The Impact of the Family Background on Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions: An Empirical Analysis

Maria-Ana Georgescu,Emilia Herman

doi:10.3390/su12114775

Maria-Ana Georgescu, Emilia Herman

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114775

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Abstract

In the current economic and social environment, a real challenge for youth is the acquisition and development of the relevant skills in entrepreneurship in order to consider entrepreneurship as a desirable employment choice. Given this aspect, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the main factors influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions, paying particular attention to their entrepreneurial family background. Additionally, the paper aims to explore the effect of entrepreneurial family background on the relationship between effectiveness of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. We conducted a study where results were based on the outcomes of a survey among Romanian high school and university students in the final year (N = 617). Our four main hypotheses were tested through independent samples t-tests, correlation analysis, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The findings highlighted that the students with an entrepreneurial family background reported a higher entrepreneurial intention than those without such a background. The variables that positively influenced the entrepreneurial intentions of the students were entrepreneurial family background, effectiveness of entrepreneurship education, and entrepreneurial personality traits. Furthermore, this entrepreneurial family background negatively moderated the relationship between effectiveness of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention. For this reason, emphasis should be placed on both formal and informal entrepreneurial education, which will increase the propensity of young people to choose an entrepreneurial career.

Highlights

Unemployment is one of the biggest challenges for young people, taking into account that at EU level and elsewhere unemployment among young individuals is two to three times higher than the overall unemployment rate [1]
Our results showed a high level of student Entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) (60.5% of students intended to become entrepreneurs or self-employed)
The paper highlights the influence of the main social factors on entrepreneurial career intention by focusing on the impact of the entrepreneurial family background (EFB) of students, aiming to improve their entrepreneurial intentions and to consider entrepreneurship as a desirable employment choice

Summary

Introduction

Unemployment is one of the biggest challenges for young people, taking into account that at EU level and elsewhere unemployment among young individuals (aged 18 to 24) is two to three times higher than the overall unemployment rate [1]. There is plenty of evidence available that a fairly large segment of young people intends to develop an entrepreneurial career, statistical data [1,6] prove that there is a low level of entrepreneurial activity among young people, measured both by the young self-employed and total early stage entrepreneurship activity (TEA) for those aged between 18 and 24. The central question of entrepreneurship research is why individuals, especially young ones, choose or do not choose an entrepreneurial career, self-employment, or starting their own business. Entrepreneurial intention is considered a key aspect that explains the determination to start a business or to become self-employed. Entrepreneurial intentions (EIs), defined as “desires to own or start a business” [8], represent the antecedent of entrepreneurial behaviour in most career choice models [9], being a prerequisite for entrepreneurial behaviour [10]

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