The Impact Of Entrepreneurial Human Capital On Entrepreneurial Idea Generation Among Entrepreneurs In Russia

In the past few decades,entrepreneurship has become an important economic and social development issue in the world.Entrepreneurship activities have improved the world's economic efficiency,created a large number of new jobs,and increased the employment rate.Entrepreneurship plays a vital role in the economic development of Russia even though the concept of entrepreneurship is quite novel in Russia as compared to other countries.Russian Federation was chosen as the context of this study due to its emerging peculiarities of entrepreneurship during the last three decades.Entrepreneurial activity is almost always based on an entrepreneurial idea generated by the entrepreneur himself or by someone else.The rapidly changing need and demands of the customers in today's technologically advanced world is putting increased press ure on entrepreneurs to generate and implement as many novel ideas as possible.Novel ideas can help entrepreneurs start or restart a business by creating new products,markets,and customers.Entrepreneurs need to keep developing new or improved products and services that meet the changing demands of their customers.To be a successful entrepreneur,one must be not only capable of perceiving new i deas but also be perceptive of ideas generated by others.Despite the existence of a vast body of research on entrepreneurship,little is known about why some entrepreneurs can generate and realize more business ideas as compared to others.This study rev iews the research literature on business idea generation in the past few decades,and finds that scholars have applied different methods to study the factors affecting entrepreneurial idea generation,mainly focusing on some investments in human capital.P revious studies argued that a vital source for the generation of new business ideas is work experience.Researchers have argued that work experience is one of the investments in human capital,while acquired knowledge and skills are outcomes of human capital investment.Though previous researchers have linked business idea generation to experience,they have ignore d human capital outcomes of knowledge and skill that may be the primary source of business idea generation process.The main goal of the study was to investigate the effect of entrepreneurial human capital outcomes on business ideas generation.The study a lso aimed to explore such moderators as entrepreneurial self-efficacy and opportunity recognition and investigate the mediation role of self-efficacy.The study had the following objectives: investigate the impact of entrepreneurial human capital outcomes on the entrepreneurial ideas generation;examine the moderation effect of self-efficacy on the relations between entrepreneurial human capital and entrepreneurial idea generation;research the influence of entrepreneurial attitudes on entrepreneurial idea generation through researching the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy;investigate the moderation role of opportunity recognition in the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial idea generation.Three divided studies have been performed in this dissertation research.The first one is the core of the study;it was aimed to explore the mai n effects of entrepreneurial human capital outcomes(skills and knowledge)on business idea generation.Furthermore,the moderatio n effect of the entrepreneurial selfefficacy and the mediation effect of the number of generating ideas were researched.The second study was about the mo deration function of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition upon the relation between self-efficacy and the number of implemented business ideas.The third part focused on investigating the mediation effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in entrepreneurial attitude and business ideas generation relationships.Based on thoroughly reading the previous r esearch,the methods of measuring the studied variables were summarized and analyzed,and the corresponding theoretical ideas and the content of the existing content of the study were considered,as well as the reliability and validity of the original scale.Then,based on the literature review,the measurement scale and items were chosen.A statistical analysis of a sample of 34 0 Russian entrepreneurs was conducted using SPSS software.The results have been presented and then discussed comprehensively.In this research,the following variables were used: entrepreneurial human capital,including entrepreneurial knowledge and skill s;entrepreneurial selfefficacy;entrepreneurial opportunity recognition;entrepreneurial attitudes;entrepreneurial ideas generation,including the number of generated and implemented ideas.From the statistical analysis results,there was found a posit ive correlation between entrepreneurial human capital outcomes and idea generation among the Russian entrepreneurs.The study foun d out that entrepreneurial self-efficacy provided a moderating role between human capital outcomes and the number of implemented ideas.However,self-efficacy had no significant moderating effect on the relationships between human capital outcomes and the number of generated ideas.The results also proved that opportunity recognition had a moderating role in the relationship betw een self-efficacy and the number of implemented ideas.Finally,this research discovered that entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial attitude and business idea generation.The present study contributes to the extan t literature on the creation of ideas and entrepreneurial actions(ideas implementation).It is a first of its kind study that attempts to identify the role of two critical factors,namely,entrepreneurial knowledge and skills on business ideas generation and implementation in Russia.The study draws the following implications for practice.The findings of this study have important implications for individuals who are considering to become entrepreneurs and who are currently running a business.These resul ts may help to understand why some people can generate more entrepreneurial ideas.The results highlighted the importance of entre preneurial knowledge and skills in generation and implementation of new business ideas;thus the existing and potential entrepreneurs should continuously make an effort to enhance their knowledge and skill in order to achieve sustainable success.By contin uously developing their entrepreneurial skills and knowledge,entrepreneurs will not only be able to generate more ideas but a lso survive and thrive in the current competitive world by implementing those ideas.Such implementation would also create new employment opportunities that would lead to significant support for the economic development of the country.These implications a re especially applicable in the Russian context.Despite the increase in the development of human capital rating,certain aspects of human capital development in Russia have a number of obvious and persistent weaknesses.Investment in education and entrepr eneurial training should be pa rt of mainstream policies of the country's government.Furthers suggested,entrepreneurial self-efficacy is another resource that can strengthen the positive effects of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills on the implementatio n of new business ideas.Therefore,an entrepreneur should endeavor to strengthen belief in his entrepreneurial capabilities.Oppo rtunity recognition and entrepreneurial attitudes are also essential predictors of business ideas generation.Both of these factors can increase the number of new business ideas or explain it.This research could be of interest to organizations aimed at p romoting entrepreneurship,and even more specifically,promoting implementation(i.e.,commercialization)of innovative ideas.Such organizations as science parks,university research departments focusing on tech transfer,and commercialization.Also,entities aimed at sponsoring commercialization and economic development,including Economic Development agencies,business incubators,angel and venture capital networks,etc.,would benefit from these insights,which would help them in determining where best to direct limited funds and other resources into startups.Overall,this research provides a framework upon which others can b uild,including other countries with history and culture differences from Russia.