1. INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurs play a key role in fostering economic growth (Fuller et. al., 2018; Baron, 2006). Research proves that there is a strong link between entrepreneurial activity and economic performance (Lado and Vozikis, 1996; Kuratko, 2005).

It is an innovative and creative process with a potential to add value to products, create job opportunities (Bjørnskov and Foss, 2013), creates wealth and reduces unemployment (Paul and Shrivatava, 2016), raise productivity, revitalize and diversify markets, improve social welfare, and more broadly to develop the economy (Guerrero, Rialp, and Urbano, 2008: Esfandiar, et.al., 2017). Measuring intentions to establish a new venture has been one of the main concerns of entrepreneurship researchers and educators (Pihie, et.al. 2013). Entrepreneurship is not a simple plan-and-do act, and is a behaviour that is resulted from the attitude that reflects an individual's motivation and capacity to identify an opportunity and to pursue it in order to produce new value or economic success (Yıldırım, Çakır, and Aşkun, 2016). Similarly, Ajzen (2002) and Shapero (1982) opined that entrepreneurship is an attitude that reflects an individual's motivation and capacity to identify an opportunity and to pursue it, in order to produce new value or economic success (Ajzen 1991, Shapero 1982). Further Ping and Lu (2012) observed that individual’s entrepreneurial intentions are the important variables to predict their entrepreneurial behaviours. Researchers have also been trying to find out the contributions of educational institutions in the development of entrepreneurial intentions although the findings are not entirely conclusive (Küttim, et.al. 2014). Entrepreneurship education can trigger entrepreneurial intentions (Souitaris et al., 2007; Fayolle et al. 2006). Basu and Virick (2008) suggest that educational support may positively reflect on the entrepreneurial attitudes among students. In this background the present study intends to measure the entrepreneurial intentions of youngsters pursuing their Master’s programme in Business Administration.

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Various theories including Ajzen’s (1991) Theory of planned behaviour, Shapero’s model of entrepreneurial event, Bandura’s social cognitive theory and the Entrepreneurial intentions model have been developed to explain entrepreneurial intentions. But the Theory of planned behaviour found its application in most of the research studies. This section focuses on The Theory of planned behaviour and reviews the existing literature on the subject.

2.1. The Theory of Planned Behaviour:

The theory advocates that entrepreneurial intention (Pihie, Bagheri and Sani, 2013) are an accurate predictor of planned behaviour towards starting a new business. The Theory of planned behaviour is based on three factors, namely, attitude towards entrepreneurship, subjective norms and perceived behaviour (Paul and Srivatava, 2016). Attitude towards entrepreneurship basically indicates the degree to which an individual holds positive or negative personal valuation of being an entrepreneur (Ajzen, 2001; Autio, Pathak and Wennberg, 2013). Subjective norms are perceived social pressure to carry out or not to carry out entrepreneurial behaviour (Ajzen, 2001). Perceived behavioural control is the perception of ease or difficulty of becoming an entrepreneur.

2.2. Literature review:

This section reviews studies particularly focusing on entrepreneurial intentions amongst students. Fuller et. al (2018) surveyed 870 students enrolled in the University in southern part of the United States and concluded that personality, cognitions, and self-efficacy are important to consider into the venture creation process. Sáncheza,V.B. and Sahuquillob, C.A. (2018) studied 423 engineering students of Spanish University and found that the entrepreneurship education had a positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions of engineering students. Esfandiar, et.al. (2017) surveyed undergraduate and post graduate students pursuing tourism and concluded that desirability is the main determinant of entrepreneurial intentions followed by self-efficacy, feasibility, opportunity, attitude, and collective-efficacy, while social norms do not influence them. Misoskaa, Dimitrivab, and Mrsika (2016) examined 213 students of Republic of Macedonia Universities and found that the educational system should serve as the main source of support for students regarding their knowledge base about entrepreneurship. This is important since such education can result in more positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, feeling of better control and higher social approval of entrepreneurship. Yıldırım, Çakır, and Aşkun (2016) surveyed 446 engineering and management students from Universities of Turkey and concluded that entrepreneurial intentions of students are considerable for most of the constructs, while the educational programme, university and gender cause significant differences in the intent. Ozaralli N. and Rivenburgh, N.K.(2016) investigated the antecedents to entrepreneurial behaviour with particular attention to social (experience and education), societal (economic and political climate), and personality factors. Considering data of 589 students from US and Turkish universities, positive attitude towards entrepreneurship was found in both U.S. and Turkish students. The result showed low level of entrepreneurial intention. Further, a statistically significant relationship was found among personality attributes of optimism, innovativeness, risk-taking propensity and entrepreneurial intention. Küttim, Kallaste, Venesaar, and Kiis (2014) conducted a cross-sectional study by selecting a sample of students from 17 European countries. It was found that at present what the educational institutions were offering through seminars and lectures was not exactly what was most demanded. Students expected more networking and coaching activities. Further, participation in entrepreneurship education had a positive impact on entrepreneurial intentions. Shinnar, Hsu, and Powell (2014) found a positive relationship between entrepreneurial self-efﬁcacy and entrepreneurial intentions. Pihie, Bagheri and Sani (2013) examined cognitive capacity and entrepreneurial intentions of 722 Malaysian students from public and private universities. It was found that students from public universities scored higher in all dimensions of knowledge of cognition including declarative, procedural and conditional knowledge. However, entrepreneurial intentions of students from private universities were higher than their counterparts form public universities. Peng and Lu (2012) survey 2010 Chinese university students and found that the perceived subjective norm of university students had significantly positive influence on their entrepreneurial attitude and the entrepreneurial self-efficacy while all these factors influence their entrepreneurial intentions significantly. The review of existing literature evidences relationship between entrepreneurial intentions with variables like cognitive knowledge, attitude, perceived behaviour control, self efficacy etc. It is observed that the impact remains inconclusive (Shinnar, Hsu, and Powell, 2014). Moreover, there is dearth of such studies on management graduates in Northern part of India. Hence it is expected that this study will contribute to the existing literature by determining factors affecting entrepreneurial intentions of Northern India students.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

