Setting up a new business – evidence from a business administration faculty

In the last decades, entrepreneurship in all of its complexity, as a basis for sustainable development, has become a major concern for a variety of socio-economic agents: legislative systems, production systems represented by entrepreneurs from all economic sectors, and education and research systems. As a result, numerous fields of studies which aim to develop an entrepreneurial spirit among youth and to prepare students for entrepreneurship have been introduced in the educational curricula starting with high school. One of the missions of the Faculty of Business Administration in foreign languages (FABIZ) from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies is to ensure that students gain the competencies and abilities necessary for being able to open a business and become interested in a career as entrepreneurs. However, discussions with the students from FABIZ showed that only a small percentage of students are planning or have already become entrepreneurs (approximately 5% which, for some researchers such as Fayolle and Filion (2016) is considered an optimal figure). This study aims to explore the degree to which FABIZ students, with a focus on the French section, are entrepreneurs or, at least, are interested to become entrepreneurs in the near future and to analyse their fields of interests, hopes and fears, i.e. their perception of their own career.