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Entrepreneurship education in tourism from the students’ graduation project

perspective: The case of International University College, Bulgaria

Miroslava Dimitrova a and Stanislav Ivanov

b

a International University College, 3 Bulgaria str., 9300 Dobrich, Bulgaria, email:

miroslava.dimitrova@vumk.eu

b International University College, 3 Bulgaria str., 9300 Dobrich, Bulgaria, tel: +359 58

655612 email: stanislav.ivanov@vumk.eu

Abstract

The paper aims at analysing entrepreneurship education from the perspective of Tourism and

Hospitality students’ graduation projects from the 2011-2012 academic years in International

University College, Bulgaria. Findings reveal that students show preferences for writing

theoretical paper (dissertation) instead of business plan for starting new enterprise as a

graduation project. The paper is attempting to clarify and explain the above stated

preferences, to summarize which are the main challenges students face when preparing a

business plan and make suggestions of how the process could be facilitated in order to

increase entrepreneurial intentions after graduation.

Key words: graduation project, enterprise project, tourism, hospitality, education, Bulgaria

Research background

Entrepreneurship has long been recognised an important element in undergraduate

programmes curricula (Fayoll and Gailly, 2008; Mars and Garrison, 2009;) including in

tourism and hospitality (Ball, 2005; Fidgeon, 2010; Okumus and Wong, 2005). Tourism is a

multi-faceted phenomenon that involves many stakeholders (students, educational institutions,

business units and governmental and non-governmental organizations). Tourism education

poses fundamental challenges mainly due to the fact that different stakeholders have specific

tourism education needs. It is vital that equilibrium between firms, students, education and

governmental institutions is established (Zagonari, 2009) as well as a balance between

vocational training and technical education. Consequently, integrated approach to tourism

theory and practice is a must (Mayaka and Akama, 2007). In any case the need of new and

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innovative forms of curriculum design which combines successfully academic research with

industrial focus is evident.

The importance of industry focused education in tourism is studied by a number of researches

(Lislie and Russer, 2006; Thrane, 2008; Baum and Szivas, 2008). As for the students, a study

carried out by Lashley and Barron (2006) on the learning style preferences on new entrants

onto hospitality and tourism programmes demonstrates that students prefer style that is

concrete rather abstract and active rather reflective. Preparing tourism and hospitality students

to work effectively and efficiently in the travel industry, requires that their curriculum reflects

the needs and the business practices of the industry.

Relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship intentions have been

proven by a number of studies (Lena and Wong, 2003 Gorman et al., 1997). Moreover,

private higher education institutions reveal higher effective potential entrepreneurial

propensity (Teixeira and Davey, 2008). Human resources is more important for the new

business start up than the business environment (Kumara and Sahasranam, 2009) which leads

to the idea that even during rough economics crisis and uncertainty, the investment in

education and building of competences could stimulate the entrepreneurship and eventually

lead to creation of economic activity.

As mentioned above, it is important to continuously inventory the students’ attitudes, skills

and competencies for an entrepreneurial career and build a database of prospective

entrepreneurs. Analyzing students’ diploma projects (or final graduation papers) could assist

in this process. Diploma projects could be seen as a culmination of an undergraduate or

graduate programme and offer the students an opportunity to submit an extended piece of

work on a specific topic and as such it is considered as a vehicle for promoting autonomous

learning and an effective assessment tool (Webster et al, 2000; Todd et al, 2004). Motivations

for topic choice of the dissertation include personal interest, career aspirations and perceived

ease of access to primary data or literature (l’Anson and Smith, 2004). Diploma projects

require time, efforts, commitment, in–depth knowledge and other personal qualities. In those

and many other features there is an evident resemblance between them and real business

projects and the application of performance measurement principles for them is equally

appropriate (Day and Bobeva, 2007). It is therefore possible that diploma projects are closely

linked to the specific industrial needs in search for real business solutions.

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Business plan competitions (including awards for best graduation projects) provide a stimulus

for new venture creation and capture the idea, talents and creativity and are especially

beneficial for tertiary education students (Russell et al., 2008). In the same time a growing

challenge before business plan as an assessment tool is the plagiarism which affects heavily

entrepreneurship education (Lahm, 2007). It is obvious that having almost unlimited access to

various source of information students should be encourage developing new and creative

ideas instead of copying ones. That is why methods for detection and prosecution of unfair

practices in writing business plans as graduation projects should be envisaged.

