Measuring Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy in Creative Activities

This report details a study focused on measuring entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) to understand the impact of creative activities on innovation. The research, conducted within the CAL4INO project, validates a survey tool designed to assess various dimensions of ESE. The study emphasizes the importance of creativity in entrepreneurship and the need to evaluate the effectiveness of creative learning activities. It provides insights into the definition of creativity and innovation within the context of entrepreneurship, highlighting the shift from traditional measurement methods. The report discusses the design, implementation, and validation of the ESE measurement tool, offering a valuable resource for entrepreneurship educators seeking to understand the impact of different learning activities. The study underscores the multi-dimensional nature of ESE and the need for further refinement in its measurement, ultimately aiming to enhance innovation at technical, social, and institutional levels. The research also compares different creative learning activities across Europe and adapts to different socio-cultural contexts.

Measuring entrepreneurial self-efficacy to understand the
impact of creative activities for learning innovation
Shima Barakata, * , Monique Boddingtona, b
, Shailendra Vyakarnama, b
a Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning,University of Cambridge Judge Business School, 10 Trumpington St,Cambridge CB2 1QA,UK
b Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning,University of Cambridge Judge Business School,UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 27 January 2014
Received in revised form 11 April 2014
Accepted 20 May 2014
Available online 16 June 2014
Keywords:
Entrepreneurship education
Self-efficacy
Measuring impact
Creativity
Innovation
a b s t r a c t
It has been argued that if increased entrepreneurial activity is the outcome objective, then
self-efficacy provides a legitimate and robust construct that can be used to evaluate the
impact of entrepreneurial education (Barakat,McIellan,& Winfield, 2010).This is because
self-efficacy influences the motivation and ability to engage in specific activities (Bandura,
1977) and is a strong, necessary condition of creative productivity, and in discovering new
knowledge (Bandura,1997). Although the concept of self-efficacy can be used as a
promising tool to understand creativity and has been practically tested by Tierney and
Farmer (2002),entrepreneurialself-efficacy (ESE) as a multi-dimensionalconstruct re-
mains under theorized.The aim of this paper is to provide details of a study and meth-
odology in order to offer an example of a usable survey tool plus preliminary results from
the data collected through a specific project called CAL4INO.Creative Activities in Learning
for Innovation (CAL4INO) is a European Union funded project that focuses primarily on
identifying the impact of different types of learning activities on the innovation potential
of participants.CAL4INO aims to review different education and training methods and
explore the impact different programmes have on entrepreneurship and innovation both
in the short term and long term.As part of this research a survey tool has been validated
that measures differentfactors of entrepreneurialself-efficacy (ESE).Further,the rela-
tionship between different dimensions ofESE are considered to build a better under-
standing of the multi-dimensional structure of ESE.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Creativity is viewed as central to entrepreneurship (Timmons, 1994) and entrepreneurial intentions (Hamidi, Wennberg
Berglund, 2008). Many entrepreneurial programmes now include learning activities designed to make the student think a
act more creatively.As education in this area moves away from more traditionalapproaches it is no longer sufficient to
measure courses by how well they teach students to write business plans or complete case study assignments or on stud
feedback, employability and financial returns. Creative learning activities aim to change the very behaviour of individuals
creativity is strongly associated with entrepreneurship and innovation (Amabile, 1997).There is a need for a new type of
* Corresponding author.Tel.: þ44 1223 766900.
E-mail address: [e-mail] (S.Barakat).
URL: http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The International Journal of Management Education
j o u r n a lhomepage: w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / i j m e
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2014.05.007
1472-8117/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.All rights reserved.
The International Journal of Management Education 12 (2014) 456e468

