A Comparative Study of Engineering and Business Students’ Attitude
to e-Business Application
Andreas Ahrens and Jeļena Zaščerinska
Hochschule Wismar, University of Applied Sciences - Technology, Business and Design,
Philipp-Müller-Straße 14, 23966 Wismar, Germany
Keywords: e-Business Application, Students’ Attitude, Comparative Study, Interpretive Paradigm.
Abstract: e-Business applications in higher education enrich students’ competence in both entrepreneurship and
Information and Communication Technology. However, little attention has been paid to a comparative study
of engineering and business students’ attitude to e-Business application. The aim of the paper is to compare
engineering and business students’ attitude to e-Business application underpinning elaboration of a
hypothesis. The meaning of the key concepts of attitude and criteria is studied. Moreover, the study
demonstrates how the key concepts are related to the idea of e-Business application and shows a potential
model for development, indicating how the steps of the process are related following a logical chain:
attitude and its criteria → empirical study within multicultural environments → conclusions. The results of
the present research show that both business and engineering students’ attitude to e-Business application is
positive. Directions of further research are proposed.
1 INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship facilitates the prosperity of the
modern society in general and the sustainability of
contemporary economics in particular as
entrepreneurship has been adopting a two-fold role
such as
 from the social perspective, entrepreneurship
promotes the innovative and competitive
development of society, and
 from the individual perspective,
entrepreneurship contributes to the individual’s
employability and career option.
For the increase of enterprise efficiency in the digital
era, entrepreneurship employs e-Business
applications as depicted in Figure 1.
Entrepreneurship
E‐Businessapplications
Figure 1: The relationship between entrepreneurship and
e-Business application.
Due to the two-fold role of entrepreneurship in
the modern world, entrepreneurship education as
well as e-Business applications have been widely
introduced into higher education.
e-Business applications in higher education are
demonstrated in Figure 2 (Zaščerinska and Ahrens,
2013).

Figure 2: e-Business applications in higher education.
In higher education, two dimensions of e-
Business application, namely business (university
studies, etc) and entertainment (chats, etc), are
outlined.
e-Business applications in higher education
enrich students’ competence in both
entrepreneurship and Information and
31
Ahrens A. and Zaš
ˇ
cerinska J..
A Comparative Study of Engineering and Business Students’ Attitude to e-Business Application.
DOI: 10.5220/0005019900310038
In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B-2014), pages 31-38
ISBN: 978-989-758-043-7
Copyright
c
 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Communication Technology. Students’
entrepreneurship and digital competences are of
great importance as they serve as
 two of eight key competences outlined by the
European Commission for lifelong learning
(European Commission, 2004), and
 e-Business application’s condition, factor and
evaluation criterion (Surikova, 2007).
Competence consists of knowledge, skills and
attitudes (European Commission, 2004) as shown in
Figure 3.
Competence
Knowledge
Skills
Attitude
Figure 3: Elements of competence.
The elements of competence, namely knowledge,
skills and attitude, are inter-related. Students’
negative attitude to e-Business application fails to
promote the increase in the level of students’
knowledge and skills in e-Business application, and
competence, in general. In contrast, students’
positive attitude to e-Business application
contributes to the enrichment of the level of
students’ knowledge and skills in e-Business
application and competence, in general.
Students’ attitude to e-Business application in
higher education has been investigated via analysis
of engineering students’ attitude to the Digital Social
Media module that includes e-Business applications
(Ahrens et al., 2012).
However, little attention has been paid to a
comparative study of engineering and business
students’ attitude to e-Business application.
The aim of the paper is to compare engineering
and business students’ attitude to e-Business
application underpinning elaboration of a
hypothesis. The meaning of the key concepts of
attitude and criteria is studied. Moreover, the study
demonstrates how the key concepts are related to the
idea of e-Business application and shows a potential
model for development, indicating how the steps of
the process are related following a logical chain:
attitude and its criteria → empirical study within
multicultural environments → conclusions.