IUC students’ graduation projects

Students at IUC, Bulgaria, need to complete a compulsory research project in order to

graduate. The project is about 10000-14000 words long and is worth 10 ECTS credits (as

stipulated by Bulgarian legislation). Though students are free to choose the topic themselves

according to their preferences, it is subject to final approval by the Programme committee.

Tourism and hospitality students are encouraged to choose topics within the field of tourism

industry (i.e. hotel or F&B management, tourism destination marketing and management etc).

The graduation project employs both primary empirical and desk-research. Students are

obliged to attend 20 contact hours of graduation project seminars in which the module leaders

elaborate all the issues related to the project. Additionally, students are assigned supervisors

from staff members, which help them in the research process.

Graduation projects present either dissertation or business plan (enterprise project).

Dissertation is more theoretically orientated. It concentrates on one practical problem within a

company, elaborates it in depth and proposes solutions to it. In the enterprise project students

develop a business plan for a new start up company, or for the introduction of a new product.

While in the dissertation students can go in depth in one functional field only (marketing,

HRM, management, finance, law, etc.), the enterprise project is much more challenging. It

requires that students have broader knowledge and skills in all functional fields and be able to

determine their interconnectedness.

Table 1 presents an overview of the IUC 2012 cohort students’ graduation projects in Tourism

and Hospitality programmes. In total 34 projects were submitted from students in 3

Professional Bachelor programmes – 1 with English language of instruction (International

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Hospitality Management) and 2 with Bulgarian language of instruction (International

Hospitality Management and Marketing and Management in Hospitality and Tourism). The

graduation projects were supervised by 9 staff members allocated according to their topic.

Table 1. Overview of the IUC students’ graduation projects in Tourism and Hospitality (2012

cohort)

Criterion Number of projects

Undergraduate programme of study

International Hospitality Management (in Bulgarian) 2

International Hospitality Management (in English) 17

Marketing and Management in Hospitality and Tourism (in Bulgarian) 15

Type of graduation project

Dissertation 29

Enterprise project 5

Functional field

Marketing 9

Corporate management 4

Human resource management 2

Finance/Accounting 6

Destination management 8

Other 5

Industry focus

Tourism destination 6

Hotel management 16

Food and beverage establishments 4

Alternative forms of tourism 7

Other 1

Total number of graduation projects = 34

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Data from Table 1 reveal that the dissertations are largely preferred over business plans as

graduation projects by the hospitality and tourism students. One of the reasons could be the

relatively higher degree of complexity of enterprise projects which require a comprehensive

view of the company, analysis of its micro- and macro environment and developing of

elaborate marketing, operational, human resource and financial plans of the company for at

least 3 years ahead.

The functional field of the graduation projects has 5 large foci – marketing (branding,

elements of the marketing mix, marketing environment, CRM, etc.), corporate management

(including operations management, quality management); human resource management;

destination management and finance. As observed students show preferences to “soft”

narrative subjects (HRM, management, marketing) rather than subjects involving a lot of

mathematics (statistics, accounting, finance, economics). The reason might be in students’

perceptions that narrative subjects are easier and more comprehendible than those adopting

mathematics. Tourism related topics (such as destination management and marketing) are

prevailing as expected. Students’ research was on both industry (tourism development in a

particular municipality or specific types of tourism) and corporate level (tourist companies –

hotels, travel agencies).

Challenges and opportunities in writing business plan as a graduation project

Below we summarise the challenges faced by students in writing their graduation projects

(with a focus on business plan) and possible solutions, based on our experience as graduation

projects supervisors:

Topic selection

Selecting the topic is one of the major difficulties faced by IUC students. Our experience as

dissertation and enterprise project supervisors reveals that students that work during their

studies usually write about the companies they are familiar with. When students select the

company first, it is usually because they have access to it (work in it, own it or it belongs to

their parents/relatives/friends), which facilitates the research process. They first select the

industry focus of their project and after that the functional field (marketing, management,

HRM, etc.). Non-working students seem to follow the other pattern – they first select what

they want to write for (the functional field) and after that they determine the company to

investigate. In this case, students choose the functional field they feel comfortable with which

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allows them to delve deep into the theoretical issues. Both approaches are acceptable and have

their own advantages. Topic selection could be facilitated by establishing strong partnerships

with companies. Both sides could benefit in this case: consultations and business solutions at

low cost for the companies and easy access for the students.

