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- Entrepreneurship promotion in Mozambique: the role of higher education institutionsPublication . Libombo, Dambusse Bucuane; Dinis, Anabela do Rosário LeitãoWith the current globalization and intense competition of nations, entrepreneurship is seen as fundamental to wealth and job creation and especially to economic and social development. For this reason, in developing countries the entrepreneurship theme is of particular importance and is receiving growing attention from both politicians and academics. In recent years, the interest in entrepreneurship education, particularly at the higher education level, expanded worldwide. In the context of developing countries, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are increasingly seen as tools for the development of entrepreneurial culture and as promoters of innovative or systemic entrepreneurship. In the case of Mozambique, in the last decade, initiatives to promote entrepreneurship multiplied. Such interest is reflected in the National Agenda to Combat Poverty, a governmental program for poverty reduction and creation of new jobs for the 2006-2009 period, where one of the main vectors was the promotion of entrepreneurship through the education system with emphasis in entrepreneurship support at the level of HEIs, including new business incubation. Since then, entrepreneurship education and promotion in Mozambican HEI is becoming a reality. Despite the fact that initiatives related to entrepreneurship education are beginning to multiply in developing countries, most studies refer only to developed countries’ realities, with few describing and focussing on HEIs entrepreneurship education in other parts of the world. If, as is argued by several authors, in the entrepreneurial phenomena “context matters”, a different context can represent a different configuration of factors and processes. Thus, this study intends to contribute to fulfilling this gap. It focuses on the issue of entrepreneurship promotion and the role of HEIs as a support instrument in the context of developing countries. More specifically, based on the Mozambican case, it aims to understand the effectiveness of this instrument, identifying the main progresses and barriers in HEI’s entrepreneurship education and the factors that affect its effectiveness. This purpose is translated in the following research questions: I) What factors influence positively and/or negatively entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and behaviours? and Do these factors differ according to the level of economic development of the countries? II) Are the HEIs cooperation networks decisive for the development of teachers’ and students’ skills and for the promotion of entrepreneurship? III) What are the main achievements and barriers to the creation of companies promoted/incubated by HEIs? IV) Do entrepreneurship education programmes in HEIs influence students’ entrepreneurial (personal) characteristics, attitudes, perceptions and intentions? What other factors affect students’ entrepreneurial characteristics, perceptions, attitudes and intentions? The study includes both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Qualitative methodologies were used to assess aspects related with the organization of HEIs and their entrepreneurship curriculum offer and support. Quantitative methodologies were used to study the importance of the context and the aspects related with the students, namely the impact/effectiveness of entrepreneurship education and other factors that affect students’ entrepreneurship. In the first case, secondary data from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2010 – Adult Population Survey (APS), Global Individual Level Data was used. In the second case, primary data was collected including a survey of 572 students that attended an entrepreneurship course and 149 students that did not attended in a sample of 10 HEI establishments with entrepreneurship education in a universe of 34 establishments. Qualitative analysis included analysis of documental sources, interviews and observation; quantitative analysis was done using Statistic Programme for Social Sciences (SPSS) and several techniques related with multiple regressions, ANOVA and comparison of means (T-test and qui-squared test) The work is organized in three parts. The first provides the justification for the study, introduces the general theoretical framework and the purposes of the study and explains the structure of the thesis. The second part includes four chapters in the format of articles answering to the four research questions. The third part is a general conclusion, including limitations, further lines of research and implications of the study.