An Investigation on Factors Influencing University Students’ Entrepreneurship Orientations

Abstract

Enterprise-level small businesses have been a critical contributor to the U.S. economy and employment. Small businesses accounted for 67% of the net new jobs during the recovery from the 2009 to 2011 economic recession. Recognizing the employment opportunities from enterprise-level small businesses during the high unemployment time allowed higher education institutions to emphasize enhancing entrepreneurship among their students. Multiple scholars have called for more in-depth evaluations on entrepreneurial intention because it predicts whether a student will become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial orientation (risk-taking, innovation, and proactive) is the commonly agreeable antecedent of entrepreneurial intentions. This study collected 315 valid responses from a comprehensive mid-U.S. university with more than 40% enrollment from rural communities to evaluate how the perceived internal and external barriers influence students’ entrepreneurial orientations. The results of the Multivariate Regression Analysis indicated that overall, how students perceived internal and external barriers influenced their entrepreneurial orientations in both innovativeness and risk-taking aspects. Furthermore, entrepreneurship is particularly important in the rural community. The results revealed significant differences between students who were raised in rural areas and those who were not raised in rural areas regarding how perceived internal and external barriers impact their entrepreneurship orientations.