Critical thinking as a predictor of entrepreneurial intention: a structural equation modelling approach integrating the theory of planned behaviour

The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was tested as a predictor of entrepreneurial intent amongst final-year commerce students at two universities in the Western Cape ( n = 247). The theoretical sufficiency of the theory was examined by considering four additional factors that are believed to influence entrepreneurial intention (i.e. personality traits, situational factors, prior exposure to entrepreneurship, and demographics). The results of the multivariate data analysis indicate that the TPB significantly explains 27% of the variance in students' entrepreneurial intentions. Of all the other purported predictors of entrepreneurial intent examined in this study, only prior exposure to entrepreneurship was found to significantly add to the predictive power of TPB in explaining entrepreneurship intention. Personality traits, demographic factors and situational factors did not add significantly to the variance explained by TPB. The findings therefore suggest that TPB is a valuable tool for predicting entrepreneurial intent.

Purpose: The study explored entrepreneurship education and personality traits as predictors of entrepreneurial intention among final-year undergraduate students of a private institution in Ghana. Research methodology: A qualitative research approach was used in a case study design for this research. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from final-year students pursuing an undergraduate program in Information Technology from a private tertiary institution in Ghana. Observation and focus group discussions were used to collect data over a period of ten weeks. Results: Results indicated that though all students were exposed to the same tuition, course content and assessments; the level of entrepreneurial intention varied. Some groups of students wanted to pursue entrepreneurial ventures immediately after school; others wanted to start a business venture while they were still in school pursuing their first degree. Another set preferred to work as employees for a few years before pursuing entrepreneurship. The final group preferred to be employed throughout their working life with the aim of rising through the ranks as employees; with all the various groups showing a variety of personality traits. Limitations: The study was limited to final-year undergraduate students of a private institution in Ghana. Contribution: Educators, who specialize in training students in entrepreneurship need to focus more on orienting students to effectively manage their individual personality traits in ways that will ensure successful entrepreneurship careers. Novelty: This study qualitatively shows the varied levels at which entrepreneurship education affects students’ entrepreneurial intentions based on their personality traits.

This study investigates the effects between narcissism (narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry), internal locus of control, and entrepreneurial intention. Via structural equation modelling we found that narcissistic admiration was a positive predictor of entrepreneurial intention, while narcissistic rivalry was a negative predictor of career motives and entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, internal locus control was also positively associated with entrepreneurial career motives and intention. New thus we conclude that narcissism internal locus of control are essential for building entrepreneurship and are therefore important to personality research of entrepreneurs.

Recognising the importance of academic entrepreneurship, which has been steadily increasing, we empirically test and extend the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) by incorporating institutional and organizational factors. We assemble a sample of research scientists in South Africa and administer a survey to empirically test the study hypotheses with structural equation modelling. Importantly, what sets this study’s results apart from comparable studies in entrepreneurial intentions is the dominance of attitude towards behaviour over the other antecedents. This effect demonstrates that awareness of, and exposure to, different aspects of entrepreneurship are likely to play an important role in shaping beliefs and attitudes towards academic entrepreneurship. By integrating various predictors of entrepreneurial intentions into one cohesive framework, policy makers may better understand the complementary nature of the different individual and contextual variables effecting entrepreneurial intentions. A further contribution of our study relates to evidence of the consistency of the TPB in explaining entrepreneurial intention in the South African academic entrepreneurship context. Such evidence is particularly relevant when considering that past research typically assumes but does not test that theories can be transferred from developed to emerging country contexts.

This study examines the role of Big-Five personality traits in predicting entrepreneurial intention among students in Assam. Using a sample of 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students, data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed with SPSS (version 27) and AMOS (version 26). Reliability analysis yielded Cronbach’s alpha of 0.946, indicating strong internal consistency. Factor analysis confirmed construct validity, while structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated that all five personality traits significantly influenced entrepreneurial intention. Contrary to expectations, independent samples t-test results revealed no significant gender differences in entrepreneurial intention. The findings highlight that openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism all shape students’ entrepreneurial mindset. The study suggests that educational institutions should integrate personality-driven training modules into entrepreneurship education to foster entrepreneurial intentions among youth.

Background: Existing research recognises that entrepreneurship orientation (EO) is essential for success. However, the mediating role of EO in driving entrepreneurial intention (EI) amongst young adults, especially in the context of the digital revolution, remains largely underexplored.Aim: Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the mediated effect of risk taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness on EI in an emerging economy.Setting: The sample for this study was drawn from the young adult population in South Africa who understands the concept of entrepreneurship.Method: In the study, a quantitative method to collect the data is used, while structural equation modelling is used to test the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB).Results: Findings indicate that risk taking mediates the effects of attitude, entrepreneurial capability, and the perceived benefits of digital technology on EI. The results did not support the mediating function of proactiveness and innovativeness. In fact, this result challenges the TPB’s simplistic structure and reveals the prominent role of risk taking in determining TPB predictors.Conclusion: Given the significance of risk taking, governments and entrepreneurship centres are urged to promote risk taking in all their entrepreneurship development programmes.Contribution: Considering the significance of the global digital transformation, this study extends the TPB by incorporating the perceived benefits of digital technology among the predictors of entrepreneurial intent. It also emphasises the role of risk taking in mediating the effects of these predictors on the entrepreneurial intention of young adults in South Africa.

