Applicability of Theoretical and Practical Entrepreneurial Training and Development Programs for Start-ups

Abstract

The main aim of the study is to find the gap between expectations and perceptions of entrepreneurial students regarding the service quality of the Entrepreneurial Development Program (EDP) they are enrolled at the idea-GYM, Central University of Technology in the Free State Province, South Africa. Expectations of a customer or a student refer to the beliefs about a service delivered by a company or institution as a standard or reference point against which the performance of the service received afterwards is judged. Knowing what the customer or student expects is a very important departure point in overall service delivery process. Customer perceived value is all about the quality service received and the satisfaction levels around the received service. Satisfaction is generally the broader concept, while service quality is focused specifically on the service delivery dimensions.  A stratified random sampling technique was used to collect the data from the EDP students on the program of 2021 and 2022. Students completed the questionnaire on expectations before they started with the EDP program and then after the last session of the program, they completed the perception questionnaire. The results indicated that there were differences between the expectations and perceptions of the students related specifically to empathy and tangible dimensions of service quality. There were some significant differences between the expectations and perceptions of the students towards the service quality of the EDP which in most cases the perceptions were higher than what they expected beforehand from the program. Research limitations: The data was only collected from the current students attending the EDP program in 2021 and 2022. Moreover, the study focused only on the EDP program and the content within the program. The research methodology of this study is based on a pre-evaluation (expectations of the EDP program) and a post-evaluation (perceptions of the EDP program) after they were done with the content of the program.