Entrepreneurial Intentions in the Caribbean: Antecedents and Variations

Young people form vocational intentions, e.g., to become entrepreneurs and start a business. Entrepreneurial intention is often promoted by resources, notably human, financial and social capitals, which differ between indigenous youth and immigrants, who differ in the cultural capital they bring from their origins. The purpose is to account for how immigrant and indigenous youths' origins and human, financial and social capital affect entrepreneurial intention. A sample of 53,775 youths, including 6,117 immigrants, has been surveyed around Europe in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Although immigrants have less education and financial capital than indigenous youth, they have more entrepreneurial competencies and intentions, especially those originating from Africa and Middle East. Second generation immigrants are opportunity-alert and network more than indigenous and first generation immigrants, enhancing their entrepreneurial intention. Complementing the focus on immigrants' education and status attainment in earlier studies, this study focuses on their entrepreneurial competencies and intentions as shaped by their embeddedness in entrepreneurially intense home-societies. Policies can beneficially be tailored to transforming the immigrants' entrepreneurial competencies and intentions into enterprising.

INDIVIDUAL TRAITS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL SELF-EFFICACY AND NEED FOR COGNITION By Chao Miao, Ph.D. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Major Director: Ronald H. Humphrey, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Management The field of entrepreneurship is rapidly advancing and matures as a discipline that receives substantial amount of attention. One popular area of research in the discipline of entrepreneurship is to investigate one’s intent to start a business, which is entrepreneurial intention. This is an important construct that warrants ongoing research because entrepreneurial intention is not only a great predictor of entrepreneurial behavior but also an important step in the process of becoming an entrepreneur. The present study, based on a sample of 321 subjects along with 264 observers, makes five contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, I examined the psychometric property of entrepreneurial take-over intention and found that it is a construct different from entrepreneurial start-up intention. Second, the results demonstrated that risk propensity and proactive personality are positive predictors of entrepreneurial start-up and take-over intentions, whereas cognitive ability is a negative predictor of entrepreneurial start-up ix and take-over intentions. Rebelliousness is a positive predictor of entrepreneurial take-over intention and also has an inverted U-shaped relationship with entrepreneurial take-over intention. Third, entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediates the relationship between three individual traits (i.e., emotional intelligence, risk propensity, and proactive personality) and entrepreneurial start-up and take-over intentions. Need for cognition mediates the relationship between two individual traits (i.e., cognitive ability and proactive personality) and entrepreneurial start-up intention. Fourth, 2D:4D ratio (a proxy measure for prenatal testosterone exposure level) negatively predicts risk propensity. There also exist two two-step mediations from 2D:4D ratio to both entrepreneurial start-up and take-over intentions through risk propensity and entrepreneurial selfefficacy. Fifth, the results suggest that observer ratings of individual traits only contribute modest incremental validity above and beyond self-reported ratings of them in predicting entrepreneurial start-up and take-over intentions. I discuss implications, limitations, and future directions informed by the present study.

El objetivo de esta investigación fue determinar la relación entre la inteligencia emocional y la intención emprendedora de los estudiantes universitarios del sexto y octavo ciclo de la Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales en la Universidad Peruana Unión, con sede en Lima y sus filiales en Tarapoto y Juliaca, durante el ciclo 2016-II. El estudio fue de tipo correlacional con diseño no experimental y de corte transversal. La muestra no probabilística estuvo constituida por 422 universitarios. Los instrumentos utilizados fueron el TMMS-24, que mide las dimensiones atención emocional, claridad emocional y reparación emocional, y el cuestionario Intención Emprendedora, compuesto por seis dimensiones: antecedentes personales y familiares, normas sociales, características emprendedoras, creencias, actitud y oportunidades y recursos. Para el análisis estadístico se utilizó tablas de frecuencia y porcentajes, para determinar los niveles de intención emprendedora e inteligencia emocional en los estudiantes. Según los resultados se demostró, mediante el coeficiente Rho de Sperman, una relación positiva, directa y significativa entre las variables y las dimensiones. Asimismo, los niveles de intención emprendedora en los estudiantes de la sede y sus dos filiales fue de 68.8%, mientras que el de intención emprendedora fue de 70.2%. También se encontró que en la filial de Tarapoto, los niveles de inteligencia emocional e intención emprendedora, son los más bajos, comparado con a la sede en Lima y la filial Juliaca. Finalmente se concluye que a mayor nivel de inteligencia emocional, los estudiantes unionistas poseen mayor intención de emprender.