The present research of the present contribution
is considered within the System-Constructivist
Theory. The System-Constructivist Theory is
introduced as the New or Social Constructivism
Pedagogical Theory. The System-Constructivist
Theory serves as the basis of the methodological
background of the present contribution. The System-
Constructivist Theory is formed by
 Parsons’s System Theory (Parsons, 1976) on
any activity as a system,
 Luhmann’s Theory (Luhmann, 1988) on
communication as a system,
 the Theory of Symbolic Interactionalism
(Mead, 1973),
 the Theory of Subjectivism (Groeben, 1986).
The System-Constructivist Theory implies the
dialectical principle of the unity of opposites that
contributes to the understanding of the relationship
between external (social, social interaction, teaching,
etc) and internal (individual, cognitive activity,
learning, etc) perspectives as the synthesis of
external and internal perspectives (Bassus and
Zaščerinska, 2012). In comparison, the
Constructivism Theory focuses on the internal
perspective, the Social Constructivist Theory – on
the external perspective as well as on the balance
between the balance between the external and
internal perspectives (Bassus and Zaščerinska,
2012).
The System-Constructivist Theory and,
consequently, the System-Constructivist Approach
to learning introduced by Reich (Reich, 2005)
emphasize that human being’s point of view depends
on the subjective aspect:
 everyone has his/her own system of external
and internal perspectives (Ahrens and
Zaščerinska, 2010) that is a complex open
system (Rudzinska, 2008), and
 experience plays the central role in the
knowledge construction process (Maslo, 2007).
Therein, the subjective aspect of human being’s
point of view is applicable to the present research on
this comparative study of engineering and business
students’ attitude to e-Business application.
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Students’ attitude is a criterion of e-Business
application in higher education. It should be noted
that criteria serve to structure, assess and evaluate
while indicators determine developmental dynamics
(Lasmanis, 2003; Špona and Čehlova, 2004), and
constructs differentiate a variable which is not
directly observable. Criteria, indicators and
constructs are determined via analysis of definition
of the research object, structure of the research
object and factors (Špona and Čehlova, 2004).
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32

Attitude is identified as a combination of
evaluative judgements about a phenomenon (Crites
et al., 1994). Traditionally, attitude is differentiated
into positive, neutral or negative as illustrated in
Figure 4.
Attitude
Neutral
Positive Negative
Figure 4: Differentiation of attitude.
This differentiation of attitude is considered as levels
of attitudes shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Attitude as a Criterion of e-Business application
and levels of attitude.
Criterion
Levels
Level 1 Level 2
Level
3
low optimal high
1 2 3
Students’
evaluative
judgements on e-
Business
application
Negative Neutral Positive
Attitude is rooted in emotions. Thus, emotions
and attitude are inter-related as depicted in Figure 5.
Attitude Emotions
Figure 5: The relationship between attitude and emotions.
However, emotions refer to psychology, and
attitude – to pedagogy. Therein, psychological
processes provide the basis for pedagogical
developments.
Emotions defined as nerve impulses ensure this
faster reaction to a problem situation as emotions
encourage for acting by use of an immediate plan of
action (Kriumane, 2013). The main thing is that
emotional processes and states have their own
special positive development in man (Leont’ev,
1978). This must be especially emphasized in as
much as the classical conceptions of human
emotions as "rudiments" coming from Darwin,
consider their transformation in man as their
involution, which generates a false ideal of
education, leading to the requirement to
"subordinate feelings to cold reason" (Leont’ev,
1978). Emotions are not only feelings, but also other
elements, such as expressions in the face or the
voice, physiological changes, and changes in action
tendencies or action readiness (De Vierville, 2002).
Emotions fulfill the functions of internal signals,
internal in the sense that they do not appear directly
as psychic reflection of objective activity itself
(Leont’ev, 1978). The special feature of emotions is
that they reflect relationships between motives
(needs) and success, or the possibility of success, of
realizing the action of the subject that responds to
particular motives (Leont’ev, 1978). Further on,
emotions are relevant to the social activity and not to
individual actions or operations that realize it
(Leont’ev, 1978). As a result emotions are not
subordinated to activity but appear to be its result
and the “mechanism” of its movement (Leont’ev,
1978).
