Antecedents, Experiences and Entrepreneurial Intentions among Economics Students

Abstract

The paper is part of a larger research aims to increase the impact of entrepreneurship education on students’ intentions to become an entrepreneur. Based on the literature in the field of youth entrepreneurship and the theory of planned behaviour, the research considers attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control towards entrepreneurship as students’ antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions and exposure to entrepreneurial models, work experience and intuition of trigger events as entrepreneurial experiences. In this context, the paper findings about entrepreneurial intentions of a group of 200 undergraduate students in the first year of study from the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Oradea, Romania, before access to formal entrepreneurship education or/and other entrepreneurial education opportunities. The research tests according with theory of planned behavior if there is a positive correlation between students’ antecedents, respectivelly experiences and entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, the research tests whether there is any link between gender, the residential environment (urban, rural), the family origin and the entrepreneurial intentions of the students. The research results allow university to design entrepreneurial educational offer (curricula, programs, extra-curricular activities, practice-based learning etc.) in order to compensate initially perceived lack of support and expose students to experiences that stimulate their entrepreneurial intentions. Also, the research findings provide managerial implications and policy recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education and programs. Future research steps seek hypothesis retesting for Economics students after access to entrepreneurship education and address other groups of students from non-economic fields of study where, traditionally, the offer of entrepreneurial education is poor or non-existent.