This study investigates the predictive effects of career expectations and grit on Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) students’ entrepreneurial intentions. In addition, the study examined the effects of demographic variables (gender, college and GPA) on the levels of entrepreneurial intention, career expectations and grit. The study sample consisted of (323) students from undergraduate levels at SQU. The results indicated that career expectations and the "perseverance of effort" domain in grit scale were able to predict entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, based on demographic variables, a statistically significant difference was found in entrepreneurial intentions, career expectations, consistency of interest and perseverance of effort. Considering the current findings, the study recommended expanding research on factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions among university students by adding psychological and social variables as mediators and moderator's factors. Furthermore, the study emphasized the necessity for workshops and training programs to enhance students' understanding of the significance of career expectations and grit in entrepreneurial intention, given the evolution in the educational system. Keywords: Entrepreneurial intention, career expectations, grit, university students, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman.

The importance of entrepreneurship to a nation development is unneglectable. Malaysian government has carried out various supporting activities to promote entrepreneurial activities in the country. However, the results were less embracing, especially among the young adults. As such, understanding of what influence young adults’ intention towards entrepreneurship is important in the effort of entrepreneurship development. This study was carried out to address the university students’ level of entrepreneurial intention and the influence of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) on entrepreneurial intention. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 176 undergraduate students from a public university with “entrepreneurial university” status. The results indicated that university students demonstrated intention towards entrepreneurship and were quite positive towards becoming entrepreneurs. In addition, university students’ entrepreneurial intention was found to be positively affected by their quality of proactiveness and innovativeness. However, risk-taking ability was not an influential factor on entrepreneurial intention. Theoretically, this paper confirmed the importance of studying EO at the individual level. Practically, it suggested that higher learning institutions should pay careful attention in designing their entrepreneurship education curriculum. Specifically, the entrepreneurship training should focus on enhancing students IEO ability and increasing their entrepreneurial intention. Recommendations for future researchers have also been put forth at the end of this paper.

The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of entrepreneurship education on the entrepreneurial intention of college students in Surabaya. Purposive sampling was used towards 220 college students. The criteria of the samples were students who already took entrepreneurship subject for bachelor degree and entrepreneurship practicum for vocational studies. This study used Mann-Whitney U-Test through SPSS and partial least squares through SmartPLS. This study finds: 1) attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control have a positive significant impact towards entrepreneurial intention, 2) entrepreneurship education has a positive significant impact towards entrepreneurial intention,3) entrepreneurship education failed to moderate any of the theory of planned behavior variables effect toward entrepreneurial intention, 4) gender failed to moderate the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention, 5) there was no difference on the level of entrepreneurial intention between male and female college students, 6) there was no difference on the level of entrepreneurial intention between bachelor degree and vocational studies students.

By considering that a contextual analysis on the environment collaborates to help entrepreneurs, based on affective sets of the feeling of belonging, this research aims to search the relation between an entrepreneurial intention and attitude in the raising of topophilic feelings in college students. Thus, a quantitative study provided data collected through a sample of 360 students from two further superior education institutes of Ceara. To check this research assumptions (H1 – level of entrepreneurial attitude with a positive impact in the raising topophilic feelings and H2 – level of entrepreneurial intention with a positive impact in the raising of topophilic feelings), a Structural Analysis with the help of statistic software SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 20.0 was made. The analysis of causal trajectories evidenced that all assumptions are highly significant. The analysis of the model presents most of the factorial weights as elevated (≥0,5), besides the adequate coefficient of determination of 0, 27 (R 2 ≥0,25), informing the explanatory importance of regression. All the pattern regression weights (β) are significant at the level of significance (p │1,96│). Results presented a positive influence of the entrepreneurial attitude and intention in the feeling of topophilia, once the not refuted assumptions became valid for this study, indicating which theoretical model is able to reproduce the correlational structure of the variable observed in the research sample. The arguments presented in this paper contribute for a larger theoretical knowledge about the relation between the entrepreneurial intention and the attitude in raising the topophilic feeling as well as the definition of strategies for entrepreneurial actions in college environments.

