Does university play significant role in shaping entrepreneurial intention? A cross-country comparative analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this article is To foster entrepreneurship among students and incubate more start-ups for economic prosperity, universities around the globe are required to play a key role in terms of developing an overall conducive eco-system for student fraternity. Some previous studies have analyzed student entrepreneurship and the effect of entrepreneurship courses. However, the role of university as provider and enabler of entrepreneurial environment and its impact on entrepreneurial intent among student has not studied in a cross-cultural context. Considering this, the present study seeks to examine the critical role played by university in fostering entrepreneurial intention among post-graduate students. For the said purpose, researcher has taken the broader framework suggested by Kraaijenbrink et al. (2010) to understand university environment and Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1975) to measure entrepreneurial intention and it’s antecedents among the sample of final year post-graduate management students of India, Malaysia and Singapore. The total sample size is 1097. The data has been analysed with the help of Exploratory Factor analysis, MANOVA and Structural Equation Modeling. Two factors that emerged out of analysis in relation to university environment and support were: a) Targeted cognitive and non-cognitive support and b) General educational support. With the help of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), an attempt was made to find the relationship between these two factors and entrepreneurial intention. It was found that university environment and support has significantly positive relationship with perceived behavioural control. With the help of MANOVA, it was found that there is statistically significant difference between perceived university environment and support factors among the students of India, Singapore and Malaysia. With this, it was also found that for both the factors, the highest mean score was found among the students of Malaysia, followed by the students of Singapore and India. The study has closely examined role played by University environment and support to foster entrepreneurship among young students. The findings of the study can be used by post-graduate educational institute to design pedagogy, create enabling entrepreneurship support system and work towards becoming an entrepreneurial university.