Abstract:

Changes in health policies, intensive use of technology, increasing costs and increasing expectations of the society lead to continuous innovations in the health sector. The fact that health sector employees are innovative enables them to adapt more easily to the changes and developments that occur, and their entrepreneurship enables them to see the opportunities in the field of health and evaluate the risks correctly. Therefore, the high individual innovativeness and entrepreneurship levels of the healthcare manager candidates who will work in the sector reflects positively on the health sector. This research is important in terms of evaluating together the individual innovativeness and entrepreneurship qualities of healthcare management students. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of individual innovativeness characteristics of healthcare management department students on their entrepreneurial potential. The sample of the study consisted of 391 healthcare management students studying at Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University and Necmettin Erbakan University. In order to measure individual innovativeness in the research, the “Individual Innovation Scale” was used that develop by Hurt et al. (1977) and adapted to Turkish by Kilicer and Odabasi (2010). The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale with four sub-dimensions was calculated as 0.84. The “Entrepreneurship Scale” developed by Yılmaz and Sunbul (2009) was used to measure the entrepreneurial potential of the students. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the entrepreneurship scale was calculated as 0.90. The data collected in the research were analyzed by applying descriptive statistics, explanatory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling. SPSS 25.0 and LISREL program were used in the statistical analysis of the research data. Structural equation modeling was carried out by defining “entrepreneurship” as internal latent variable, sub-dimensions of individual innovativeness as “openness to experience”, “resistance to change”, “opinion leadership” and “risk taking” as external latent variables. In the research findings, it was determined that openness to experience, resistance to change, opinion leadership and risk taking have a statistically significant effect on entrepreneurial potential. While the proposed model was found to be compatible within the scope of the research, the hypotheses put forward were also supported. As a result, it has been evaluated that healthcare management department students should take innovativeness and entrepreneurship courses before graduating.

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