For the cultural dimension of e-Business
application, it is important that the experience and
expression of emotions depends on learned
convictions or rules, and to the extent that cultures
differ in the way they talk about and conceptualize
emotions, how they are experienced and expressed
will differ in different cultures as well (Cornelius,
1996). Consequently, considering the discipline
culture, as emotional practitioners, students can
make the process of e-Business application exciting
or dull (Hargreaves, 2000). Moreover, students’
interactions can be crucial in developing students’
academic self-concept and enhancing their
motivation and achievement (Komarraju et al.,
2010). Thereby, on the one hand, emotion reflects
the culture trait of a person (Harré, 1986), and, on
the other hand, the emotions are social constructions
(Averill, 1980).
Analysis of the inter-relationship between
attitude and emotions contributes to the
identification of attitude’s indicators and constructs
presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Attitude’s indicators and constructs.
Criterion Indicators Constructs
Students’
evaluative
judgements
on e-
Business
application
Verbal
expression
A word, sentence, etc
Non-verbal
expression
Face expression, body
language, mimicry, etc
Cultural
expression
Cultural habits
Such constructs of verbal expression as a word or
sentence may express a positive or negative
meaning. For example, “excellent” is considered as a
AComparativeStudyofEngineeringandBusinessStudents'Attitudetoe-BusinessApplication
33

construct that demonstrates a positive attitude,
“moderate” – neutral, and “bad” - negative.
Regarding non-verbal expression, smiling face
means positive attitude, a neutral voice tone –
neutral attitude, crossing one's arms – negative
attitude.
Such constructs of cultural expression as
applauding demonstrates positive attitude, listening
without a comment – neutral, and turning one’s back
to a colleague – negative.
3 EMPIRICAL STUDY
The present part of the contribution demonstrates
 the design of the empirical research,
 survey results, and
 findings of the comparative study.
The design of the present empirical research
comprised the purpose and question, sample and
methodology of the present empirical study.
The guiding question of the empirical study was
as follows: are there any similarities and difference
between engineering and business students’ attitude
to e-Business application?
The purpose of the empirical study was to
compare engineering and business students’ attitude
to e-Business application underpinning elaboration
of a hypothesis.
The present empirical study involved
 13 second-year bachelor part-time students of
the Business Management programme of the
Northern Business School, Neumuenster,
Germany, in January 2014, and
 23 engineering students of Baltic Summer
School Technical Informatics and Information
Technology held at Vilnius Gediminas
Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania, July
20-August 4, 2013.
The respondents of 13 second-year bachelor part-
time students of the Business Management
programme of the Northern Business School,
Neumuenster, Germany, in January 2014 included 7
male and 6 female students. The age of students
ranged between 20 and 50. All the students obtained
working experience in different business fields.
Although the students studied in the same group,
they represented different cultures, namely, German,
Polish and Russian.
The respondents of 23 engineering students of
Baltic Summer School Technical Informatics and
Information Technology held at Vilnius Gediminas
Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania, July 20-
August 4, 2013 involved four female and 19 males.
The age of the respondents differentiated from 22 to
35. All 23 students had got Bachelor Degree in
different fields of computing. Working experience of
the students was different, too. The students
represented the cultures of Lithuania, Russia,
Poland, Pakistan, France, Estonia, Serbia, Czech
Republic, Finland, Ireland, Germany, Mexico,
Georgia and Ethiopia.
Therefore, the sample is multicultural as the
respondents with different cultural backgrounds and
diverse educational approaches were chosen.
Students’ different cultural and educational
experience emphasized the significance of each
student’s contribution to the analysis of their attitude
to e-Business application. Thus, the groups’ socio-
cultural context (age, cultural and educational
experience, mother tongue, etc.) is heterogeneous.
The interpretive paradigm was used in the
empirical study. The interpretive paradigm aims to
understand other cultures, from the inside through
the use of ethnographic methods such as informal
interviewing and participant observation, etc (Taylor
and Medina, 2013). Interpretive paradigm is
characterized by the researcher’s practical interest in
the research question (Cohen et al., 2003).
Researcher is the interpreter.
