Testing the Competing Entrepreneurial Intention’s Antecedents on Public University Students

Abstract:

This study focused on the entrepreneurial intention’s antecedents in higher-education level. It examined the effect of need for achievement, self-efficacy, and risk-taking propensity on intention to be entrepreneurs. It used a sample of 204 public university students and analyzed the proposed hypotheses by using multivariate analysis. The major findings are: [1] tendency to take risks is the dominant antecedent, compared to other variables, [2] students’ self-efficacy correlated positively with intention to be entrepreneurs, and [3] student’s positive perception on need for achievement and entrepreneurial intention mirrors a dramatic change of social perception on self-employed status in highly educated people. The successful government policy on entrepreneurship education at the university level can be a reference for similar programs. This study contributes on building the entrepreneurial education’s body of knowledge through testing the inducing entrepreneurship subject as a compulsory subject.