Abstract
Motivation and ability to orient ones’ knowledge, thought and behavior to accomplish entrepreneurial goals and tasks has recently termed as entrepreneurial regulation. Entrepreneurial regulation strongly affects the whole process of new venture creation and specifically entrepreneurial opportunity exploration that is the first step in the entrepreneurship process. However, few researchers examined the construct particularly among potential entrepreneurs such as university students. This study aims to measure self-regulation (promotion focus), entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intention to become an entrepreneur among university students. 722 students from both public and private universities were randomly selected as the participants based on the assumption that entrepreneurship education and training programs and university environment highly influence the development of entrepreneurial regulation, self-efficacy and intention in students. Analysis of the data revealed a significant relationship between students’ promotion focus, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, students from public universities had significantly higher entrepreneurial regulation and intentions than their counterparts from private universities. We discuss the implications of the findings for entrepreneurship research, theory development and education.
Highlights
The critical decision of choosing entrepreneurship as the career path and translating the intention into an actual new venture has been one of the core focuses of entrepreneurship researchers
This study aims to narrow the gap through measuring entrepreneurial regulation dimensions and entrepreneurial intention among university students
Analysis of the data on self-regulation, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention indicates that students scored moderate in all dimensions of the constructs
Summary
The critical decision of choosing entrepreneurship as the career path and translating the intention into an actual new venture has been one of the core focuses of entrepreneurship researchers. To better explain this challenging and complex process, researchers used various theories and models, the most cited of which are intentional theories (Ajzen, 1991; Shapero & Sokol, 1982). Entrepreneurial intention can be affected by personal and environmental factors and changes over time (Souitaris et al, 2007; Segal et al, 2005; Ajzen, 2002; Krueger et al, 2000) This led researchers to seek more action-related theories such as self-regulatory focus (Higgins, 1998) to better explain entrepreneurial endeavors
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