Development of entrepreneurial competencies of Russian and Czech undergraduate students: Gender aspect

Introduction. Recently, university teachers have faced the task to develop not only professional knowledge, skills and abilities, but also universal and supra-professional competencies. The comprehensive development of university students influences the formation of a specialist’s personality, ensures his/her adaptability and resistance to the challenges of the external environment, the graduate’s readiness to demonstrate high performance indicators in the chosen field of activity. Among the supra-professional competencies, a separate cluster of entrepreneurial competencies can be distinguished, which ensure the deployment of commercial thinking and are the driver of the development of the state’s economy. Meanwhile, in some publications there are a number of facts, which illustrate the gender differences in entrepreneurship in the world. Official statistics demonstrate the relevance of the development of women’s entrepreneurship in the economies of countries. The prevailing number of studies is carried out among students enrolled in entrepreneurship training programmes. However, the indicators of the development of entrepreneurial competencies of students of non-core specialties (future human resource management specialists), taking into account the gender factor, have not been studied enough.The aim of the present research was to answer the question about the presence of a gender gap in the development of entrepreneurial competencies among university students enrolled in the training direction “Personnel Management” in the Russian Federation and the Czech Republic.Methodology and research methods. The methodological framework of the current research is based on the behavioural approach to the study of competencies, which suggests that success in professional activity is favoured by a high level of development. The literary analysis of relevant empirical studies was conducted to choose a research method and to develop a methodology for competencies assessment. The review makes it possible to assess the level of ...