Antecedents of entrepreneurial intention: A study on students from the tourism management department

Abstract

Undoubtedly, deciding to enter the business world is a challenging decision that is influenced by several factors. Some of them are cultural since they deal with widespread beliefs about entrepreneurial activity in a community at a certain time. Other factors are related to the entrepreneur’s personal characteristics. As young people in Greece are interested in starting their own businesses they interact with their peers around the world, mainly in Europe, for exchanging ideas, information and good practices, despite the cultural differences between the North and the South of Europe. This paper will address the issue of shaping an entrepreneur in Greece and the role of factors such as entrepreneurship education, personal characteristics, and social norms in his/her entrepreneurial intention. A sample of 143 students in the tourism department of a Greek University answered an online questionnaire at the end of the semester. Findings show that Personal Attitude (PA), Social Norms (SN) and Self-efficacy (SE) had a significant impact on the Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) of tourism students. The characteristics of those starting up businesses in the tourism sector will also be reviewed, and the consequences for policy makers will be examined to encourage new start-ups and increase the survival chances of the existing ones.