Modeling the impact of entrepreneurial attitude on self-employment intention among engineering students in Ethiopia

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a worldwide phenomenon with economic growth across the globe that is rendered by the emergence of new and innovative business start-ups. Thus, the main objective of this research was to model the impact of entrepreneurial attitudes on self-employment intention among final year engineering students in Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Debre Markos University and University of Gondar, Ethiopia, in 2017. To achieve the objective of the study, a survey research approach was employed. Questionnaire and interview were the instruments used, and stratified sampling technique was adopted to select 921 respondents from a population of 4327 final year undergraduate engineering students in 2016/2017 academic session. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, chi-square test, principal component factor analysis, and binary logistic regression analysis were employed. The descriptive result revealed that about 57.4% of the students had an intention to be self-employed while 42.6% do not have an intention. The principal component factor analysis was used to reduce the set of variables by grouping variables with similar characteristics together and generates new variables (factors). These methods help the researchers to transform the number of correlated variables into a smaller number of uncorrelated variables. The logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the effect of the predictor variables on self-employment intention status of students. The results showed that entrepreneurial education/training and entrepreneurial attitudes significantly predicts students' selfemployment intention. Accordingly, information and opportunity seeking, creativity and problem solving skills, achievement and instrumental readiness, self-confidence and self-esteem, goal setting, entrepreneurship education/training, business-owned family background, prior business experience with family, access to finance/capitals for startup, and networking and professional contacts were found to be significant predictors at 5% level of significance. These factors had positive relationship with self-employment intention at 5% level of significance. In the meanwhile, demographic factors (such as age, gender, and marital status) and socio-economic factors (such as parents' occupation, colleagues' business background, means of finance, discouragement by external environment, and clear future business idea) are not significant predictors at 5% level of significance. The study recommends that the government as well as the universities should design programs that facilitate entrepreneurship to change the mindset, attitude, and intention of those students who do not have knowhow about entrepreneurship as a future career.

Bayesian hierarchical analyses for entrepreneurial intention of students

“…Only few of them think to create self-employment or become entrepreneur due to lack of confidence in their skill and capital [21]. Other researchers pointed out that an individual with higher tolerance for risk and less aversion to work effort should be expected to be more likely to engage in entrepreneurial behavior [3,5,11].…”

“…Educational support through professional education in universities is an efficient way of obtaining necessary knowledge about entrepreneurship [3]. The study by Autio et al [2] that investigated entrepreneurial intention of university students in various cultural contexts indicated that the encouragement from university environment affects the entrepreneurial confidence of university students.…”

Self - Employment Among Youths in Ojo and Alimosho LGA, Lagos Nigeria: Perceptions, Attitude and Contributions – A Statistical Assessment

“…It was found that risk taking is an attitude that significant affect the development of self -employment which aligned with Atnafu (2016) who found that students with high risk propensity are 6 times more likely to have entrepreneurial intension or to go into self -employment. Ayalew & Zeleke (2018) and Afolabi, Kareem, Okubanjo, Ogunbanjo, & Aninkan (2017) also found a similar effect. The study also found that the development of self -employment will significantly improve the standard of living and growth of the economy which aligned with findings from other reseraches Tsvetkova, Partridge, & Betz, 2016;Fields, 2014;Goetz & Rupasingha, 2013;Bashir, Gebremedhin, & Fletcher, 2011;Startienė & Remeikienė, 2013).…”

Influence of Entrepreneurship Learning Methods to the Interests of Entrepreneurship in the Field of Culinary of Vocational Students in the Province of Bali

“…Contributions of 23.7% have not had a real impact on the formation of strong interest in entrepreneurship. According the research result by (Ayalew, 2018;Osakede, et al, 2017;Nguyen, 2017) Entrepreneurial interests can be realized in real terms if students are often trained in real skills in making products. Skill training can be provided through learning models that provide opportunities for students to be fully involved in learning.…”

“…(Nag, D., & Das, N. (2015). This condition seems to be the concern of all parties, especially teachers in schools whose duty is to teach students to achieve the expected target, namely independence for entrepreneurship ( Winarno, 2015 ;Nugroho, 2009 ;Sandirasegarane * , Sutermaster, Gill, JenniferVolz, & Mehta, 2016 ;Cheung , 2011 ;Saidun, 2013 ;Afriana, 2015 ;Age, 2014 ;Ayalew, 2018) where a country is said to be prosperous if 2% of the population is entrepreneurial. (Winarno, 2016) Entrepreneurship (entrepreneur) is someone who has the power of creativity and the power of innovation that is strong, has the ability high managerial, master of knowledge about business in depth, as well as behave with the aim of forming a new business.…”