Influence of University and Socio-Economic Status on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Students

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of the University
Name of the Student
Author Note

SOCIOLOGY 1
Abstract
In the last few decades, entrepreneurship has attracted attention. This problem is mainly because
businesses are increasingly needed by creating fresh thoughts and turning into lucrative
enterprises to accelerate economic development. Entrepreneurship is not just the incubator of
technological progress; it also offers opportunities for jobs and competitiveness. Very few
initiations have been made towards the research and finding of the factor of the influence of the
university and the support from the university towards the entrepreneurial intentions of the
students. This research study aims to find influence and the support of the university over the
entrepreneurial intentions of the university students. The problem statement of the research is an
attempt to fill the gap in the review of the literature with the examination of the relationship of
several of the factors, including the support and the influence of the university. The research
used primary data collection procedure followed by regression analysis. The study includes a
thorough discussion summing up with a conclusion in the following chapters.

SOCIOLOGY 2
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Introduction.............................................................................................................5
1.1 Overview...........................................................................................................................5
1.2 Problem Statement.................................................................................................................6
1.3 Research Aim.........................................................................................................................7
1.4 Research Objectives...............................................................................................................8
1.5 Research Questions................................................................................................................8
1.6 Research Rationale................................................................................................................8
1.7 Structure of the paper.............................................................................................................9
Chapter 2 - Literature Review.......................................................................................................12
2.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................12
2.1.1 Entrepreneurial intentions.............................................................................................13
2.1.2 Attitudes............................................................................................................................17
2.1.3 Socio economic status...................................................................................................18
2.2 Theoretical background and Hypothesis Development.......................................................19
2.2.1 Introduction...................................................................................................................19
2.2.2 Shapero and Sokal’s (1982) Entrepreneurial Event Theory.........................................20
2.2.3 Theory of Planned Behaviour - Ajzen’s.......................................................................21
2.2.4 The Holland’s Theory of Careers.................................................................................23
2.3 College Impact Models........................................................................................................24
2.3.1 The Input – Environment – Output (I-E-O) Model......................................................24
2.4 Empirical Studies.................................................................................................................27
2.4.1 Student Input Variables................................................................................................27
2.4.2 Guardian’s entrepreneurship.........................................................................................28
2.4.3 Educational goals..........................................................................................................29
2.4.4 University Support........................................................................................................30
2.4.5 Perceived contextual support............................................................................................32
Hypothesis.................................................................................................................................34
Chapter 3 - Methodology...............................................................................................................36
3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................36
3.1.1 Research method outline:.............................................................................................36
3.2 Research Onion:...................................................................................................................37

SOCIOLOGY 3
3.3 Research Philosophy:...........................................................................................................38
3.3.1 Justification for the chosen research philosophy:.........................................................39
3.4 Research Approach:.............................................................................................................39
3.4.1 Justification for the chosen research approach:............................................................40
3.5 Research Design:.................................................................................................................40
3.5.1 Justification for the chosen research design:................................................................42
3.6 Research strategy:................................................................................................................42
3.7 Selection of Sampling Methods and Sample size:...............................................................42
3.8 Data collection method:.......................................................................................................43
3.8.1 Secondary Research:.....................................................................................................43
3.8.2. Primary Research:........................................................................................................44
3.9 Data Analysis Technique:....................................................................................................45
3.10 Sampling Method...............................................................................................................46
3.11. Research limitation:..........................................................................................................47
3.12 Time horizon:.....................................................................................................................47
3.13 Summary:...........................................................................................................................48
Chapter 4 - Results.........................................................................................................................50
4.1 Overview..............................................................................................................................50
4.2 Demographic Analysis.........................................................................................................50
4.3 Inferential Statistics.............................................................................................................55
4.5 Regression Analysis.............................................................................................................57
4.6 Impact of controlled variables on Entrepreneur Intention...................................................58
4.7 Impact of Present Economic status on Entrepreneur Intention...........................................59
4.8 Impact of Childhood Economic status on Entrepreneur Intention......................................59
4.9 Impact of University Support on Entrepreneur Intention....................................................59
4.10 Impact of Present economic status on Entrepreneurship Intention- with Moderating
Variable......................................................................................................................................59
4.11 Impact of Current economic status on the Entrepreneurship Intention- With moderating
variable......................................................................................................................................60
4.12 Hypothesis Testing............................................................................................................60
4.13 Summary............................................................................................................................61
Chapter 5 – Discussion..................................................................................................................62
5.1 Discussion............................................................................................................................62

SOCIOLOGY 4
5.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................66
Chapter 6 - Conclusion................................................................................................................71
6.1 Limitations and future research suggestion.........................................................................71
6.2 Conclusion and Summary....................................................................................................72
References......................................................................................................................................77

SOCIOLOGY 5
Chapter One – Introduction

SOCIOLOGY 6
1.1 Overview
The economic growth of the nation and the empowerment of the individuals are being driven by
the entrepreneurship. From the times of the primitive ages, the economists have recognised the
development or the emergence of business together with the success of small and mediocre
business forms are associated with the factors like the creation of jobs and innovation. The
context of the entrepreneurship offers some of the significant changes or the opportunities for the
individual towards the achievement of their financial independence (Saeed et al. 2015). The
discovery of the factors that impacts the choice of an individual for pursuing the ownership of
independent business leads to insights that affect the economic growth and economic
development.
The essentiality of the educational training and support of entrepreneurship has been long
recognised as one of the essential factors for the start-ups. According to the research,
entrepreneurship has got the attention of the scholars and the policymakers due to the
requirement for the entrepreneurs contributing to the development of the economy.
Entrepreneurs help in the event by the generation of the ideas and turning them to profitable
ventures that provide excellent job opportunities (Pruett et al. 2009). Thus the boost towards the
opportunities of entrepreneurship is very much essential for the stimulation of the growth where
the individuals in the society can learn the stimulation of the intensity and volume reading the
activities of entrepreneurship.
In the last few decades, entrepreneurship has attracted attention. This problem is mainly because
businesses are increasingly needed by creating fresh thoughts and turning into lucrative
enterprises to accelerate economic development. Entrepreneurship is not just the incubator of
technological progress; it also offers opportunities for jobs and competitiveness.

SOCIOLOGY 7
In the entrepreneurship literature, however, there is little proof of the measurement of ES among
learners who learn in schools far from the real entrepreneurial culture in the metropolitan area.
Unlike in urban fields, in developing and rural regions, academic organisations have limited
access to give students a practical orientation to start up and run a company; for example,
internship opportunities (Denanyoh, Adjei and Nyemekye 2015). Those who learn there could,
therefore, have insufficient business expertise which could lead to a negative situation for
entrepreneurship. If so, it would add another question that policymakers should address, since it
does not only increase unemployment problems and also delays the financial development and
progress of the country. Consequently, it is equally important to assess the entrepreneurship
perspective between many learners from rural schools, comparable to the metropolitan areas.
1.2 Problem Statement
Though there has been several of the previous studies demonstrating the relationship
among the characteristic of the individual including the factors such as the beliefs,
characteristics, entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes, very few initiations have been
made towards the research and finding of the factor of the influence of the university and
the support from the university towards the entrepreneurial intentions of the students. The
influence and the support of the university furthermore includes the factors like career
choice of student, environment of university, socio economic status of students that needs
to be analysed since very little empirical research has been done towards the connection
and the relationship among the environment and the support of the university and the
development of the intention of the university students for owning and starting their own
business structure (Shook and Bratianu 2010). Till the current date, the research
regarding the relationship among the university and the intentions of the entrepreneurship