In a nutshell
Introductory entrepreneurship courses can unintentionally increase overconfidence, particularly in male students, while female students tend to show more realistic self-assessments. This gap suggests a need for entrepreneurship programmes that build balanced self-efficacy across genders.
Believing in yourself seems like a no-brainer for an entrepreneur, right? It’s even got its own scientific term: entrepreneurial self-efficacy, or ESE, and it’s widely regarded by researchers as a crucial trait for entrepreneurs. However, while having a strong belief in one’s own abilities is proven to increase entrepreneurial motivation and intention, it’s not as simple as “the higher the ESE, the better.”
Research has suggested that when a budding entrepreneur has too much entrepreneurial self-efficacy, they tend to ignore valuable feedback and avoid experimenting with trial-and-error — a pattern also discussed in Making Entrepreneurship Feel Doable. Now, if this confidence is justified then the entrepreneur might still be successful, but the problem is that a lot of people tend to become overconfident and end up with unwarranted ESE – where confidence doesn’t match actual ability. Decades of research in education show that overestimating one’s skills can lead to poor learning and growth, and it’s no different in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs with unwarranted confidence may struggle to adapt, see stunted business growth, and be less resilient after failure.
You can think of it like the fuel gauge in your car: if you’re running on fumes of ESE, you’re not going to get very far. But if your fuel gauge is giving you a false reading – overconfidence – you might just run out of gas at the worst possible time. This is why it’s so important for entrepreneurship education to boost the students’ ESE, while also helping them accurately assess their skill levels and avoid overconfidence.
So, is this what actually happens in entrepreneurship education courses? That’s what this study set out to investigate – and the answer is a bit complicated. It turns out that the impact of entrepreneurship education on overconfidence depends on gender.
Publication Date: October 16, 2024
Author: Anne Rienke Van Ewijk
Institution: School of Economics, Utrecht University, Netherlands; College of Business, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates
Study Type: Empirical Research
Sample Size: 103 undergraduate students
Research Focus: Examining the impact of entrepreneurship education on unwarranted and gendered entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE).
Research Methodology: Calibration study assessing discrepancies between perceived and actual entrepreneurial competencies before and after an introductory entrepreneurship course.
Main Findings: The study found that overconfidence in entrepreneurial abilities was prevalent among students at the beginning of the course. By the end, female students’ self-assessments aligned more closely with their actual competencies, while male students’ overconfidence persisted.
Citation: Van Ewijk, A.R. (2024), “You say you can, but can you? The impact of entrepreneurship education on unwarranted and gendered entrepreneurial self-efficacy – a calibration study”, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-08-2023-0803
Already aware that men often report higher confidence in their entrepreneurial abilities than women, even when their skill levels are comparable, this study wanted to see whether entrepreneurship education might help close that confidence gap. What they found was that at the start of an entrepreneurship course, overconfidence was high across the board. But by the end, a shift had taken place: while women’s confidence adjusted to better reflect their actual abilities, men’s remained elevated, suggesting that education didn’t reduce overconfidence equally between genders.
What this points to is an important challenge for entrepreneurship education: how to build realistic confidence while addressing the unique ways that different groups approach self-assessment. If entrepreneurial courses can adapt to help men better calibrate their confidence and empower women to maintain theirs, it might just create a more balanced and resilient generation of entrepreneurs, equipping them all with the best fuel for their journey.