This paper explored entrepreneurial intentions in the Caribbean adult population using a social cognitive approach. It used the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Adult Population Survey (APS), which includes questions about entrepreneurial intentions of potential business owners and entrepreneurial perceptions, namely individual, entrepreneurial opportunities and socio-cultural, along with demographic and socio-economic variables. The effect of perceptions along with socio-economic control variables on entrepreneurial intentions was investigated using probit regression models. The results confirm that even after controlling for demographic and socio-economic and country fixed effects, social cognitive perceptions were indeed relevant in explaining entrepreneurial intentions in the region. This study therefore provides insights into understanding entrepreneurship in particular the decision to form a new business through the individual’s perceptions and intentions.

Researchers have previously used the Theory of Planned Behavior as a theoretical framework to investigate entrepreneurial intention (EI). However, there are some studies that suggests that psychological factors such as spirituality (S), emotional intelligence (EmoI) and creativity(C) play an essential role in developing alternative EI models. This correlational study explores the relationships between EI antecedents (S, EmoI, C, personal attitudes towards entrepreneurship-PA and perceived behaviour control-PBC) and academic and demographic factors (gender, scientific study area, working experience, entrepreneurial family background, student status, entrepreneurial education, among others) of university students. A quantitative approach was used, through a personal questionnaire survey applied to 345 students in a Portuguese higher education institution. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The correlation levels of S, EmoI, C, PA, PBC and EI are relatively low to moderate. There are strong positive correlations between EI, PA and PBC. The most creative students have higher levels of PA, PBC and EI. A moderate positive correlation is observed between EmoI and C, and between EmoI and PBC. S was not correlated to most of the concepts in the analysis. There are several significant associations between EI determinants and some academic and demographic variables, for example, higher EI levels occur with students that have “student-worker” status, with those that have taken part in entrepreneurship education programs, and those who have family members with their own business and have some experience in the labour market.In educational settings due consideration should be given to EmoI and C as to promote students ́ EI. The study has implications for academics involved in entrepreneurship education.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the determinants of entrepreneurial intention among students of a university in Nigeria, with particular emphasis on their risk-taking propensity, social support and demographic variables. Design/methodology/approach Data for the study were collected from 350 undergraduates across seven faculties in Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, through a self-reported questionnaire. Descriptive and regression statistical analysis were used to estimate and test the relationship among entrepreneurial intention and social support, risk-taking propensity and demographic variables. Findings The results showed high entrepreneurial intention among the students. The push factors, such as perceived social support from families, risk-taking propensity and previous engagement in business, are key determinants of entrepreneurship intention among the students. The age and father’s occupation also showed a significant relationship with the level of entrepreneurial intention. Practical implications This result suggests that strengthening social support for entrepreneurship among students could enhance their desire to own a business during and after graduation. Improving entrepreneurship ecosystems in the university could further motivate those already practicing entrepreneurship while also stimulating intentions among others. For instance, provision of entrepreneurship infrastructure and incentives such as business incubators, innovation hubs, science parks and competitive business grants could enhance the risk-taking propensity among students and motivate them for venture creation. Originality/value Understanding the influence of social support and risk-taking propensity on entrepreneurial intention among undergraduates is important for policy and practice. The result further reinforces the need to promote entrepreneurship education to create a critical mass of potential entrepreneurs in the university.

