Entrepreneurial intentions in the field of IT: The role of gender typed personality and entrepreneurship education

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is considered as a major motor behind economic development and innovation. Tertiary students are one step away from taking serious career decisions and as a result, a large number of articles try to decipher the mechanisms behind the development of their entrepreneurial intentions. Personality traits, factors of the social environment and the role of entrepreneurship education are among the factors investigated by previous research. However, entrepreneurial intentions in the field of Information Technology remain understudied. In this research drawing from gender schemas theory and the theory of planned behavior, we investigate the impact of gender typed personality and social norms in conjunction with the role of entrepreneurial education. The sample consists of tertiary Information Technology students. In contrast to previous research, social norms have a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions, in comparison to entrepreneurial education which has a marginally weaker effect. Additionally, certain personality traits stereotypically associated with the masculinity have a major predicting ability on these intentions. The findings have valuable implications for educators and entrepreneurship course designers.