The Factors Shaping Entrepreneurial Intentions

Book excerpt: This book is a combination of chapters exploring the entrepreneurial attributes of university students and specifically their intentions to become entrepreneurs. It provides detailed insights into the personal and environmental factors that affect university studentsâ (TM) decisions to establish their own businesses. The first six chapters explore these factors through an exploratory approach and provide descriptive data on studentsâ (TM) entrepreneurial attributes such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, skills, metacognition (knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition) and subjective and social norms of entrepreneurship. In these chapters, the authors provide an overall picture of entrepreneurial attributes among students from both public and private universities. The last three chapters examine studentsâ (TM) entrepreneurial intentions using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques. The chapters explain the interactions between personal (attitudes toward entrepreneurship and self-efficacy) and environmental (social and family norms and education) factors, and investigate how these factors affect studentsâ (TM) entrepreneurial career choice. This book will be of great importance to, and helpful for, policy makers who wish to develop entrepreneurial activities and quality entrepreneurs in their countries; educators who intend to develop entrepreneurship education and training programs and improve entrepreneurial knowledge and competencies among students; and entrepreneurship teachers and lecturers who endeavour to develop studentsâ (TM) entrepreneurial knowledge and competencies. It will also be of interest to students who wish to regulate their motivation, knowledge and thoughts towards learning entrepreneurship; real and nascent entrepreneurs who want to better understand how they can learn entrepreneurial knowledge and skills; and researchers who aim to conduct studies on entrepreneurial attributes and intentions, particularly among students.