The impact of the components of planned behavior on entrepreneurial intentions among university students in Puebla, Mexico

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to obtain the impact of the components of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) on the entrepreneurial intention of university students. Using a sample of 336 students from a Technological University in the State of Puebla, México, we calculate four components of Planned Behavior that measure Attitude (AT), Subjective and Social Norms (SSN), Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC), and Attraction to Entrepreneurship (AE). We apply four methodologies to obtain the impact of the treatment of obtaining high scores in the TPB on entrepreneurial intention, using as identification assumption that individuals cannot control the intensity of the score they achieve. Our results show that the PBC is the most important element of TPB in predicting entrepreneurship intentions. The main limitation is that our results apply only for university students in Puebla, Mexico. Our main contribution is the obtention of TPB’s causal impact.