An Investigation of Entrepreneurial Intention Among University Students Using the Theory of Planned Behavior and Parents' Occupation

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the entrepreneurial intention of university students using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and parents' occupation. A questionnaire based survey was employed for the data collection. A total of 1244 students participated in the survey. The sample was a convenience one given that the resources available were limited. The size of the sample allows us to proceed with reliable statistical analyses and produce valid conclusions. The findings of our research showed that perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, attitude and parents' occupation are important variables influencing entrepreneurial intention. The variable that affects entrepreneurial intention the most is attitude. The findings led support to the theory and the hypotheses proposed. These findings indicate that the recommended model can be used to explain a large part of variation in entrepreneurial intention. This study, contributes to the entrepreneurial intention literature providing empirical evidence to help formulate policies encouraging university students' entrepreneurship practices, attracting the interest of both educators and policy makers. This evidence will become increasingly important, as research in the field of entrepreneurship continues to place models of entrepreneurial intentions at the center of our understanding of the entrepreneurial process. Future studies could investigate the validity of the findings reported here, in different contexts using more variables, not included in this study and inquire the potential existence of latent variables which may be confounding the relationships discussed in this paper.