Barrera Verdugo Gustavo, Villarroel Villarroel Antonio
Faculty of Engineering and Business, Universidad de Las Américas, Santiago, Chile.
Heliyon. 2021 Jun 10;7(6):e07272. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07272. eCollection 2021 Jun.
Currently, university students can read content from various social media sites; however, little is known about the relationship between students' social media exposure and their valuation of sustainability in entrepreneurship and of environmental and social care as drivers of new venture creation. This research seeks to reduce this knowledge gap, evaluating discrepancies among undergraduates according to the intensity of their social media use. An online survey was applied to compare students' perceptions based on their reading of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. A total of 143 valid responses of students in business and engineering careers in Chile were analysed using the Mann-Whitney test, showing a difference in the perceptions of undergraduates who read social media content once a day or more. The results show that a higher frequency of reading such content is related to higher perceived relevance of environmental sustainability, social welfare, and fair trade; likewise, it is linked with less perceived importance of sustainability as a driver of entrepreneurship. This evidence is relevant in recognizing the potential of social media sites to strengthen the higher education in sustainable entrepreneurship because these channels can be incorporated as a formal source of information for learning and its use is still limited. Future research should explore what specific types of content have the most significant impact on perceptions of sustainable entrepreneurship and promote particular methods for their application in this area.
目前，大学生可以阅读各种社交媒体网站上的内容；然而，对于学生接触社交媒体与其对创业中可持续性的重视程度以及将环境和社会关怀视为新企业创建驱动力的重视程度之间的关系，我们却知之甚少。本研究旨在缩小这一知识差距，根据学生使用社交媒体的强度评估本科生之间的差异。通过一项在线调查，比较学生基于对推特、脸书、照片墙、领英和优兔的阅读情况所形成的看法。使用曼-惠特尼检验对智利143名商科和工科专业学生的有效回复进行了分析，结果显示，每天阅读一次或更多次社交媒体内容的本科生在看法上存在差异。结果表明，阅读此类内容的频率越高，对环境可持续性、社会福利和公平贸易的感知相关性越高；同样，它与将可持续性视为创业驱动力的重要性感知较低有关。这一证据对于认识社交媒体网站在加强可持续创业高等教育方面的潜力具有重要意义，因为这些渠道可以作为学习的正式信息来源，但目前其使用仍然有限。未来的研究应探索哪些特定类型的内容对可持续创业的看法影响最大，并推广在该领域应用这些内容的具体方法。