This study explored four key factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions: professional attraction, social valuation, entrepreneurial capacity and creative capacity using the Entrepreneurship Intention Model (EIM). It also examined whether sex plays a moderating role in predicting entrepreneurial intentions. The research targeted 265 non‐residential students from the College of Distance Education (CoDE) at the University of Cape Coast. Data were collected through a self‐reported survey, and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM) was applied to analyse relationships. PLS Bootstrapping Algorithms with 5000 bias‐corrected and accelerated (BCa) subsamples were used to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that professional attraction, social valuation and entrepreneurial capacity positively influenced entrepreneurial intentions, while creative capacity had a negative and non‐significant impact. Additionally, sex did not moderate these relationships. These findings reinforce the Entrepreneurship Intention Model, emphasising the need for education and policies that enhance these factors to foster entrepreneurial aspirations among students pursuing education‐related programmes.

This paper aimed to identify the Antecedents of entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate students in Sudan. Since most literature agreed that entrepreneurial intention can be determined by Personality factors, Social factors, and societal factors. The study model was built by examining previous studies. This theoretical framework is verified on 384 undergraduate students in the Public and Private Universities in Sudan. The data were analysed using (PLS) Partial Least Squares approach to Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results show that societal factors are predictors of entrepreneurial intention. Whereas the Personality factors, Social factors are not the predictors to entrepreneurial intention. This study has manifold implications for policymakers and entrepreneurs.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationship between conflict handling styles (CHS) of business managers in their entrepreneurial intentions (EI). The business manager’s propensity to become entrepreneurs is a relatively unexplored area of research. The relationship between conflict handling style and entrepreneurial intention is under-researched, particularly in a developing country like Kosovo.Design/methodology/approachA self-report questionnaire containing measures of conflict handing style, entrepreneurial intention and demographics was delivered to business managers in Kosovo.FindingsForcing style has a positive and statistically significant relationship with entrepreneurial intention. Yielding, compromising, problem solving and avoiding have weak and insignificant effects on EI.Research limitations/implicationsThe relationship between conflict handling styles of managers and their entrepreneurial intention is investigated. No situational, organizational or environmental factor was considered influencing this relationship.Practical implicationsConflict management is important in predicting the entrepreneurial intention of managers. Organizations should design human resource interventions aimed at effective team composition and employee retention to ensure performance.Originality/valueThis is the first study to investigate the relationship between conflict handling style and entrepreneurial intention using a manager sample. Furthermore, it is the first study of conflict handling styles and entrepreneurial intention of managers in Kosovo.

The issue of employability is rising year by year, and Malaysia is also taking it as a serious challenge. The Malaysian government has carried out various initiatives to address the issue of employability; conversely, one of them was successfully promoting the development of entrepreneurship by increasing entrepreneurial courses for instance. The intention was to increase the entrepreneurial intentions amongst university's students to create job opportunities for themselves which could lead to a boost for a developing nation's economy as well. However, the government's initiatives did not succeed as they were expected. The main reason for it ending as a flopped plan was due to failing to identify an individual's intentions. Therefore, the primary purpose of this research is to inspect the Malaysian universities student's intention of being an entrepreneur because, without intention, they might not even consider the option of initiating their own business. This research adapted and integrated the two most common models of examining the entrepreneurial intention, i.e, Theory of Planned Behaviour (‘TPB’) by Ajzen and Shapero and Sokol's model of an Entrepreneurial Event (‘SEE’). This is a quantitative study and a total of 160 students from different Malaysian universities were surveyed using non-probability sampling techniques and by a well-established instrument with the standardized questionnaire, to examine hypothesized relationships. SPSS was used for analyzing the demographic profile and SMART-PLS was utilized for testing the developed hypotheses. The results show that attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control positively affect the perceived desirability as well as perceived feasibility. Moreover, perceived desirability and perceived feasibility are also positively associated with an entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, perceived desirability is found as a mediator for the relationship among predictors of entrepreneurial intention but perceived feasibility fails to mediate the association of subjective norm and entrepreneurial intention. By understanding the background of university student's intentions towards entrepreneurship, the Malaysian government and organizations can better present themselves in formulating better initiatives to stimulate and encourage youth to have entrepreneurial intentions in order to initiate their own business. This study also offers some useful managerial implications using the advanced technique of IPM to enhance the performance of critical factors that contribute towards entrepreneurial intentions.

