Education and training for entrepreneurship: Iran compared to other countries, with data from GEM

The questions are, for Iran and other countries, - Is there a tight or loose coupling between formal education and training for entrepreneurship? - Do peoples’ education and training make them entrepreneurial in terms of competency, intention and career? - Do entrepreneurs’ education and training enhance their performance in innovation, exporting and growth-expectation? These questions are addressed by analyzing data from Iran and 36 other countries in 2008 in GEM. The results are: - Education and training are coupled, more education is linked to more training, but the tendency is weak. Their coupling is a little tighter in Iran than elsewhere around the world.- People’s training has positive effects on their entrepreneurial competencies in terms of skills and opportunity-awareness, on their intention to become entrepreneurs, and on their pursuit of a career in entrepreneurship. These positive effects are big in Iran and even bigger in other countries. Education, however, has no notable direct effect on competencies, intention and career, in Iran and elsewhere around the world. Education of people indirectly (by promoting training) promotes their competency, intention and careers.- Entrepreneurs’ education and training both promote performance in terms of innovation, exporting and growth-expectation; in the world as a whole (the sample of entrepreneurs in Iran is not sufficient to ascertain whether these positive effects are as big in Iran as elsewhere around the world).The conclusions are threefold: education is coupled to entrepreneurial training, although the coupling is only loose; peoples’ education and especially training promote their steps toward a career in entrepreneurship, in Iran and elsewhere in the world; and around the world entrepreneurs’ education and training also enhance their performance in terms of innovation, exporting and growth-expectation.