Purpose Drawing on the institutional theory and the theory of planned behaviour, the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of social institutional and psychological variables on the formation of agropreneurial intention and behaviours using samples from Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach Via a six-month longitudinal study, the paper analyses whether normative forces supplied by subjective norm and social networking impact psychological variables and agropreneurship activities. Findings The model explained a satisfactory percentage of the variance in all five dimensions of agropreneurial behaviour, intention and the psychological variables. The results suggest a certain path in the configuration of agropreneurial intention and behaviour. Research limitations/implications The longitudinal effect of intention on actual agropreneurial behaviour was limited to six months longitudinal time only. Hence, the causality between intention and actual behaviour could not be strongly demonstrated. Nevertheless, future study on agropreneurial behaviour can replicate this study by extending the longitudinal time frame to more than six months. Practical implications Key policy actions should increase the agropreneurial social events such as agropreneurship’s seminars, forums or workshops to exert more normative influence on the young Gen Y. Originality/value This study shows that the development of agropreneurial intention and behaviour is the significant effect of social institutional and psychological influences. The results suggest that six-month period is adequate for Malaysian Gen Y to make appropriate preparation for the establishment of an agropreneurial business.

Malaysian Polytechnic has been actively participating in providing entrepreneurship education (EE) and training to improve basic skills and encourage self-employment among its graduates. Sadly, a scrutiny of the available literature suggests that Malaysian polytechnic entrepreneurship education (MPEE) is ineffective as it fails to inculcate entrepreneurial spirit among the students. Students who have finished the MPEE were reported to have not embedded with enterprising knowledge, business skills and attributes during their study in polytechnics. However, these findings obviously demand further clarification. First, although entrepreneurship is indeed a very long process and cannot be created overnight, previous studies measured the effectiveness of MPEE by looking into students' readiness for entrepreneurship. Although scholars have argued that entrepreneurial readiness or intention is the proximal determinant of entrepreneurial behaviour, intention alone is not enough in measuring entrepreneurship as it does not lead to immediate action. Second, previous studies also missed to apply the regression method in their analysis to investigate the impact of MPEE on students' entrepreneurial development, leaving both theoretical and methodological gaps to be filled by the current study. Based on this justifications, this study proposes that the effectiveness of MPEE can be studied by looking at how it creates students' intellectual capital, which is the asset that are garnered from an investment in EE, and students' entrepreneurial behaviour via a longitudinal design. This effort is deemed important since understanding the effectiveness of MPEE will bring substantial value to the overall educational, economic, and societal well-being in the long run. The significance of this study lies in its effort to reveal the effectiveness of MPEE by investigating its impact on 'the other side' of entrepreneurial intention, which is its behavioural aspect.

Despite great concerns regarding food security and the need to maintain a continuous food supply for an ever-increasing population, the agriculture sector remains an unattractive employment option, especially among younger generations. The big question is, “who should play a greater role in giving this sector young talents that are needed for successful agriculture and how it should it be acquired? Research has shown that this sector is dominated by an aging community of farmers who lack the innovative skills that is needed for running a new and modern agricultural industry. This chapter provides a brief overview of the importance of the agriculture sector and agropreneurship and is followed by why the involvement of the Gen Y segment is crucial for the growth and development of this sector. Since the basis for agropreneurship development among today's youth is based on training and inculcating an agropreneurship work culture at the university level, the authors proposed roles an academic institution could play in instilling positive an agropreneurial attitude among Gen Y graduates.

Despite great concerns regarding food security and the need to maintain a continuous food supply for an ever-increasing population, the agriculture sector remains an unattractive employment option, especially among younger generations. The big question is, “who should play a greater role in giving this sector young talents that are needed for successful agriculture and how it should it be acquired? Research has shown that this sector is dominated by an aging community of farmers who lack the innovative skills that is needed for running a new and modern agricultural industry. This chapter provides a brief overview of the importance of the agriculture sector and agropreneurship and is followed by why the involvement of the Gen Y segment is crucial for the growth and development of this sector. Since the basis for agropreneurship development among today's youth is based on training and inculcating an agropreneurship work culture at the university level, the authors proposed roles an academic institution could play in instilling positive an agropreneurial attitude among Gen Y graduates.