, act, and respond when faced with difficulty.
Publication year: March 2026
Authors: Kemal Budi Mulyono, Susilaningsih, Aniek Hindrayani, Salman Alfarisy Totalia
Institutions: Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia; Universitas Sebelas Maret, Indonesia
Study type: Quantitative explanatory study
Sample Size: 180 student entrepreneurs in East Java, Indonesia, drawn from 50 universities. Participants had completed formal entrepreneurship education, were currently operating a business, and had been running it for at least six months.
Research focus: How entrepreneurship education influences entrepreneurial resilience, and whether this relationship is explained by psychological factors.
Research Methodology: Cross-sectional survey analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM), testing both direct and indirect effects between entrepreneurship education, psychological traits, and entrepreneurial resilience.
Main findings: Entrepreneurship education had a positive effect on entrepreneurial resilience, but this relationship was also significantly mediated by self-efficacy, internal locus of control, risk-taking behaviour, need for achievement, and innovativeness. Risk-taking behaviour was found to be especially influential in shaping resilience.
Citation: Mulyono, K. B., Susilaningsih, Hindrayani, A., & Totalia, S. A. (2026). Beyond profit: The role of psychological factors in shaping entrepreneurial resilience. Industry and Higher Education, 0(0), 1–14. Link
Seen this way, resilience is not a single capability. It is the result of several underlying changes that build on each other, and none of them are guaranteed outcomes of education. This also helps explain why previous research has found inconsistent links between entrepreneurship education and resilience, because simply exposing students to uncertainty or failure is not enough. The effect depends on whether that experience actually translates into something internal.
Now, the study can’t say exactly what needs to change practically to make sure that this is something that happens in an entrepreneurship course or programme since that’s not what it examined, but the authors do point educators in the direction of hands-on learning, experimentation, and real exposure to risk. Things like simulations, venture projects, and opportunities to really engage with failure are more likely to create the kind of learning experiences where something actually changes beneath the surface.
What this ultimately suggests is that resilience is less something education produces, and more something it enables under the right conditions. Not a direct outcome, but the result of a series of internal shifts that may or may not take place. Which makes resilience a far less straightforward – and far less predictable – outcome of entrepreneurship education than we tend to assume.
Related reading: explore how students build confidence in Maintaining Confidence in the Face of Realistic Challenges, and why entrepreneurship can feel more doable in Making Entrepreneurship Feel Doable. For related learning at SSES, see Entrepreneurial Mindset.
