Entrepreneurial Intentions of Tabuk University Students: A Study of Influencing Factors Using the Theory of Planned Behavior

Khalel, Nabil Mohamed Morsy; Sharawy, Mohamed Fathy Shalkamy

doi:10.21608/acj.2017.44667

Entrepreneurial Intentions of Tabuk University Students: A Study of Influencing Factors Using the Theory of Planned Behavior

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Business Administration department Faculty of Commerce Alexandria University Alexandria Egypt

² Department of Personnel Management and Behavioral Sciences Sadat Academy for Management Sciences Cairo Egypt

10.21608/acj.2017.44667

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been recognized as one of the major forces to promote economic and social development across many countries in the world. Many studies have proven that it has a significant contribution for economic development which is achieved by creating employment opportunities and generating innovation. Entrepreneurs are crucial for national and regional economic development. Many studies suggest that examining entrepreneurial intention is a meaningful approach to study actual entrepreneurial behavior. The significance examining entrepreneurial intention is evident from recent empirical studies in the field of entrepreneurship (Table 1). Entrepreneurial intention is the first step and central to understand the entrepreneurship process to start up a new business. The main aim of this proposal is to conduct an empirical study to examine the entrepreneurial intention among students of Tabuck University by applying the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991 ) in the context of a different society and culture than those of previous studies. Thus, about 324 students were studied in the bachelor's degree, and the results of the study showed that there were statistically significant correlation between the independent variables in the current study (trend social criteria behavioral control) and the dependent variable, which is the entrepreneurial intention. On the other hand, the results of the study indicate that there are no statistically significant correlations between the variables of the entrepreneurial background on the one hand and the entrepreneurial intention on the other. For differences in social background variables, differences were found in variables (behavioral direction, social criteria, and entrepreneurial intentions) by gender (male / female). As for the field of specialization, it was noticed that the variable trend towards leading behavior varies according to the field of specialization (Finance and investment business administration accounting marketing).

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