Are Electrical Engineers Future Entrepreneurs? An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The paper assesses the propensity towards entrepreneurship among students who graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Technical University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in the last five years. Employment opportunities for graduates in the technical field, are constantly increasing due to a growth in the number, dimensions, and turnover of multinational companies active in research and manufacturing in Romania. Moreover, the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially in the IT field determined a high demand for graduates of technical study programs. The aim of the study is to explore the employment trajectory of electrical engineering graduates. The sample comprised 214 persons, graduates of the following specializations: Electro mechanic and Economical Engineering in Electric, Electronic and Energetic specializations. The data were analyzed considering the alumni employability in the period 2014-2019. Findings reveal that approximatively half of the engineers work in jobs related to their specialization, and very few of them chose to be entrepreneurs, with two exceptions, not in the field of their studies.