Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Entrepreneurial intentions of Colombian business students

Entrepreneurial intentions of Colombian business students The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in the light of social cognitive theory to investigate the role of social capital, specifically the leadership skill as a social capital generating influence in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions.Design/methodology/approachA new conceptualization of TPB is proposed to allow the impact of bonding and bridging cognitive social capital to be mediated by TPB constructs of perceived desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurship. Hypotheses are developed related to leadership skills, family background and social norms as external and internal indicators of social capital, and tested on primary data from 322 student respondents in a Colombian business school.FindingsLeadership skills, indicative of bridging cognitive social capital, are found to be strongly and significantly associated with entrepreneurial intentions through the mediating role of the core TPB constructs. Evidence for the role of bonding social capital through measures of the social acceptability of entrepreneurship and family background is mixed, and in the case of family background no indirect association with intentions is found.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the Latin American context would suggest significant population variation in personal and background resource, there is relatively little variation across this sample, particularly in terms of family background. Thus, rates of graduate entrepreneurship may relate more closely to constraints acting on entry into higher education than on other background characteristics, and therefore future work in similar contexts ought to be conducted across a wider socio-economic sample.Practical implicationsOpportunities to develop and enhance student perception of leadership ability through either education or experience might improve levels of graduate entrepreneurship, alongside traditional activities to raise self-efficacy and perceived salience of entrepreneurship.Originality/valueStudent leadership skills have rarely been addressed in the context of entrepreneurship development. This paper highlights the relevance of this in a developing economy context. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research Emerald Publishing

Entrepreneurial intentions of Colombian business students

Download PDF
16 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/entrepreneurial-intentions-of-colombian-business-students-NRjlcd0JPk

References (87)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1355-2554
DOI
10.1108/ijebr-01-2017-0031
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reconceptualize the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in the light of social cognitive theory to investigate the role of social capital, specifically the leadership skill as a social capital generating influence in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions.Design/methodology/approachA new conceptualization of TPB is proposed to allow the impact of bonding and bridging cognitive social capital to be mediated by TPB constructs of perceived desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurship. Hypotheses are developed related to leadership skills, family background and social norms as external and internal indicators of social capital, and tested on primary data from 322 student respondents in a Colombian business school.FindingsLeadership skills, indicative of bridging cognitive social capital, are found to be strongly and significantly associated with entrepreneurial intentions through the mediating role of the core TPB constructs. Evidence for the role of bonding social capital through measures of the social acceptability of entrepreneurship and family background is mixed, and in the case of family background no indirect association with intentions is found.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the Latin American context would suggest significant population variation in personal and background resource, there is relatively little variation across this sample, particularly in terms of family background. Thus, rates of graduate entrepreneurship may relate more closely to constraints acting on entry into higher education than on other background characteristics, and therefore future work in similar contexts ought to be conducted across a wider socio-economic sample.Practical implicationsOpportunities to develop and enhance student perception of leadership ability through either education or experience might improve levels of graduate entrepreneurship, alongside traditional activities to raise self-efficacy and perceived salience of entrepreneurship.Originality/valueStudent leadership skills have rarely been addressed in the context of entrepreneurship development. This paper highlights the relevance of this in a developing economy context.

Journal

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research – Emerald Publishing

Published: Oct 16, 2017

Keywords: Social capital; Latin America; Leadership skills; Theory of planned behaviour; Entrepreneurial intention

There are no references for this article.