Social Capital and Educational Performance of Students: The Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Behavior

Background: Nowadays, most organizations, including universities, are subject to significant changes. Thus, in order to adapt themselves successfully with such variations, they need skillful, innovative, self-confident, and entrepreneurial individuals. Accordingly, this study was conducted to predict medical university students' educational performance based on the existing social capital and their entrepreneurial behavior. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done in 2019 based on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) among 260 students of Qazvin Medical University. To collect information, three standard questionnaires, including Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) social capital questionnaire, the entrepreneurial behavior questionnaire of Leon Dice, and the entrepreneurial performance questionnaire of Zamptakis and Vasilis Mustakis (2007), were used. After entering data in AMOS software, the associations between variables were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Results: Findings revealed that social capital and entrepreneurial behavior were influencing factors on the educational performance of students. The direct and indirect effects of social capital on educational performance (path coefficients: 0.798 and 0.44 respectively) were affirmed (P-value < 0.05). Conclusion: Promoting social capital, innovation, and entrepreneurial behavior among university students can improve the educational performance of students. Thus, applying effective strategies to create trust in the education system and designing new approaches to use motivational methods in strengthening students' sense of creativity and innovative capabilities can effectively contribute to the improvement of their educational performance.