Entrepreneurial intentions of private university students in the kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to explore the level of entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) among students in three private universities in Bahrain. The examined factors that are expected to shape EI are personal attraction toward becoming an entrepreneur, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms and social valuation of entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach A close-ended questionnaire was used to collect data of the study. The total number of questionnaires distributed was 1,530 questionnaires, while the total number of the valid questionnaires retrieved was 550, which makes the total response rate to be 36 per cent. Findings Regression analysis results indicated that students’ personal attraction toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control had a significant strong positive relationship with their EI. In addition, there was a significant moderate positive relationship between students’ perceived subjective norms and social valuation of entrepreneurship with their EI. Originality/value The findings showed that entrepreneurial education is needed to improve students’ skills and knowledge and enhance their EI and perceived behavioral control. In addition, it is important to expose students to entrepreneurial role models and their businesses and to promote entrepreneurial careers as desirable and feasible options that may bring more advantages than working in the government or private sector.

Nijerya’da Ziraat Fakültesi Öğrencilerinin Girişimciliklerini Etkileyen Faktörler

“…The implication is that the higher the perceived educational support received by the respondents, the higher their EIs. The results concur with the findings of (Zapkau et al, 2015;Al-Shammari, 2018).…”

Factors That Influence Entrepreneurial Intention within University Students in Egypt

“…entrepreneur. It is one of the key elements that contributes to the formation and growth of entrepreneurship, fosters autonomy and leads to initiatives as explained by Al-Shammari and Waleed [5]. Entrepreneurship literature shows that concrete intentions play a crucial role in making decisions to start a new business as argued by Krueger et al [6].…”

“…This research framework is identified as in Figure 1, where the relationship is examined through the hypotheses shown. A questionnaire was adopted from the studies of Alshammari and Waleed [5] and Nasip et al [40] to test the assigned relations. This study will use a convenience sampling technique.…”

Do University Ecosystems Impact Student’s Entrepreneurial Behavior?

“…So much so that in the past few decades, be it by increased funding pressures, or by the general sign of the entrepreneurial times universities find themselves in (Freel, Persaud, & Chamberlin, 2019), their two primary roles, of teaching and researching, have given up space for a third one to emerge: to serve as a hub for innovation and business making (Duruflé, Hellmann, & Wilson, 2018). In this respect, several studies were conducted in order to better understand this phenomenon, specifically about how it is that the university ecosystem (UE) affects the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of students (Al-Shammari & Waleed, 2018;Barbosa, Gerhardt, & Kickul, 2007;Barral, Ribeiro, & Canever, 2018;Kristiansen, 2004;Liñán, 2004;Maresch, Harms, Kailer, & Wimmer-Wurm, 2016;Ngoc Khuong & Huu An, 2015;Saeed et al, 2015;Shirokova, Osiyevskyy, & Bogatyreva, 2016;Tiago, Faria, Couto, & Tiago, 2015;Vodă & Florea, 2019).…”