Abstract
The purpose of the present study is to test how do the four important psychological antecedents, namely need for achievement (nAch), propensity to risk (PtR), self-confidence (SeC), internal locus of control (IlC) are mediated by the entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) to predict the entrepreneurial intention (EI) in a traditionally oil-based Saudi economy striving for economic diversification. Hypotheses are tested by applying the partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) to a sample of 282 undergraduate business students (male and female) collected from a public university of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results suggest that psychological variables and self-efficacy play a fundamental role in enhancing entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Saudi students. Personality-related variables have direct influence over EI in other context, but in Saudi context, psychological variables are necessary but not sufficient to develop entrepreneurial intention unless combined with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has a strong mediating effect between psychological variables and entrepreneurial intentions in Saudi context.
Highlights
Entrepreneurship is one of the significant contributors to the economic efficiencies, employment generation, innovation and welfare of the society, etc. (Wennekers et al, 2005; Baumol, 2002; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000)
The purpose of the present study is to test how do the four important psychological antecedents, namely need for achievement, propensity to risk (PtR), self-confidence (SeC), internal locus of control (IlC) are mediated by the entrepreneurial selfefficacy (ESE) to predict the entrepreneurial intention (EI) in a traditionally oil-based Saudi economy striving for economic diversification
The study confirms that only one antecedent, namely internal locus of control (IlC), directly predicts the entrepreneurial intention of Saudi undergraduate students
Summary
Entrepreneurship is one of the significant contributors to the economic efficiencies, employment generation, innovation and welfare of the society, etc. (Wennekers et al, 2005; Baumol, 2002; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Self-efficacy in entrepreneurial context is one’s strong belief in performing successfully the task and role of entrepreneurship (Chen et al, 1998; Miao et al, 2016). It is considered as a motivational construct in general (Zhao et al, 2005). The focus of the current study is to investigate that combining with the antecedents of TPB, how does self-efficacy mediate the personality-related variables or psychological variables to predict the entrepreneurial intention in Saudi Arabian context
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