A Comparative Study on the Determinants of Non-Business and Business Students Entrepreneurship Intention

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence the entrepreneurship intention of undergraduate university students in Malaysia by making a comparative analysis among different groups of students. Employing a probability stratified disproportionated sampling, a total of 150 business and 150 non-business students completed the entrepreneurship intention questionnaire. The questionnaire has five parts extracting information about demographic profiles, regulative structure, normative structure, cognitive structure, and entrepreneurship intention. The respondents were asked to state their opinions on statements on a five-point Likert-type scale. The hypotheses were tested using Pearson correlation and multiple regression. Our finding first has discovered business students possess a high level of entrepreneurial intention, cognitive structure, and normativestructure as compare to non-business students. On other hand, non-business students have high level of regulative structure as compared to business students. Second, there are positive relationships between regulative, normative, and cognitive structure and entrepreneurship intention for both business and non-business students. Third, based on regression analysis, the normative structure has been discovered as the strongest predictor for both groups. This indicates that social pressures or supports will influence students’ intention to become an entrepreneur. Thus, the study finds interesting mixed results where there is a significant difference in entrepreneurship intention, regulative, normative, and cognitive structure between business and nonbusiness students, and all variables are significant to both groups where normative structure acts as a significant predictor forboth groups. Thus, regardless of students’ academic courses, anyone can become an entrepreneur. The study strongly suggests the need to incorporate an entrepreneurship support system by Malaysian universities, government, and related agencies.