Literature review

The broad and in-depth analysis of the available literature on a topic is a prerequisite for an

adequate conceptual framework of the graduation project (whether dissertation or enterprise

project). Considering our experience, most of the references come from open access internet

sources (both academic and non-academic) and books available in IUC’s library. Articles in

closed-access academic journals were less cited. Students found it challenging to cite properly

and according to the style format and requirements.

Access

Although many students prepared projects for the companies they work in, they still find

difficulties in negotiating access. Firms are not cooperative when asked to reveal financial,

marketing and operational data or provide figures. Persuading managers to allow students to

interview them or their employees is also a major challenge. Bulgarian managers seem to be

very protective and suspicious to empirical research. Cooperation between business and

academics should be established. Benefits could be numerous and one of the outcomes could

be the facilitation of access to companies’ data.

Research methodology and data collection

Most students employ survey as a research methodology and questionnaires as a data

collection tool. However, having enough completed questionnaires is a difficult task – from

the analysed graduation projects only those they employ census in a small company produce

statistically significant results. The rest of the projects produce results that are not

generalisable because of the low number of completed questionnaires. The reasons for the low

response rate are numerous but they predominantly relate to the lack of desire among

Bulgarians to participate in research. They are frightened that their privacy and anonymity

will not be protected, or that data collected could be used for purposes other than the stated.

Analysis of the 2012 cohort graduation projects shows that only a handful of them adopt

interview as a data collection tool and those that do perform only a couple of interviews. The

reason might be in the greater difficulty in the subsequent analysis of the qualitative data from

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the interview compared to the quantifiable data from the questionnaires. Other reasons might

be the unwillingness of potential interviewees to participate or students’ inability to motivate

them to participate in the research.

Data analysis, presentation and discussion

Most students prepare summary tables of interviewees’ responses on each question.

Sometimes students focus too much on details that do not relate directly to the topic and the

aim of their graduation project and do not devote much attention to major issues arising from

the primary data they have collected. On the positive side, students prepare many tables,

figures and graphs to illustrate their findings, although sometimes they are a bit too many.

Other challenges

Writing a research project requires persistence. However, our experience shows that many

students leave it to the last weeks before the deadline. Time management is a major issue in

any research related activity. Of course, the final outcomes, in terms of project quality and

mark, are strongly correlated to the time devoted to the project and the number of meetings a

student had with the supervisor. Plagiarism is another emerging challenge, which needs

immediate actions and established procedures for detection and sanctioning. This problem

became more evident with the recently increased access to vast source of information

(especially online) and the abundance of options of “outsourcing” of the process (hiring

someone else to write the graduation project instead of you). Though few years ago it was

almost neglected as phenomenon, the society today becomes more and more sensitive towards

intellectual property rights. IUC makes a thorough check of all student projects in order to

eliminate any possibility for plagiarism (including constant check outs of the coursework and

graduation projects, purchasing and implementing a specialized software etc). The aim is to

develop a plagiarism-free culture among the students from the very beginning of their study

because to great extend plagiarism is not only administrative problem, but also an ethical one

and is by no means congruent with the entrepreneurial spirit that is fostered in our institution.

Conclusion

Graduation projects are the final and most comprehensive work of students that culminates

the study process and show the depth of knowledge and the competences that have acquired

during a three or four years period of training. They provide an excellent opportunity of

relating theory to practice and creating a liaison between academics and business. Our

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findings suggest however that this potential has been identified but not yet fully utilized as the

prevailing number of graduation papers has no specific business orientation. Few students

engaged in creating a business plan for start up of a new company which is most challenging

and difficult task. Usually these students are determined to implement the plan into practice

after graduation. These students are strongly motivated to make a realistic and feasible project

and research in detail business environment as well as forecast financial results. Benefits for

students when choosing an enterprise project are closer collaboration with industry

representatives that may lead to future employment or partnerships, assistance from the

project supervisors which could affect positively the quality of the research and increased

entrepreneurial motivation and intention to start up new company after graduation.

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