Abstract
Purpose Nowadays in the competitive economy, the field of entrepreneurship and particularly female entrepreneurship is rapidly advancing, and its contribution to the economy is imperative. Consequently, the female business students’ factors and university support factors are imperative to nurture the entrepreneurial intentions, but the literature does not address them at large. Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of proactive personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived university support factors on female student’s entrepreneurial intentions. Design/methodology/approach The data from a total of 306 female students from the business schools of universities of Pakistan is collected through the personal physical-survey questionnaires. The data were then analyzed through Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) technique for results. Findings The results indicate that the proactive personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and university support factors are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intentions of female students. Moreover, the results also support that entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between proactive personality and entrepreneurial intentions of female students. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, the study originality lies in the testing of university support factors and individual personality factors (entrepreneurial self-efficacy and proactive personality) as the predictors of entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the present study provides the useful insight for the policymakers in formulating, delivering and evaluating educational policies into the universities for female students.
Highlights
In the global world, “female students as entrepreneurs” has become one of the growing topics nowadays because entrepreneurship is considered as a key factor for economic growth and job creation
The results indicate that the proactive personality, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and university support factors are the significant predictors of entrepreneurial intentions of female students
This study focuses on the three types of support that universities can offer female students to nurture their interest in entrepreneurship as a career that are perceived educational support, perceived concept development support and perceived business development support
Summary
“female students as entrepreneurs” has become one of the growing topics nowadays because entrepreneurship is considered as a key factor for economic growth and job creation. The entrepreneurial activities are best possible ways to start a business It is the desire of every graduate woman to get a secured job, but it becomes difficult for them to get job because of unavailability in a developing economy like that of Pakistan (Iftikhar, 2016). Pakistan rank is 138th out of 189th countries on the World Bank’s “doing business report 2016”. For that universities make students capable by providing them entrepreneurial education and support in a developing country like that of Pakistan where the perspective of female entrepreneurship as field and policymaking exclusively for female business students with gender/feminist lens have not been addressed at large (Henry et al, 2016)
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