A Serial Mediation Model of the Relationship between Digital Entrepreneurial Education, Alertness, Motivation, and Intentions

Abstract

This research leverages insights from both social cognitive theory (SCT) and stimulus-organism-response theory (S-O-R) to investigate how digital entrepreneurship education (DEE) influences undergraduate students’ digital entrepreneurial alertness (DEA), motivation (DEM), and intentions (DEI). The main objective of the study was to examine whether individual levels of DEA and DEM independently and sequentially mediate the relationship between DEE and DEI. To collect the data, convenience sampling was utilized, involving 221 students from a single public university in Saudi Arabia, and a theoretical model was examined utilizing structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques in SPSS AMOS (Version 27). The results found that DEE had a significant positive impact on students’ DEIs, DEA had a significant positive impact on students’ DEI, and DEM had a significant positive impact on students’ DEI. Moreover, the results of the serial mediation analysis indicated that DEA and DEM served as independent and sequential mediators in the relationship between DEE and DEI. These findings provide further insight into the association between DEE and DEI, offering valuable implications for both entrepreneurship education curriculum developers and government policymakers. This study adds substantial contributions to the existing literature on entrepreneurship education and DEI.