A Comparison of the Incremental Skills of Entrepreneurial Orientation in Higher Educational System

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to compare the incremental skills of entrepreneurial orientation in the higher education system. This study is application oriented in terms of target and the method of this research was descriptive-survey. The survey tools in this study included questionnaire which was designed based on a detailed and comprehensive study of the fundamental theories related to the field of entrepreneurship and higher education and then consulting with a number of experts and integrating with the standardized questionnaire. The technical characteristics of the questionnaire in terms of reliability and validity were evaluated by using different criteria and the validity and the reliability of the research was confirmed. The samples of this study consisted of 1367 university professors and senior students of various fields of study and from various universities of Shiraz which were determined by using Cochran formula. The number of samples for each educational group was determined by using the ratio law and the questionnaires were randomly distributed among them. Finally, different software and statistics were used to analyze the collected data. The climate of these days of Iran's economic and business systems is dire. While on the same day, the staggering inflation brings people's lives harder, on the other day, the economic downturn will endanger all activities. One of the main pains of the country is youth unemployment, especially unemployment of graduates who do not have the necessary abilities and skills to start a business (Ansari and Fakoor, 2014). However, related authorities always claim to have plans to reduce unemployment. Nevertheless, recent reports from the Iranian Parliament Research Center on the prediction of employment status up to the horizon have created a worrying outlook from the labor market. On the other hand, it can be said that the majority of inefficiencies and lack of work in this field in the society are due to the management of the managers and officials of the organizations because the decline in unemployment increase will require more control. All of this means that we do not have the productivity of human resources as much as the investment made in higher education (Tabatabaee, 2013). However, today labor market’s expectation about the outcome of higher education system is different from that in the past. Higher education is required to be accountable for graduates’ future employment and considerable expenditure on student education each year. It has to be made clear what encouraging results higher education courses yield for the society (Bigdeli et al, 2013). UNESCO, in the global perspective, sees the new universities as the place where entrepreneurial skills in higher education are developed to facilitate graduates' capabilities and become job-developers (Paykarifar, 2012). Therefore, considering the importance and role of entrepreneurship and considering the problems of society, the promotion of entrepreneurship, the establishment of a culture supporting entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship education is necessary for all societies, especially developing societies like ours, which is one of the tasks and prospects of higher education (Sharif et al, 2011). Therefore, this research first measures the degree of entrepreneurial orientation among students and in the next step, the current status of the university about skills affecting the increase of entrepreneurial orientation and then the actions and performance of the university to improve it are studied.
Case Study
The statistical sampling community of 27969 populations from faculties teaching staff and final year students of various fields of study from different universities of Shiraz city, Iran, including government, private, azad, payame noor and applied science universities during academic year 2016 was chosen. Shiraz city is selected for area of research because it is recognized as a large city with significant number of qualified and credited universities and educational centers since year 2011. This study is application oriented in terms of target and the method of this research was descriptive-survey. The sampling numbers was identified on the basis of Cochran’s formula calculations. Identification of sampling numbers was done on the basis of number of students and teaching staff in different fields of study at first and then on the basis of types of universities and educational center (4787), Then, the number of samples for each educational group was determined by using the ratio law (1367) and the questionnaires were randomly distributed among them (4787). The considering the probability of the loss of the sample, due to the lack of complete responses to the items, or failure to return the questionnaires by students and professors, an approximate volume of 1367 samples was considered; of which 27 sample in the pretest stage, and 1340 samples in the final stage, after several visits, were completed and collected. The survey tools in this study included questionnaire which were designed based on the integration of standardized questionnaire and the questionnaire made by the author.                           
Discussion and The finding shows that, the level of entrepreneurial orientation in the students was very low and not satisfactory and the universities professors and senior students believe that an improvement in specific skills can greatly increase the level of entrepreneurial orientation. The findings also suggested that the current state of the universities with respect to the skills increasing entrepreneurial orientation as well as their performance and the activities of the universities in improving these skills have been very week. The comparison of the respondent’s ideas about the skills increasing entrepreneurial orientation with the current state of the universities in terms of the above mentioned skills and also the performance and the activities of universities in improving these skills showed significant difference.  The country’s planners of higher education system should help to employ logical strategies for climbing out of the unemployment crisis and bringing their practical mission, i.e. preparing graduates for self-employment, into action, by providing the grounds for strengthening positive mental beliefs and formal and informal education during education. In general, it is recommended that educational planners at ministry level pay attention to labor market and real needs of the society, and university capacity should not grow simply for being accountable to unsteady social demands. Likewise, the policies of Iran’s Higher Education Organization should be built on institutionalizing quality assessment and supporting structures should be reinforced and advocated. Ultimately, the most important issue is the establishment of an effective evaluation system in order to continuously evaluate the performance of the higher education system at any time so as to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the system, thereby examining practical solutions for addressing weaknesses and conserving strengths.