Educational Entrepreneurship: Innovative Models for Youth and the Administration of the Future

Abstract

The paper reports original results from an applied research on how "educational entrepreneurship" can generate innovative models of competence training at high school level, relevant for business and administration of the future. The aim of the study is to identify and validate didactic and managerial mechanisms through which initiative, creativity, collaboration, responsibility and financial literacy can be developed coherently in the upper cycle of pre-university education. The research subject is students and teachers from high schools in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. The methodology is mixed. The quantitative component used a Likert scale questionnaire applied to a sample of 100 students and 20 teachers, targeting five dimensions of entrepreneurial competences; the internal consistency of the instrument was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient, and the latent structure by exploratory factor analysis. The qualitative component included semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, analyzed thematically (inductive approach) to capture contexts, barriers and facilitators of implementation. The analyses were complemented by methodological triangulation to increase the credibility of the results. The results indicate three major findings. (1) Combining project-based learning with school-business partnerships favors consistent increases in student initiative, collaboration and responsibility. (2) Micro-incubation in high school (project clubs with external mentoring, rapid prototyping and iterative feedback) supports applied creativity and knowledge transfer in real contexts. (3) Curricular flexibility and managerial support at the school level are key factors; in their absence, the effects of interventions diminish, even in the presence of digital resources. We conclude that educational entrepreneurship becomes effective when configured as a school-community ecosystem, not as an isolated discipline. The paper proposes the LINC (High School–Innovation–Networking–Community) model as an operational architecture in four steps: needs diagnosis, integrated competence design, implementation through partnership projects and authentic evaluation. The contribution of the study consists in articulating a replicable framework, with direct utility for decision-makers and practitioners, oriented towards increasing the relevance of high school education for business and administration