Impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intentions of business and engineering students in Ethiopia

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate university students in Ethiopia by making a comparative analysis among different groups of students.Design/methodology/approachA total of 156 students completed entrepreneurship intention questionnaire. The questionnaire has seven parts extracting information about personal attraction, subjective norm, self‐efficacy, entrepreneurial intention, need for achievement, locus of control, and instrumental readiness. The respondents were asked to state their agreement/disagreement on statements on a seven‐point Likert type scale.FindingsThe result identified that students who had undergone entrepreneurship education (business management student in this case) tend to have better entrepreneurial intention than those who had not taken entrepreneurship course (engineering students). Also, it was observed that male management students have higher personal attraction towards entrepreneurial career, subjective norms, self‐efficacy and achievement need than female management students, as well as male and female engineering students, while female management students have the lowest instrumental readiness than students in other groups. The study did not find significant difference in entrepreneurial intention of students who had exposure to entrepreneurial activity through family and those who had no such exposures.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this research lies in the sample size and the study units (universities) from which samples have been taken. Future research is recommended to predict entrepreneurship intention of students by taking larger sample from more universities in the country.Practical implicationsThe study strongly suggests the need to incorporate entrepreneurship education in the curriculum of technical disciplines in Ethiopian universities.Originality/valueThe research provides assessment of entrepreneurship intention of university students in the country/culture which was not explored in the past and hence it further enriches literature and helps to universalize intention theories.