Factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions the most for university students in Vietnam: educational support, personality traits or TPB components?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the influence of personality traits, individual factors and theory of planned behaviour (TPB) components (personal attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) on entrepreneurial intentions of university students. The study further aims to determine which factors have a higher influence on the entrepreneurial intentions of the students.

Design/methodology/approach

The data was collected using an online survey from 164 students studying in universities in Vietnam. The study used confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression to analyse the data.

Findings

Results suggested that educational support has no impact on entrepreneurial intentions but individual factors such as self-efficacy, risk propensity and need for power and all the TPB components influenced entrepreneurial intentions. The TPB components had a higher influence on entrepreneurial intentions of students as compared to individual factors.

Originality/value

Only a few studies have been conducted to determine the strength of factors affecting entrepreneurial intensions of the students. This study demonstrates that TPB components have the highest influence on entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the study introduces an independent variable, need for power which is rarely used in any such studies and this adds a new component to the already existing research framework and in academic literature.

Citation

Maheshwari, G. (2021), "Factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions the most for university students in Vietnam: educational support, personality traits or TPB components?", Education + Training, Vol. 63 No. 7/8, pp. 1138-1153. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-02-2021-0074