This study examined the relationships between Big Six personality and entrepreneurial intention, inclusive of the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the Chinese context. Survey data from 280 college students reveal that Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Interpersonal Relationship were positively associated with entrepreneurial intention. Agreeableness and Openness, however, had no effect on entrepreneurial intention in this study. Mediation analysis further indicated that Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Interpersonal Relationship affected entrepreneurial self-efficacy, thus playing an indirect impact on entrepreneurial intention. In contrast, Agreeableness and Openness had no mediating role in the present study. These findings validate the bridge mechanism of entrepreneurial self-efficacy underlying the relationships between Big Six personality and entrepreneurial intention. These results highlight the direct role of sustainable personality as a predictor of entrepreneurial intention, especially as we note the decisive effect of the Interpersonal Relationship dimension in the Chinese context for the first time.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine persuasion and personality variables as predictors of entrepreneurial intention in a cross‐cultural sample.Design/methodology/approachUndergraduates in the USA and the Republic of Ireland completed measures of personal efficacy, achievement motivation, ambiguity tolerance, attitudes toward entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial intention.FindingsThe results suggest that the decision to become an entrepreneur comes about differently in different cultures. US participants appear to perceive entrepreneurship as a societally sanctioned and appropriate outlet for their achievement motivation. While achievement motivation correlated with entrepreneurial intention for the US participants, this result did not obtain for the Irish subjects. In both cultures, those who have come to believe that being an entrepreneur is consistent with their self‐image showed strong entrepreneurial intention independent of their other beliefs about entrepreneurship. This study suggests that recollections of positive interpersonal and mass media messages about entrepreneurship encourage entrepreneurial intention – but only for US participants. Other factors discussed in this report appear to mitigate the effect of such recollections for the Irish.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is part of a larger research program that includes following up on these participants at a later date. With longitudinal data, we will be able to track the relationship between stated entrepreneurial intention and later business startup.Originality/valueThis investigation compares factors influencing entrepreneurial intention in the USA and Ireland.

This study examines the relationship between improvisation and entrepreneurial intentions. Of specific interest is whether or not a proclivity for improvisation explains any variance in entrepreneurial intentions beyond what is accounted for by other relevant individual difference measures. Using a sample of 430 college students, entrepreneurial intentions are found to be significantly associated with measures of personality, motivation, cognitive style, social models, and improvisation. The strongest relationship is found between entrepreneurial intentions and improvisation. The results of hierarchical regression show that improvisation accounts for a significant amount of variance in entrepreneurial intention above and beyond what is accounted for by the other variables.

In this paper, we propose a comprehensive three-stage entrepreneurship model that incorporates the key demographic, educational, motivational attitude, perceived interest and feasibility factors that are postulated in the literature to influence entrepreneurial intentions. This model is developed to analyze, in particular, the residual influence of educational variables, after controlling for other variables. Empirically, we test the model using a large-sample, nationwide survey of students from business and technical fields in six institutions of higher learning in Singapore. The empirical results are found to provide support for the efficacy of our three-stage model. Our findings also suggest a more complex pattern of influence than the originally proposed model. In particular, we find that attitude variables are better predictors for perceived desirability and feasibility compared to background demographic and educational variables, as they absorb a large proportion of the variance of these background variables. Similarly, self-perception variables measuring the perceived desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurship are better predictors of entrepreneurial intentions, and absorb the variance largely. However, we found that, contrary to the literature, attitudinal variables have a significant influence on perceived 56feasibility as well, rather than on interest alone. Moreover, self-efficacy is also found to influence interest in addition to perceived feasibility. In interpreting our findings, we suggest that alternative career prospect may have a strong moderating effect on the influence of entrepreneurial interest on entrepreneurial intentions. Since the characteristics of alternative career prospects are a key variable of the national environment, their effect on entrepreneurial intentions is likely to be sensitive to the national context. In the case of Singapore, years of sustained rapid economic growth have created an environment characterized by high availability of lucrative jobs in the corporate and public sector, and as such, high interest in entrepreneurship need not translate into high intention. In contrast, in other countries characterized by persistent, high unemployment, high entrepreneurial interest may indeed lead to high intentions. In view of this, we believe that adding variables measuring the alternative career prospects to our model would improve its predictability on entrepreneurial intentions. Our findings also provide a number of practical implications for educational planners and government policy makers who are interested in promoting high tech entrepreneurship among university and polytechnic students, particularly students in business and technical fields. Future research directions are also suggested to extend the entrepreneurship model to incorporate alternative career prospects, to conduct international comparative study of entrepreneurial intentions of university students in other countries, and to explore the effect of technological opportunities on entrepreneurial propensities in other settings.

High unemployment rates in Indonesia necessitate creative solutions, with entrepreneurship being a key driver of job creation. University students, as prospective graduates, have a crucial role to play in this endeavor. This study investigates the influence of self-efficacy and social support on entrepreneurial intention among students, with entrepreneurial motivation as a mediating variable. Employing a quantitative approach with an explanatory descriptive design, the study population comprised all students (128) in the 2023 Entrepreneurship Study Program at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Negeri Makassar. A sample of 118 students was selected through proportional random sampling. Data were collected using an online questionnaire via Google Form and analyzed using SPSS version 27. The results indicate that self-efficacy significantly influences entrepreneurial motivation but not entrepreneurial intention directly. Social support did not significantly influence either entrepreneurial intention or motivation. Entrepreneurial motivation significantly influenced entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, self-efficacy had a significant indirect effect on entrepreneurial intention through entrepreneurial motivation, while social support did not.