The Role of Personal Values in Forming Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions in Developing Countries

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine mechanisms through which personal values are associated with entrepreneurial intentions by integrating the theory of human values into the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Data were collected using a questionnaire from a sample of 452 agriculture students who were selected from two public universities in two Persian-speaking countries, namely Iran and Afghanistan. The results of structural equation modeling showed that individualistic personal values, that is, openness to change and self-enhancement values, are not directly related to entrepreneurial intentions. However, these personal values were indirectly related to entrepreneurial intentions through attitude toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioral control. The results also showed no significant difference between the two countries in terms of the relationship between the personal values and three TPB anchors (i.e., attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) or the relationship between TPB anchors and entrepreneurial intentions. The study indicates how personal values play a role in explaining entrepreneurial intentions and establishes the utility of the TPB model in seeking a value-intention linkage in the field of entrepreneurship in developing countries. As a practical implication, the study suggests that educators of potential entrepreneurs should try to stimulate personal values more often because this fosters entrepreneurial intentions and their antecedents.

Factors Influencing Entrepreneurial Intention of University Students in China: Integrating the Perceived University Support and Theory of Planned Behavior

“…However, a literature review revealed a lack of research that extends the TPB to explain support factors in the environment (e.g., university support). Among studies on external support factors, none has employed TPB to discuss education-related factors [15][16][17]. Therefore, this study adopted the TPB perspective coupled with perceived university support (PUS) to extend the TPB framework and explain the effect of such support on student entrepreneurial intention.…”

Family Embeddedness and Medical Students’ Interest for Entrepreneurship as an Alternative Career Choice: Evidence From China

“…The first contribution this study makes lies in its attempts to narrow the gap of our knowledge on medical students' intention to enter entrepreneurship, which has been trivialized in existing research on medical students' career choices (Lefevre et al, 2010;Gasiorowski et al, 2015;Griffin and Hu, 2019). Studying Chinese medical students' EI also presents an important addition to our existing knowledge on students' EI (Atitsogbe et al, 2019;Baluku et al, 2020;Karimi and Makreet, 2020;Zhao et al, 2020), especially when Chinese medical students are said to overwhelmingly favor a position in a well-ranked public hospital than practicing independently (She et al, 2008). Further research is needed to expand our findings to other external factors of EI and could be of value to analyses of specific groups' EI and activities, e.g., nurses (Roggenkamp and White, 1998).…”

“…For starters, EI has been a arguably reliable predictor for behavior generation (Krueger et al, 2000;Carr and Sequeira, 2007;Kickul et al, 2008;Liñán et al, 2011;Schmutzler et al, 2019). Examining EI and its antecedents in the medical student context will allow us to provide the medical school piece to the overall picture of university students' EI (Atitsogbe et al, 2019;Baluku et al, 2020;Karimi and Makreet, 2020;Zhao et al, 2020) and, equally important, to de-trivialize entrepreneurship from the extant research of medical students' career choice (Lefevre et al, 2010;Gasiorowski et al, 2015;Griffin and Hu, 2019).…”

Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review

“…Jaén et al [80] explained that although obvious, starting a business is an individual decision that is often overlooked in research. In the case of sustainable entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur has to consider various personal values and beliefs that define their personalities, such as goals and a sense of moral responsibility [81]. In addition, they may consider priorities such as personal gains, contribution to society, employment choices, prestige, power, and status [82].…”