The School of Economics, Management and Political Science at the University of Minho (EEG) is proud to announce that Diogo Costa Almeida, a PhD student in Management – specialising in Business Sciences – presented his doctoral thesis entitled “Essays on Entrepreneurship: From the Incubator Context to the Educational Context” on 22 June 2026.
In the author’s own words:
"This doctoral thesis adopts a holistic perspective, integrating two central contexts of entrepreneurship – business incubators and entrepreneurial education – through the lens of entrepreneurial competences. Starting from an operational focus on business incubators, it advances the understanding of the selection, incubation, exit, and post-incubation phases, proposing new conceptual models, new analytical perspectives, and guidelines for future research. Taking a global perspective, it assesses the effectiveness of these organisations, going beyond conventional approaches, demonstrating the contingent nature of the value generated by these entrepreneurial support organisations. Recognising business incubators as non-traditional learning environments, it also develops and empirically tests a new competency-based assessment framework, aligned with the European Commission's EntreComp model.
It is precisely in the field of entrepreneurial competences that this thesis extends its analysis to higher education, assessing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in developing students' entrepreneurial competences and intentions. It further addresses an emerging phenomenon with increasing impact across multiple societal domains - particularly within the educational ecosystem – yet largely unexplored in the academic literature: “pop entrepreneurship”. Its roots are explored, and this phenomenon is conceptualised, developing a new index for measuring the endorsement of entrepreneurship myths.
Finally, a pedagogical intervention specifically designed to combat the negative influence of this phenomenon at the cognitive level is tested.
This thesis follows a mixed-methods approach – predominantly quantitative – and integrates a total of ten studies into a coherent narrative. It contributes to entrepreneurship research, both in the context of business incubators and in education. The implications of this research extend to business incubators and their incubated companies, as well as to students as potential future entrepreneurs, and to society in general."
The doctoral thesis was supervised by Ana Maria Soares, Professor in the Department of Management at the School of Economics, Management and Political Science, University of Minho.
The EEG congratulates Diogo Costa Almeida on his defence and wishes him every success in his professional and personal life!
