Toward Transforming Higher Education Institutions in the Sultanate of Oman to a Micro Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Abstract

Though many researchers are focusing on the importance of the role played by higher education institutions in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the impact of such contribution to the entrepreneurial activity dynamism, there is a real need to explore how to make these institutions a real entrepreneurial micro-ecosystem. This study aims to offer a model of an entrepreneurial micro-ecosystem. The current descriptive study employed mixed method quantitative and qualitative approaches through a questionnaire and interviews among academics and experts in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the higher education institutions from the Sultanate of Oman. 133 academics and experts participated in answering the closed questionnaire questions, it was found that higher education institutions in the Sultanate of Oman have a role in inspiration and ideas in entrepreneurship, while there is a weakness in their position at promoting beginnings of the business and direct to work and get-away, as it turns out that there is a strong influence relationship between the three axes of the study. 12 experts in entrepreneurship in the Sultanate were interviewed, and through their answers, an answer of how higher education institutions could support technically and financially the nascent entrepreneurs inside and outside the colleges in the different stages of entrepreneurial process from the ideation to the growth while offering many practical recommendations were given to policymakers. The originality of that research lies in integrating the qualitative and qualitative approaches to move towards creating variables attributed to the entrepreneurial ecosystem of entrepreneurship for adoption in higher education institutions, and what are the most important pillars for supporting emerging entrepreneurs in the Sultanate and the Arab Gulf states in the different stages of the entrepreneurship process from the stage of ideation to the one of development. This research opens an important discussion about the entrepreneurial ecosystem model that can be followed in higher education institutions and aims in the future to create its variables and construct that can enrich research on the topic of the micro-entrepreneurial ecosystem higher education institutions, which has rarely been quantitatively addressed.