High school academic and socioeconomic environment on the field of innovation an entrepreneur enters

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is central to economic development, wherein societies with more individuals with entrepreneurial attributes are better positioned to progress economically, as compared to those with a lower population of individuals with entrepreneurial attributes (Rengiah, 2013). Education has been found to be critical in fostering entrepreneurial activity (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003). As such, there has been a recent push in literature towards understanding the factors, both institutional and curricular, in tertiary education that can incubate entrepreneurial tendencies. However, less is known about the impact of secondary education in fostering entrepreneurial inclinations. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to determine the effect of academic rigor and the socioeconomic environment in high school on the category of innovation an entrepreneur enters. It is important to understand the patterns in educational environments that are more likely to influence entry into a specific field of entrepreneurship for two reasons: 1) to build better educational environments that promote entering diverse fields of entrepreneurship and 2) to help inform society on its innovation strengths and opportunities for improvement. To test this relationship, the researcher investigated where the nation’s fastest-growing entrepreneurs from the 2021 Forbes Next 1000 list received their secondary education. Data on predefined factors of academic rigor and socioeconomic setting were pulled to uncover school profile trends within each entrepreneurship category. The researcher found that STEM entrepreneurs come from schools with a more academically rigorous culture and social entrepreneurs come from schools with less academic rigor and more socioeconomic diversity.