The soft skills bases in digital academic entrepreneurship in relation to digital transformation

• Autor(a) principal: Garcez, Ana Paula Braga
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Franco, Mário, Silva, Ricardo
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração e Inovação
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/rai/article/view/220632
• topic: Soft Skills; Digital academic entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial mindset; Digital transformation

Purpose: Digital technology changes the organizational structure of traditional firms, creating opportunities for entrepreneurship. These modifications are known as "digital transformation" (DT). In addition, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are altering the form of student-lecturer and teaching-learning interaction, where DT restructures the bases of soft skills (SS). Since SS are difficult to measure, this study aims to analyze the bases of SS for digital academic entrepreneurship, responding to the following research question: What are the bases of digital academic entrepreneurship, and how are they formed? Design/methodology/approach: An extensive interdisciplinary review of the literature revealed the need to develop SS for higher education students due to the digital technology's editable, re-combinable, re-programmable, and generative nature. It is worth noticing that digital technology is the DT basis.   Findings: The results show that the competencies can be developed considering three major groupings: (i) Individual Characteristics, (ii) Cultural Characteristics, and (iii) Knowledge Sharing. Practical implications: Since teaching soft skills is not an easy task, this study shows how digital tools can help and support this type of process. Therefore, we suggest that those in charge of HEIs use the pillars presented in the framework proposed here to guide their institutions’ strategic planning. With these pillars in mind, the aim is to stimulate an entrepreneurial mentality in students and develop digital academic entrepreneurship. Originality/value: We propose an innovative conceptual model of digital academic entrepreneurship from the perspective of SS. According to such a perspective, DT and the disruptive role of digital technology permeate the interlinking of those groupings, leading to an entrepreneurial mentality in the HEI students.