Entrepreneurship has gained a lot of theoretical and practical attentions. Adopting the research method of simulation experiments, this study explored the dynamic process and mechanisms of entrepreneurial decision-making, specifically the effect of regulatory focus and past performance feedback on the entrepreneurial intention. Using a sample of 64 MBA and business management majored students, we conducted a laboratory-based simulation experiment study. Based on the experiment data, we mainly took repeated measures variance analysis to test our hypothesis. The results indicate that, (1) The level of entrepreneurial intention under promotion focus situations is higher than that under prevention focus situations. (2) With a positive past performance feedback, the entrepreneurial intention is higher than that of negative past performance feedback. (3) Contextual regulatory focus and previous performance feedback have an interactive effect on the level of entrepreneurial intention; under the negative performance feedback, the gap of entrepreneurial intention between the promotion regulatory focus and prevention one is much wider, while under the positive performance feedback, the gap is relatively narrower. That is to say, under the positive performance feedback, the prevention regulatory focus group has experienced a greater increase in their entrepreneurial intention. Finally, the implication of these results are discussed as well.

Aim:The aim of this study is to use storytelling as a technique to develop entrepreneurial intention in Islamic boarding school graduates.Background:Most of thepesantrengraduates in Indonesia do not proceed on to university studies after completing their schooling due to financial problems and so lack the skills to work on jobs that could support their livelihood. Therefore,pesantrenwanted to develop a strategy to help its alumni find employment after completing their education. Increasing the entrepreneurial intention of graduates in various sectors is one way in whichpesantrenexpect to support graduates in finding their livelihood.Objective:The objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of storytelling in increasing entrepreneurial intentions in students.Methods:Sixty Islamic boarding school students participated in this study. The Solomon three-group design was used to test the effectiveness of storytelling in increasing the entrepreneurial intentions of students. Participants were divided into three groups: the experimental group, control group 1, and control group 2, each consisting of 20 students. The entrepreneurial-intention scale was used to measure the level of entrepreneurial intention among each group of students.ResultsFirst, there was a significant difference between the post-test score of entrepreneurial intention in the experimental group (with treatment) and the post-test score of entrepreneurial intention in control group 1 (without treatment). Second, the post-test score of entrepreneurial intention in the experimental group (with treatment) was not different from the post-test score of entrepreneurial intention in control group 2 (with treatment). Thus, the results were consistent in the sense that the group that received treatment had an increased level of entrepreneurial intention when compared with the group that did not receive any treatment.Conclusion:The results showed that storytelling was effective in increasing the entrepreneurial intention of students. In this study, the treatment of storytelling was integrated with a focus group discussion. Developing treatment with other techniques can have a greater effect on increasing the entrepreneurial intention of students.

This study aims to identify students' entrepreneurial intentions at universities in Medan City. This research was conducted due to the issue of unemployment caused by the skill competencies of agribusiness graduates, the generally low interest among students in creating job opportunities, and the declining enthusiasm for entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. This study employed a survey method with a research population consisting of 920 agribusiness students from the Faculty of Agriculture in Medan City, spread across three universities: UMA, UMSU, and USU. The sample for this study consisted of 90 students from the three universities. The results show that students' entrepreneurial intentions, particularly at universities in Medan City, demonstrate a high level of interest; however, there is a need for accelerated learning and hands-on practice in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial intention in Indonesia, especially at universities in Medan City, falls into the high category. The higher the personal values and personalities aligned with entrepreneurship among students, the higher their level of entrepreneurial intention. This indicates that the students' entrepreneurial intentions reflect a positive response toward entrepreneurship.

Factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions among youths in Vietnam

A study was conducted to assess the relationship between country-level entrepreneurial activity and individuals’ perceived abilities, subjective norm and intentions to pursue entrepreneurship. The theory of planned behaviour and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) conceptual model are used to formulate hypotheses concerning factors that influence the level of societies’ entrepreneurial intentions and activity in 43 countries included in the GEM 2010 study, as well as factors that influence the level of entrepreneurial intentions in Croatia from 2003 to 2011. In the analyzed GEM countries, the results confirm that antecedents to entrepreneurial intentions, as defined by the theory of planned behaviour, have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions which, in turn, significantly influence entrepreneurial activity. The results for Croatia were mixed. Subjective norm had a limited relationship with intentions while perceived behavioural control did.