Explorative research has been used in the
empirical study (Mayring, 2007). Explorative
research is aimed at developing hypotheses, which
can be tested for generality in following empirical
studies (Mayring, 2007). The explorative
methodology proceeds from exploration in Phase 1
through analysis in Phase 2 to hypothesis
development in Phase 3 as demonstrated in Figure 6
(Ahrens et al., 2013).
Figure 6: Methodology of the explorative research.
Phase 1 Exploration is aimed at data collection.
Phase 2 Analysis focuses on data processing,
analysis and data interpretation. Phase 3 Hypothesis
Development ensures analysis of results of the
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34

empirical study as well as elaboration of conclusions
and hypotheses for further research.
In order to analyse the students’ feedback
regarding their attitude to e-Business application, the
informal structured interviews were based on the
following questions:
 Question 1: Do you mostly use e-Business
applications for your university studies,
working in a company and/or running your
own business?
 Question 2: Do you mostly use e-Business
applications for entertainment (chats, games,
books, films, music)?
Only verbal expression of engineering and business
students’ attitude to e-Business application was
taken into consideration.
The evaluation scale of five levels for Question 1
and 2 was given, namely, strongly disagree “1”,
disagree “2”, neither disagree nor agree „3“, agree
“4”, and strongly agree “5”. The evaluation scale
was transformed into the level system as illustrated
in Table 3.
Table 3: Indicator and levels of students’ attitude to e-
Business application.
Indi
-ca-
tor
Levels
Level
1
Level
2
Level
3
Level
4
Level
5
very
low
low ave-
rage
opti-
mal
high
1 2 3 4 5
Ver-
bal
ex-
pres-
sion
Stron-
gly
dis-
agree
Very
negati-
ve
Dis-
agree
Negati
-ve
Nei-
ther
disag-
ree
nor
agree
Nei-
ther
negati-
ve nor
positi-
ve
Agree
Positi-
ve
Stron-
gly
agree
Very
positi-
ve
The business students’ results of Question 1 (e-
Business application for university studies) and
Question 2 (e-Business application for
entertainment) used in the informal structured
interviews are demonstrated in Figure 7 where
 the vertical numbers show five levels to
measure students’ attitude to e-Business
application, and
 the horizontal numbers present the code number
of the business students who participated in the
survey.
Figure 7: The business students’ results of Question 1 (in
black) and Question 2 (in gray).
The business students’ results of Question 1 (e-
Business application for university studies, etc)
reveal that
 one business student’s evaluation of his/her
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the low level,
 two business students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the optimal level,
 10 business students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the high level.
The results of Question 2 (e-Business application for
entertainment) demonstrate that
 two business students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the low level,
 one business student’s evaluation of his/her
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the average level,
 six business students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the optimal level, and
 four business students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the high level.
In comparison, the engineering students’ results of
Question 1 (e-Business application for university
studies) and Question 2 (e-Business application for
entertainment) used in the informal structured
interviews are shown in Figure 8
.
The engineering students’ results of Question 1
(e-Business application for university studies) reveal
that
 one engineering student’s evaluation of his/her
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the low level,
 three engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the average level,
AComparativeStudyofEngineeringandBusinessStudents'Attitudetoe-BusinessApplication
35

Figure 8: The engineering students’ results of Question 1
(in black) and Question 2 (in gray).
 three engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the optimal level,
 16 engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for university
studies refers to the high level.
The engineering students’ results of Question 2 (e-
Business application for entertainment) demonstrate
that
 two engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the low level,
 five engineering student’s evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the average level,
 four engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the optimal level, and
 12 engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the high level.
The comparison of the results of Question 1 (e-
Business application for university studies) shows
that the majority of both business and engineering
students’ evaluate their attitude to e-Business
application for university studies to be of the high
level. The comparison of the results of Question 2
(e-Business application for entertainment)
demonstrate that the majority of
 business students evaluate their attitude to e-
Business application for entertainment at the
optimal level, while
 engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the high level.
The data were processed applying Excel software.
Frequencies of the business and engineering
students’ answers were determined in order to reveal
students’ attitude to e-Business application as shown
in Table 4.
