Entrepreneurial potential of Portuguese agriculture higher education students: a case from the Alto Tras-os-Montes region, Portugal

Ascertaining students’ entrepreneurial intention and looking into their perception of the obstacles surrounding the entrepreneurial process are the objectives of this research. To achieve these objectives, a cross-sectional, quantitative, observational and analytical study was developed. To carry out this study, a random sample constituted by 269 students from Braganza School of Agriculture was collected. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests, namely, Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov with Lilliefors correction test and Levene test were computed using SPSS 16.0. A likely bankruptcy was identified as a critical factor in starting up a business. Lack of financial support was pointed as the major difficulty concerning business development. However, according to the results, 35.2 % of the respondents would like to create their own business and contribute to the development of the regional economy, specifically, in the agriculture, food, biotechnological and environmental sectors.