Attitude towards entrepreneurship on the relationship between psychological and educational factors with entrepreneurial intention among university students

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a vital source to improve economic growth, and to create wealth and job opportunities. It is an important element in developing graduates that are more competitive and innovative for the economy, especially in the context of the Malaysian government’s target towards a high-income nation by year 2020/2025. This study aims to investigate the mediation role of Attitude Towards Entrepreneurship (ATE) on the relationship between psychological factors (i.e. Subjective Norms (SN), Perceived Behavior Control (PBC), Big-Five (BF) personality traits, Entrepreneurial Motivation (EM)), and Educational Factors (EF) with Entrepreneurial Intention (EI). This study was conducted among final year local students in the management field at five research-intensive universities in Malaysia which are the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Malaya (UM), and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). This study employed quantitative approach to address the research objectives. The quantitative data of 251 respondents were collected through questionnaires. Data was analysed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS 22. Direct and indirect effects were calculated to test the endogenous and exogenous variables. The findings confirmed that BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN, EF, and ATE, were positively related to EI. In addition, ATE mediated the relationship between BF personality traits, EM, PBC, SN, EF and EI. This study makes a novel academic and practical contribution to the field of entrepreneurship and makes a significant contribution to the body of knowledge. Finally, this research offers meaningful insight to the government and policy makers in their quest to encourage more students to elect entrepreneurship as a career of choice. However, this study is only limited to research-intensive universities in Malaysia.