Good Entrepreneurial Intentions, No Entrepreneurial Action

Abstract

Against the background of the extremely high youth unemployment rate in South Africa, a survey was conducted among final-year undergraduate business students, asking them to rate the importance of five entrepreneurial processes: 1) obtaining entrepreneurship-related education, 2) searching, 3) planning, 4) marshalling, 5) implementing. Responses indicated that they recognized the importance of all five and also displayed personality traits positively related to individual entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intent. Continuing deterioration in youth employment nonetheless suggests that good entrepreneurial intentions do not translate into sustainable entrepreneurial action. Respondents failed to recognize the importance of their lecturers' role in their business education and seemed not to perceive that they needed intensive support from their lecturers to become entrepreneurial. They also failed to recognize the crucial importance of solid ground-work before starting a new business. These gaps in knowledge have an important bearing on the high unemployment rate.