Role Models on Student's Entrepreneurial Intentions: a Case Study

Abstract

The study aimed at determining the effects of role models on students' Entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurship has been identified as a key driver of economic growth as it can help in reducing unemployment; however, the problem of unemployment among graduates persists as most of them end up seeking paid employments rather than taking advantage of the available business opportunities. This could be attributed to the job-seeking mentality of most graduates and the fact that they never had any intention of going into businesses on their own. The presence of role models in the form of attitudes towards entrepreneurship perceived behavioural control and social norms were proposed as they have been found to have a positive effect on student's entrepreneurial intentions. To achieve this, the survey research design was adopted, Taro Yamen's formula was used to derive a sample size of 263 respondents from the total population of 753 students studying Business Administration, Accounting and Marketing from Delta State Polytechnic Ozoro and Ogwash-you. Cronbach's alpha test was used to test the reliability of the instrument, while correlation and regression analysis were employed for the test of hypotheses.