measurement. With the growing number of creative learning activities now being taught there is a need to better understa
what impact they are having and if they are filling the theoretical remit of making individuals more creative, innovative an
entrepreneurial.
Creative Activities in Learning for Innovation (CAL4INO), a European wide, EU funded project aims to investigate the rol
of creative learning activities to enhance innovation within the context of entrepreneurship.The rationale behind this is
that people as teams,not lone “geniuses”,develop meaningful innovations by blending designs,technology and business
through creative activities synthesizing diverse perspectives,experiences and skills.To study and measure such activities,
instruments need to be flexible enough to measure any creative learning activity that aims to enhance innovation and by
extension,entrepreneurialactivity.The Centre for EntrepreneurialLearning at the University of Cambridge was (and
continues to be) responsible for designing and developing tools thatare capable of studying and measuring creative
learning activities that aim to enhance innovation.Over the duration ofthe CAL4INO project a range ofdifferent pro-
grammes have been measured that use a mixture of different approaches.The overall aim of the tool is that by analysing
and comparing different creative learning activities it willbe possible to enhance innovation at the technical,socialand
institutional level.The tool must be sufficiently robust to compare and measure a range of different creative learning ac-
tivities across Europe.It must also be adaptive and sensitive to the different socio-cultural contexts,interdisciplinary and
cross-sector nature of the study so that it is possible to compare creative activities across these boundaries.Within the
study reported here,a tool was used to measure educationalinitiatives using creative activities to enhance innovation.
Further categories were supplemented to allow for the measurement ofenterprise and entrepreneurship education in
general.
The chosen method of measurement chosen was entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). ESE is defined as an individual's ow
belief in his/her skills and abilities linked to entrepreneurial activity.It stands among the important personal factors that
influence the abilities and chances of entrepreneurs as it is a prerequisite for these groups to persist in their daily activitie
and in the achievement of their goals. It is no surprise that ESE has been receiving an increasing amount of attention in th
literature (for example Chen, Green & Crick, 1998; Forbes, 2005; McGee, Peterson, Mueller, & Sequeira, 2009). ESE has be
identified as having a role in new venture creation (Barbosa, Gerhardt, & Kickul, 2007; Boyd & Vozikis, 1994; Chen, Greene
& Crick, 1998; Zhao,Siebert,& Hills, 2005) and is seen as an important antecedent to entrepreneurial action (Chen et al.,
1998). Positively influencing self-efficacy can hence be a major goal in entrepreneurship education, especially with regard
promoting self-beliefon efficacy in producing innovation and staying creative throughout the cumbersome innovation
process.
Despite the growing body of literature, ESE remains empirically underdeveloped (McGee et al., 2009) with many calls fo
further refinement (for example Forbes,2005; Kolvereid & Isaksen,2006).There is a lack of understanding of the multi-
dimensionality of ESE as the dimensionality of the construct has yet to be fully established (McGee et al.,2009).Therefore
further work is needed to explore and determine the different dimensions of ESE.
This paper focuses on the design,implementation and validation of the survey tool (using both exploratory and confir-
matory factor analysis) and preliminary findings.This is a valuable and powerful tool as it provides entrepreneurship edu-
cators with a tool to understand the impact of different learning activities. The first section will focus on the background w
to the tool in terms of defining creativity and innovation and also previous work on how to measure the impact of enterpris
and entrepreneurial courses.This will be followed by a discussion of ESE,the chosen construct used for measurement and
therefore provides a context for the tool validated in this paper. Before moving on to showing how the tool has been valida
and some preliminary results from data gathered for the CAL4INO project.
2. Defining creativity and innovation
The first issues in measuring the impact of enterprise and entrepreneurship programmes is defining ‘what is being
measured?’: ‘how do we define creativity in relation to innovation?’.Given the remit of the CAL4INO project an un-
derstanding of creativity for innovation is required that is contextualized within entrepreneurship.One major issue,as
Kaufmann (2003) notes,is that there is a lot of research that has focused on a “’bottom-up’ perspective,where devel-
opment of tests of creativity have taken priority over the clarification of basic conceptual and theoretical issues.”(Kauf-
mann, 2003, 236) Without defining basic conceptualand theoreticalconstructs there is a realdanger of undermining
any tool.
Referring to creativity, there are numerous models for creativity and a definition has been a matter of debate for decad
this is a complex issue and one that is not detailed here (for more detailed discussion refer to Berg, 2011). For the purpose
designing a measurement toolthe project team began by debating and researching the concept of creativity.While any
definition of creativity is fraught with controversy,creativity in generalcan be defined as: “The development of a novel
product, idea, or problem solution that is of value to the individual and/or larger social groups” (Hennessey & Amabile, 201
General consensus in the field supports this definition (See also,Fisher & Amabile,2009; George & Zhou,2001; Sternberg,
Kaufman,& Pretz,2002; Tierney,Farmer,& Green, 1999).
Research has also indicated that creativity has a heuristic character within which, not only is the outcome novel, so too
the process within which it is created (George & Zhou, 2001, 514). Within team creativity it is argued that creativity involv
interaction between individuals and environment(Sternberg etal. 2002). Further, given the rise of technology and
specialization,creativity has become more a product of organizational effort than lone geniuses (Fisher & Amabile,2009).
S. Barakat et al./ The International Journal of Management Education 12 (2014) 456e468 457