Jakub Golik, de la Universidad Tecnológica de Gdansk (Gdansk University of Technology), impartirá un seminario titulado “Modelling the Expected Utility Function in Career Choice Problems among students” el próximo jueves día 22 de abril, 2021, a las 12.30h, en el aula 42 de la Facultad de CC. Económicas y Empresariales, dentro de la serie de seminarios del Grupo de Investigación PYMED.
Con esta sesión, el Grupo PYMED retoma su serie de Seminarios de Investigación que había sido interrumpida hace un año por la pandemia. No obstante, dadas las circunstancias, el seminario se impartirá en formato híbrido, presencial en el aula 42 (capacidad 25 asistentes en formato COVID), y simultáneamente online a través de MS TEAMS [1].
Cartel Seminario Golik 2021.04.22
Jakub Golik se encuentra en Sevilla realizando una estancia de investigación para trabajar con los miembros del Grupo PYMED. Así mismo, está abierto a colaborar con otros investigadores del centro cuyas líneas de investigación puedan ser cercanas a las suyas.
En este trabajo, Jakub Golik utiliza una técnica de análisis que hasta ahora ha sido muy utilizada en el área de marketing. Se trata del Análisis Conjunto de Elecciones Adaptativas (Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis). En esta ocasión, esta técnica se utiliza para explicar las preferencias de carrera profesional de los estudiantes de máster. Profundo conocedor de eseta técnica, y en función del interés despertado por la misma, se ofrece a impartir un seminario específico sobre su funcionamiento y utilización.
A continuación se presenta información adicional sobre el seminario, que se impartirá en inglés:
Title:
“Modelling the Expected Utility Function in Career Choice Problems among students”
Abstract
- Research project objectives
In the era of dynamic changes in labour market and existence of new phenomena among its participants like job-hopping and down-shifting, the problem of career choice seems to gain on importance not only for people at the beginning of their career path but also for governments striving to encourage people to become entrepreneurs by implementing various incentive-based policies. For this research, career choice is defined as a selection between becoming an entrepreneur or being an employee. The main research objectives are to find out how students who are about to enter the labour market (i.e. master’s degree students in their last year) make such decisions (by modelling expected utility functions of presented job offers), what drives them in particular (which job attributes are most and least important to them and what trade-offs they make) and how likely they are to become entrepreneurs at some point of their career (multi-item analysis of Entrepreneurial Intention (EI), Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE), etc.).
- Research project methodology
The research project has been inspired by the theoretical model “Career Choice as a Utility Maximizing Response” by Douglas and Shepherd (2000). The model assumes -on the ground of the Expected Utility Theory- that such choices are being made by maximisation of the utility derived from job attributes. So far only one empirical study has been conducted based on this model and what is more – by the authors themselves (Douglas, Shepherd, 2002). Having performed a detailed literature review on job attributes, 93 unique attributes were identified. Next, a new utility maximising model based on eight carefully selected attributes was created. The attributes were selected in such a way that they could fit description of being an entrepreneur as well as description of being an employee in a company. Namely: Effort, Interdependence of work performance and income, Decision making, Income, Being able to see a job through to completion, Sense of responsibility, Legal and financial responsibility, Availability. In order to model the utility functions based on the new model, an experimental design utilising the Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint Analysis (ACBC) method has been selected. Although the method is mainly used in marketing research, it is a perfect tool for detailed utility function modelling using “bottom-up” approach. It means that particular utility functions are created from the real choices that respondents make by filling in tailor-made (fully personalised in real time) questionnaire delivered via personal computer. In the first part of the research for the purpose of ACBC questionnaire, definitions of the job attributes presented to respondents were described in such a way that at no point choice between entrepreneurship and employment was explicitly stated (implicit part). In the subsequent part of the questionnaire (explicit part), multi-item questions related to -among others- entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) as well as questions related to entrepreneurship experience and current state of employment were included (Liñán and Chen, 2009).
- Results and current research progress
Data collection stage has been completed with 242 collected questionnaires (239 useful for the analysis) among master students of three different faculties of Gdańsk University of Technology. The current progress of calculations and data analysis is estimated to be between 80-90%. It makes it possible to verify almost all research hypotheses.
The presentation during the seminar will be structured as follows:
- brief introduction of myself
- research objectives, questions & hypotheses
- short explanation of the research method i.e. Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint Analysis
- construction of experimental design
- results: analysis of part-worth functions
- partial research hypotheses verification and relation to Douglas and Shepherd results (2002)
- discussion
- References
Douglas, E. J., and Shepherd, D.A. (2000) Entrepreneurship as a utility-maximizing response. Journal of Business Venturing 15(3): 231-252.
Douglas, E. J., and Shepherd, D.A. (2002) Self-employment as a Career Choice: Attitudes, Entrepreneurial Intentions and Utility Maximization. Entrepreneurial Theory and Practice 26(3): 81-90
Liñán, F., and Chen, Y. (2009). Development and Cross–Cultural Application of a Specific Instrument to Measure Entrepreneurial Intentions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(3), 593–617.
[1] https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZTMwZjFhZDItMzE4OC00YmY4LTg0YTctYjc3NDg0YTVhNjNl%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ef4a684e-81b5-491c-a98e-c7b31be6c469%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%229dc58b82-ad64-4f60-b1d3-f82a2ca9a4e7%22%7d .