A survey of 280 Management Graduates pursuing their master degree programme in Business Management with 2 credits in entrepreneurship from a University located in Northern India was conducted using a structured questionnaire, an adapted version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). Questionnaire was sent to 350 students and 280 valid responses were received. Dependent variables chosen were entrepreneurial intentions and attitude towards entrepreneurship. Independent variables considered were proactive personality, risk taking propensity, perceived behaviour control and subjective norms. Multi-collinearity issues in the data were checked using correlation coefficient, Tolerance Value and Variance Inflation Factor using SPSS software. Reliability was determined using Cronbach’s Alpha. Correlation, and Regression analysis was used to analyse the data.

4. OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES:

The main objective of the study is to measure the entrepreneurship intentions. However the specific objectives are:

· To examine the effect of attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behaviour control on entrepreneurial intentions.

· To explore the relationship of subjective norms and entrepreneurial intentions

· To study the impact of risk taking propensity and proactive personality on attitude towards entrepreneurship.

Following hypotheses were formulated for the purpose of present study:

H1: Attitude towards entrepreneurship as a career option is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions.

H2: Subjective norm is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions.

H3: Perceived behavioural control exercises the strongest influence on entrepreneurial intentions.

H4: Students with a proactive personality are more likely to have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship.

H5: Students with a high risk taking propensity are more likely to have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship.

Analysis and Interpretations:

This section presents the findings of the study. Table number 1 shows the demographic profile of the respondents under study. As per the table 37.1 percent respondents were male and 62.9 percent were females. Majority of them i.e. 48.6% had done their graduation in Commerce stream, followed by 30% from Non-medical stream, 17% from Medical stream and only 4.3% were from Arts background. 84.3 percent respondents were from urban areas of India and 15.7% were from rural India. 10 percent respondents were already self-employed and 90% were not employed. Parents of 60% respondents were self employed and parents of 40% respondents were in jobs.

Table-1 Demographic Profile of Respondents

Parameters		Frequency	Percentage
Age	<20 years	8	2.9
	20-21 years	24	8.6
	22-23 years	128	45.7
	24-25 years	96	34.3
	>25 years	24	8.6
Educational background at Graduation Level	Arts	12	4.3
	Commerce	136	48.6
	Non-Medical	84	30.0
	Medical	48	17.1
Gender	Male	104	37.1
Gender	Female	176	62.9
Geographical Background	Urban	236	84.3
Geographical Background	Rural	44	15.7
Self Employed	Yes	28	10
Self Employed	No	252	90
Parents self employed	Yes	168	60
	No	112	40

Table-2. Correlation Analysis:

