Entrepreneurship Research: Using Students As Proxies for Actual Entrepreneurs‪.‬

ABSTRACT This paper considers the practice of using university undergraduate as proxies for small business owners in entrepreneurship research. A data set was gathered from a sample of university undergraduate students at a major business school as well as from a sample of actual small business owners "actual entrepreneurs". The university undergraduate respondents were divided into those with high nascent entrepreneurial inclinations and those low in nascent entrepreneurial inclinations. A discriminate analysis between the three groups was then done and results were then and examined for similarities or differences with regards to life aspirations, life goals, and work goals of each group. Unlike the undergraduate respondents with low entrepreneurial potential, undergraduate respondents with high entrepreneurial potential were found to be very similar to actual entrepreneurs. Results of this research suggest that, when using students as proxies in the study of entrepreneurship, one needs to separate nascent from non-nascent students and use only those students who are high in nascent entrepreneurial inclinations.