Sustainable Development and Saudi Vision 2030: Entrepreneurial Orientation of Students Toward E-Businesses and Proposed Model of “Virtual Business Incubator” for SEU

Abstract

This study aims to explore Saudi students’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO) toward e-businesses in the line of achieving the strategic objectives of Saudi Vision 2030. Saudi Vision 2030 (hereafter, Vision 2030) is a strategic framework to attain the sustainable development of Saudi Arabia. It was first announced by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in April 2016. Authors have proposed a Saudi Vision Linkages Model to show the role and importance of university education (UE) and entrepreneurial culture in fulfilling the specific requirements of the Saudi labor market to attain the ultimate strategic objectives of Vision 2030. The authors also proposed a conceptual model of the study to depict the relationships of EO with their entrepreneurial intention toward online businesses (e-EI). The study used a multidimensional model of the EO where three subdimensions, namely risk-taking propensities (RTP), innovativeness (INV), and pro-activeness (P-ACT), are used. The conceptual model of the study also shows UE and gender (GEN) as moderating variables. The authors used convenience sampling to collect cross-sectional data and conducted an online survey among the students at Saudi Electronic University (SEU) using a 5-point Likert-type scale to collect the data through a questionnaire, observing a total of 17 items and 408 filled questionnaires were received. Authors proposed six hypotheses where four hypotheses build the direct relations, namely, RTP (H1), INV (H2), P-ACT (H3), and UE (H4) with e-EI and hypotheses H5 and H6 are further divided into the subhypotheses, respectively, in H5a, H5b, H5c and H6a, H6b, H6c to show the moderating effect of UE (H5) and GEN (H6). SmartPLS 4.0 software is used to apply structural equation modeling for the analysis of data. Reliability, composite validity, discriminant validity, and model-fit indices of the measurement model are assessed before running a bootstrapping to measure the significance and standardized β estimates of the paths of hypotheses (structural model analysis). After analyzing the results, in the suggestions section, the authors have suggested that the university build a university business incubator for the students to promote entrepreneurial activities on all the campuses with a head office in the Riyadh campus.