	Educational Background	Gender	Geographical Background	Self Employed	Parents Self Employed	Attitude towards Entrepreneurship	Participation in Entrepreneurship Education	Pro Active Personality	Risk taking Propensity	Attitude towards Entrepreneurship Education	Subjective Norms	Perceived Behavioural Control	Entrepreneurial Intentions
Age	.331^*	-.046	-.095	.033	.223^*	.150	-.073	.105	.160^*	.223^*	.183^*	.065	-.072
Educational Background	1	-.087	.211^*	.070	.078	.112	.088	.091	.057	.079	.138	.152	-.151
Gender		1	-.074	.237^*	-.036	-.177^*	.130	-.326^*	-.200^*	-.183^*	-.116	-.266^*	.235^*
Geographical Background			1	.144	-.112	.020	.229^*	.119	-.063	.002	-.041	.032	-.099
Self Employed				1	.272^*	-.063	.261^*	-.093	-.207^*	.012	-.030	-.107	.269^*
Parents Self Employed					1	-.166^*	.037	-.065	-.106	.020	.047	-.143	.077
Attitude towards Entrepreneurship						1	-.006	.785^*	.514^*	.511^*	.664^*	.807^*	.282^*
Participation in Entrepreneurship Education							1	.026	-.146	-.105	-.161	-.080	-.094
Pro Active Personality								1	.514^*	.512^*	.493^*	.724^*	.329^*
Risk taking Propensity									1	.347^*	.316^*	.449^*	.305^*
Attitude towards Entrepreneurship Education										1	.561^*	.493^*	-.133
Subjective Norms											1	.619^*	-.250^*
Perceived Behavioural Control												1	-.331^*
Entrepreneurial Intentions													1

* Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Cronbach’s Alpha, considered as measure of internal consistency and scale reliability in this case is .777 which means the data is reliable.

Table number 2 shows the relationship between variables considered under study. No significant multi-collinearity issues were found as it occurs when independent variables are highly correlated with each others. Here the correlation values are less than 0.9. A positive relationship exists between attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behaviour control i.e. 0.807 and it statistically significant at 0.001 level. Similarly, attitude towards entrepreneurship is influenced by proactive personality. The statistically significant correlation between them is 0.785. Proactive personality has statistically significant high positive relationship with perceived behaviour control i.e. 0.724. It also has positive and significant relationship with risk taking propensity (0.514), attitude towards entrepreneurship education (0.512), subjective norms (0.493) and entrepreneurial intentions (0.329). Subjective norms also have statistically significant positive relationship with perceived behaviour control i.e. 0.619. Moderate positive and significant relationship exists between attitude towards entrepreneurship and risk taking propensity, attitude towards entrepreneurship education, subjective norms i.e. .514, 511 and .664 respectively. Attitude towards entrepreneurship education has moderately low positive and significant relationship with subjective norms (0.561) and perceived behaviour (0.493). Risk taking propensity has statistically significant low positive relationship with attitude towards entrepreneurship (0.347), subjective norms (0.316) and perceived behaviour control (0.449). Entrepreneurial Intentions have statistically significant low positive relationship with gender (0.235), self employment (0.269), attitude towards entrepreneurship (0.282), proactive personality (0.329), risk taking propensity (0.305) and statistically significant low negative relationship with perceived behaviour control (0.331) and subjective norms (0.250).

Thus, on the basis of foregoing analysis Hypothesis 1 (H1) i.e. attitude towards entrepreneurship as a career option is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions is accepted. Hypothesis number 2 (H2) i.e. Subjective norm is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions is rejected as it is negatively related to entrepreneurship intentions.

Table number 3 shows the results of regression analysis. The concern of multi-collinearity was also tested using Tolerance Value and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) to access pair wise and multiple variable collinearity. Here all tolerance values are greater than 0.1 and VIF values below 10 indicating that multi-collinearity does not pose a serious problem in the results. The acceptable range of the Durbin-Watson statistic is 1.5 to 2.5. In both the models, the value of Durbin-Watson Statistics is within the range.

In model 1 entrepreneurship intentions are dependent variable and attitude towards entrepreneurship, attitude towards entrepreneurship education, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control are independent variables.

According to the table, the R value which is a simple correlation is 0. 588 indicating a moderately high degree of correlation. R² shows that 34.5% variation in entrepreneurial intentions is explained by attitude towards entrepreneurship, attitude towards entrepreneurship education, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. Overall value is statistically significant as indicated by Sig.F Change and Durbin Watson test. Model 1 shows the regression equation using coefficients and provides necessary information to predict entrepreneurial intentions from attitude towards entrepreneurship education, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control as well as helps in determining whether attitude towards entrepreneurship education (ATEE), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioural control (PBC) contributes significantly to the model.

