An Empirical Study of Factors Contributing to Entrepreneurial Intention Among Students of Higher Education Institutes

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been identified as a major domain that is playing a role in accelerating employment levels in the country. The Indian government, in general, is promoting entrepreneurial culture by bringing in mechanisms to create a strong ecosystem for start-ups. Higher education institutes in India have also focused on integrating entrepreneurship education at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in various degree programmes; business administration is a major among them. Hence, it becomes important and useful to identify whether students carry or develop such entrepreneurial intention and what factors contribute to the formation of such intention. The present study empirically investigated students’ entrepreneurial intentions in two prominent higher education institutes in India. It studied various factors, including personality and motivational factors, and the study of entrepreneurship courses responsible for developing entrepreneurial competencies among students. It further investigated their correlation with the entrepreneurial intentions of students. The independent variables studied included entrepreneurial competency measured through innovativeness, risk-taking propensity, social astuteness, self-concept, locus of control, the study of entrepreneurship and the need for achievement. The study revealed a moderate correlation between innovativeness and entrepreneurial competency (0.513) and self-concept and entrepreneurial competency (0.610). The study of entrepreneurship courses was correlated with innovativeness (0.434), self-concept (0.570), need for achievement (0.478) and entrepreneurial competency (0.515). The study reinforces the effect of some personality factors on entrepreneurial competency and recommends that the provision of entrepreneurship courses at the institutional level likely positively impacts entrepreneurial competency, influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Further, the qualitative analysis revealed several other motivational factors as perceived by the respondents, which mainly included money, autonomy, self-concept and meaningful work.