Table 4: Frequency of the students’ answers.
Ques-
tion
Levels
Students’
group
Num-ber
of ans-
wers
Perce-
ntage
Ques-
tion 1
very low
business 0 0%
engineering 0 0%
low
business 1 8%
engineering 1 4%
average
business 0 0%
engineering 3 13%
optimal
business 2 15%
engineering 3 13%
high
business 10 77%
engineering 16 70%
Ques-
tion 2
very low
business 0 0%
engineering 0 0%
low
business 2 15%
engineering 2 9%
average
business 1 8%
engineering 5 22%
optimal
business 6 46%
engineering 4 17%
high
business 4 31%
engineering 12 52%
The comparison of the frequencies of business
and engineering students’ answers to Question 1 (e-
BUSINESSE-Business application for university
studies) shows that the majority of both business and
engineering students’ evaluate their attitude to e-
Business application for university studies to be of
the high level (77% and 70% respectively). The
comparison of the frequencies of business and
engineering students’ answers to Question 2 (e-
Business application for entertainment) demonstrate
that the majority of
 business students evaluate their attitude to e-
Business application for entertainment at the
optimal level (46%), while
 engineering students’ evaluation of their
attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment refers to the high level (52%).
Further on, the mean results determine the high level
of both business and engineering students’ attitude
to e-Business application for university studies (4.6
and 4.5 respectively), and the optimal level of the
business students’ attitude to e-Business application
for entertainment (3.9) as well as the high level of
the engineering students’ attitude to e-Business
application for entertainment (4.5) as shown in
Table 5.
The findings of the empirical study allow
concluding that both business and engineering
students demonstrated the high level of attitude to
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36

Table 5: Mean results.
Ques
-tion
Levels Students’
group
Num-
ber of
answer
s
Percen-
tage
Ques-
tion 1
very
low
business 0 Business
students
4.6
engineering 0
low business 1
engineering 1
average business 0
engineering 3 Enginee
-ring
students
4.5
optimal business 2
engineering 3
high business 10
engineering 16
Ques-
tion 2
very
low
business 0 Business
students
3.9
engineering 0
low business 2
engineering 2
average business 1
engineering 5 Enginee
-ring
students
4.5
optimal business 6
engineering 4
high business 4
engineering 12
e-Business application for university studies (4.6 and
4.5 respectively). As well as business students reveal
a lower level of attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment (3.9), in comparison to engineering
students’ attitude to e-Business application for
entertainment (4.5).
The summarizing content analysis (Mayring,
2004) of the data reveals that
 there is no difference in both business and
engineering students’ attitude to e-Business
application for university studies (the high
level), and
 there is a difference of one level in business and
engineering students’ attitude to e-Business
application for entertainment (the optimal and
high level respectively).
4 CONCLUSIONS
The theoretical findings on the analysed inter-
relationship between attitude and emotions within
the present research allow the paper’s authors to
determine indicators and constructs of students’
attitude to e-Business application.
The findings of the present empirical study allow
drawing conclusions that both business and
engineering students’ attitude to e-Business
application is positive. Students’ positive attitude to
E-Business application is considered as a favourable
opportunity for the increase of the level of students’
knowledge and skills in e-Business application.
The following hypothesis has been formulated:
students’ positive attitude to e-Business application
promotes the increase of the level of students’
knowledge and skills in e-Business application if a
favourable educational (teaching, peer-learning and
learning) environment is organized.
The present research has limitations. The inter-
connections between e-Business application,
students’ attitudes and emotions have been set.
Another limitation is the empirical study conducted
by involving only the business and engineering
students. Therein, the results of the study cannot be
representative for the whole area. Nevertheless, the
results of the research, namely, indicators, constructs
and levels of students’ attitude to e-Business
application, may be used as a basis of analysis of
students’ attitude to e-Business application in other
institutions.
Further research tends to implement empirical
studies in other students’ groups. The search for
relevant methods for evaluation of students’ attitude
to e-Business application is proposed. Further
empirical studies could be focused on the analysis of
other indicators of attitude, namely, non-verbal and
cultural expression. A comparative research of other
countries could be carried out, too.
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