Model-1

Entrepreneurial Intention = 23.842-2.032 (ATEE)-.070 (SN) + 4.752(PBC) + 1.642(ATE)

Model 1 shows that for every increase in a unit of attitude towards entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial intentions will decrease by -2.032 units. Similarly, subjective norms also contribute negatively to entrepreneurial intentions. Thus, it further supports rejection of hypotheses H2. For every increase in Perceived Behaviour Control, entrepreneurial intentions will increase by 4.762. Thus, here it can be concluded that hypothesis number 3 (H3) i.e. Perceived behavioural control exercises the strongest influence on entrepreneurial intentions is accepted. Similarly, increase in one unit of attitude towards entrepreneurship will further increase entrepreneurial intentions. Thus, supporting acceptance of hypothesis H1.

Table-3 Regression

Model 1	Dependent Variable	Independent Variables	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate	Sig. F Change	Durbin-Watson
	Entrepreneurial Intentions	Attitude towards Entrepreneurship, Attitude towards Entrepreneurship Education, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavioural Control	.588^a	.345	.336	39.27978	.000	1.859
			B	Std. Error	Beta	T	Sig.	Tolerance	VIF
		(Constant)	23.842	12.863		1.854	.065
		Attitude towards Entrepreneurship Education	-2.032	.508	-.243	-3.999	.000	.644	1.552
		Subjective Norms	-.070	1.002	-.005	-.069	.945	.483	2.071
		Perceived Behavioural Control	4.752	.858	.469	5.538	.000	.333	3.007
		Attitude towards Entrepreneurship	1.642	.602	.243	2.730	.007	.301	3.319
Model 2	Dependent Variable	Independent Variable	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate	Sig. F Change	Durbin-Watson
	Attitude towards entrepreneurship	Pro Active Personality, Risk taking Propensity	.795^a	.633	.630	4.33250	.000	2.016
			B	Std. Error	Beta	T	Sig.	Tolerance	VIF
		(Constant)	.732	1.552		.472	.637
		Pro Active Personality	.939	.056	.708	16.672	.000	.739	1.359
		Risk taking Propensity	.386	.109	.150	3.533	.000	.739	1.359

5. CONCLUSIONS AND ECOMMENDATIONS:

From the foregoing analysis it can be concluded that attitude towards entrepreneurship of management graduates as a career option is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions. Subjective norms are negatively related to entrepreneurial intentions. Perceived behavioural control exercises the strongest influence on entrepreneurial intentions as compared to other variables under study. Proactive personality and risk taking propensity both have positive relationship with attitude towards entrepreneurship. Students with a proactive personality are more likely to have a positive attitude towards entrepreneurship as compared to the students with a high risk taking propensity. Thus, the probability that a management graduate may start up own business after completing graduation depends upon his own confidence, application of cognitive knowledge about entrepreneurship, personal skills and capabilities. Entrepreneurial intentions are influenced by the attitude towards entrepreneurship i.e. preference of the students to be an entrepreneur rather than a large firm employee and their attractiveness towards own ventures. Proactive personality i.e. exciting of converting idea into reality, excelling in opportunity identification and proactive approach towards sensing opportunity along with undertaking challenges helps in building attitude towards entrepreneurship. Hence, it is suggested that workshop on developing entrepreneurship skills must be a part of management programmes in order to foster entrepreneurship amongst management graduates. Further the programme must focus on developing business plans and sensing business opportunities.

6. REFERENCES:

1. Ajzen, I. The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 1991; 50 (2): 179–211.

2. Ajzen, I. Nature and operation of attitudes. Annual Review of Psychology. 2001; 52 (1): 27–58.

3. Ajzen, I. Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, locus of control, and the theory of planned behaviour. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2002; 32: 1-20.

4. Autio, E., Pathak, S., and Wennberg, K. Consequences of cultural practices for entrepreneurial behaviors. Journal of International Business Studies. 2013; 44: 334–362.

5. Bandura, A. Social foundations of thought and action: Asocial cognitive theory. Prentice Hall. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1986.

6. Bandura, A. Self-efﬁcacy: The exercise of control. Freeman, New York. 1997.

7. Bandura, A. Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 1999; 2(1): 21-41.

8. Barba-Sánchez, V., and Atienza-Sahuquillo, C. Entrepreneurial intention among engineering students: The role of entrepreneurship education. European Research on Management and Business Economics. 2018; 24(1): 53–61. Available at http://doi.org/10.1016/j.iedeen.2017.04.001

9. Baron, R. A. Opportunity recognition as pattern recognition: How entrepreneurs connect the dots to identify new business opportunities. Academy of Management Perspectives. 2006; 12(1):104–119.

10. Basu, A., and Virick, M. Assessing entrepreneurial intentions amongst students: A comparative study. 12th Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate of Inventors and Innovators Alliance, Dallas, USA, 2008; 79–86.

