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This study aims to investigate the ways that human capital influences the strategic orientation variables entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO), which ultimately leverage the firm performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia.

This study used a quantitative method with a total of 274 SMEs in the Regency of Gresik, East Java, Indonesia, as the observable population. Furthermore, the identified samples obtained through the random sampling technique were determined using the Slovin formula with 163 SMEs used for analysis. As the means of analysis, this study used a statistical approach by using PLS-SEM statistics from SmartPLS software. This analytical tool has been proven to be a robust statistical tool that has been used in many marketing studies.

This study found that human capital is a key determinant of EO and MO as strategic orientations of SMEs. Furthermore, this study highlighted that SMEs’ strategic orientations (i.e. EO and MO) provide a valuable thrust that leverages firm performance. Moreover, the role of human capital in leveraging firm performance was found to be significant with the role of the joint effect of EO and MO as mediator. This implies that human capital is not solely a single determinant that leverages SMEs’ performance.

There are few aspects of limitations in this research that could be enhanced by other scholars in the discipline of entrepreneurship. First, the strategic orientation concept being indicated by EO and MO had yet to provide a comprehensive view of strategic orientation. Second, this research used samples that represent the traditional furniture cluster in East Java and had yet to explore other clusters such as food processing and services cluster which may be relevant to the context of SMEs in Indonesia.

As a practical implication, this study would benefit policymakers in Indonesia, such as the Ministry for Cooperatives and SMEs to provide assistance to SMEs to progressively nurture capacity-building through formal and informal education to leverage human capital. Moreover, it could benefit other relevant businesses, such as national banks in Indonesia whose interests are significant, especially in providing financial access to SMEs in Indonesia.

The social implication of this research lay the focus on the suggestion by which SMEs must be able to optimize their capabilities by enhancing levels of human capital particularly for traditionally managed SMEs. The ability to survive external pressures for would be able to contribute to the social well-being of their society as many people are dependent heavily in the operation of the SMEs.

The significance of this study is twofold. Although the use of human capital as a determinant of firm performance has been discussed in the literature, few studies to date has sought to predict human capital with EO and MO as mediators of firm performance. Furthermore, the joint impact of EO and MO as a strategic orientation needs to be holistically explored and explained, particularly in an emerging economy context.

This study aims to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship education and students’ intentions and tests for moderating effects of students’ perceived experience and family entrepreneurial orientation, which may strengthen or weaken the effect of entrepreneurship education on intention.

Data were collected through a questionnaire from 584 students in the vocational program at an Indonesian public university. Entrepreneurship education was measured using instruments by Walter and Block (2016) that evaluated the entrepreneurship education provided by faculty. Entrepreneurial intention used a measurement by Vamvaka (2020), which measured students’ choice of intention, entrepreneurial career commitment and nascent entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship education has a positive association with students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The results also evidence higher entrepreneurial intention levels in students from families oriented toward and experienced in entrepreneurship. The results also reveal that student experience and having friends who become entrepreneurs reduce entrepreneurial intention, but the difference is not statistically significant.

The main limitation of this survey is that it was drawn from a single university in Indonesia with only domestic students, whilst the study was also designed cross-sectional. Therefore, the generalisability of the results is still limited. This study uses a single item for measuring friends and own influences, which only measure personal experiences. A more multidimensional measure of family, friends and own influence can be further developed to gain more robust results supporting these findings.

The study contributes to understanding the role of family-related variables, particularly family entrepreneurial orientation and experiences, on the development of entrepreneurship education and intention in emerging global market forces. Through family engagement in entrepreneurship education, a family can boost students’ entrepreneurial intention by delivering various capitals (e.g. business value, financial and social capital) and providing practical learning. The results imply the necessity to conduct new subjects, courses or university programmes that can include family-related business in entrepreneurship education.

Despite the expansion of research related to entrepreneurship education and intention, the relationships between perceived experience, family entrepreneurial orientation and students’ entrepreneurial intentions have not been adequately studied, particularly in Indonesia. This work contributes to the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship education by providing two moderator variables that may boost entrepreneurial intention: perceived experience and family entrepreneurial orientation. This work demonstrated how perceived experience and family orientation interact with entrepreneurship education and intention.