The study of the causal relationship between innovativeness and entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate students

Abstract

In recent years, entrepreneurs have become key drivers of business growth worldwide, since that time, entrepreneurial education has subsequently been garnering an increased level of interest. Entrepreneurship is considered to be a combination of both art and science, used to create value when targeting customers; however, there appears to be a myth when it comes to the recipe required for success. It was discovered by The Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion that less than 10% of Thai small and medium entrepreneurial businesses were successful, while the global rate of success is close to 5 times higher than that of Thailand. Therefore, a better understanding of key success factors is necessary going forward. Typically, an entrepreneur’s journey starts with entrepreneurial intention, opportunity recognition, business initiative creation, and resource assembly, if they are to start their venture successfully. Entrepreneurial intention is a prerequisite to entrepreneurial behavior, based on the theory of planned behavior. Subsequently, scholars are interested in the key factors which drive entrepreneurial intention. While innovativeness has been proven to be one of the critical factors within certain groups of the population, there is little empirical data on the causal relationship between innovativeness and entrepreneurial intention amongst undergraduate students. As such, this study has two main objectives: (1) to explore factors influencing innovativeness, attitudes towards entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate students, and (2) to understand the causal relationship between innovativeness and entrepreneurial intentions among undergraduate students. The population of the study is comprised of undergraduate students from public universities and 330 effective responses were received in the survey. Based on the findings from confirmatory analysis and multiple regression, the empirical data is consistent with the theoretical measurement model for both innovativeness and entrepreneurial intention and (2) innovativeness can effectively predict entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate students.