11. Bjørnskov, C., and Foss, N. How strategic entrepreneurship and the institutional context drive economic growth. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. 2013; 7(1): 50–69.

12. Chen, C. C., Greene, P. G., and Crick, A. Does entrepreneurial self-efﬁcacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers? Journal of Business Venture. 1998; 13(4): 295-316.

13. Esfandiar, K., Sharifi-Tehrani, M., Pratt, S., and Altinay, L. Understanding entrepreneurial intentions: A developed integrated structural model approach. Journal of Business Research, (August). Available from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.045/August/2017.

14. Fayolle, A., Gailly, B., and Lassas-Clerc, N. Assessing the impact of entrepreneurship education programmes: a new methodology. Journal of European Industrial Training. 2006; 30(9): 701-720.

15. Fuller, B., Liu, Y., Bajaba, S., Marler, L. E., and Pratt, J. Examining how the personality, self-efficacy, and anticipatory cognitions of potential entrepreneurs shape their entrepreneurial intentions. Personality and Individual Differences, 20–125. Available from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.01.005/October/2017/vol-125.

16. Guerrero, M., Rialp, J., and Urbano, D. The impact of desirability and feasibility on entrepreneurial intentions: A structural equation model. The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal. 2008; 4(1): 35–50.

17. Hall, A., Devaney, S. A., Intention, E., Norms, S., Barba-Sánchez, V., Atienza-Sahuquillo, C., Pratt, J. Conceptualizing academic-entrepreneurial intentions: An empirical test. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 174–181. Available from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.367/August 2016/vol-195.

18. Kuratko, D. F. The emergence of entrepreneurship education: Development, trends, and challenges. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice. 2005; 29: 577–597.

19. Küttim, M., Kallaste, M., Venesaar, U., and Kiis, A. Entrepreneurship education at university level and students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2014; 110: 658–668. Available from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.910

20. Lado, A. A., and Vozikis, G. S. Transfer of technology to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries: An integration and proposed framework. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. 1996; 21:55.

21. Misoskaa, A.T., Dimitrivab, M and Mrsika, J. Drivers of entrepreneurial intentions among business students in Macedonia. Economic Research Ekonomska istRaživanja. 1062–1074 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2016.1211956/2016/vol-29/issue-1.

22. Ozaralli N. and Rivenburgh, N.K. Entrepreneurial intention: antecedents to entrepreneurial behavior in the U.S.A. and Turkey. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research. 2016. DOI 10.1186/s40497-016-0047-x/vol.-6-issue-3.

23. Ozgul, U., and Kunday, O. Conceptual development of academic entrepreneurial intentions scale. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 881–887. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.367

24. Paul, J., and Shrivatava, A. Do young managers in a developing country have stronger entrepreneurial intentions? Theory and debate. International Business Review, 25(6), 1197–1210. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2016.03.003

25. Peng, Z and Lu, G. Entrepreneurial intentions and its influencing factors: A survey of the university students in Xi’an China.” Creative Education. 2012; 3: 95-100.

26. Pihie, Z. A. L., Bagheri, A., and Sani, Z. H. A. Knowledge of cognition and entrepreneurial intentions: implications for learning entrepreneurship in public and private universities. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences.174–181. Available from http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.219/2013/vol-97/

27. Prodan, I., and Drnovsek, M. Conceptualizing academic-entrepreneurial intentions: An empirical test. Technovation. 2010; 30 (5 and 6)

28. Sáncheza,V.B. and Sahuquillob, C.A. Entrepreneurial intention among engineering students: The role of entrepreneurship education. European Research on Management and Business Economics. 2018; 24: 53-61

29. Shapero, A. and L. Sokol. The social dimension of entrepreneurship. The Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurshi. Prentice Hall, 1982.

30. Shinnar, R. S., Hsu, D. K., and Powell, B. C. Self-efficacy, entrepreneurial intentions, and gender: Assessing the impact of entrepreneurship education longitudinally. International Journal of Management Education. 2014; 12(3): 561–570.

31. Souitaris, V., Zerbinati, S., and Al-Laham, A. Do entrepreneurship programmes raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning, inspiration and resources. Journal of Business Venture. 2008; 22(4): 566-591.

32. Yıldırım, N., Çakır, Ö., and Aşkun, O. B. (2016). Ready to dare? A case study on the entrepreneurial intentions of business and engineering students in Turkey. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2016; 229: 277–288.

Received on 17.03.2018 Modified on 12.04.2018

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(2):983-989.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00155.5