Title: Undergraduate students' entrepreneurial intention: born or made?

Authors: Kim Hoe Looi; Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore

Addresses: School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts, Taylor's University, No. 1, Jalan Taylor's, 47650 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia ' Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan QLD 4111, Australia

Abstract: Entrepreneurship is a source of innovation, job creation and economic growth, as such it is pivotal to attract the young and the educated to become entrepreneurs. Undergraduates are an important source of nascent entrepreneurs in the future and consequently it is interesting to explore their intention for opportunity entrepreneurship. However, there is intellectual disagreement whether entrepreneurs are born or made. This is a post-positivist study, cross-sectional and the level of analysis is individual. Hierarchical regression analysis shows that family business background and gender explained largest and significant incremental variance in students' entrepreneurial intention. Consequently, the findings from this study lend support to the notion that entrepreneurs are more likely born. Knowledge generated from this study is valuable in the design of entrepreneurship education, training and development policy to promote opportunity entrepreneurship.

Keywords: background factors; entrepreneurial intentions; born or made; opportunity entrepreneurship; undergraduate students; nascent entrepreneurs; family business background; gender; entrepreneurship education; training.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2015.071317

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2015 Vol.26 No.1, pp.1 - 20

Received: 30 Dec 2014
Accepted: 30 Dec 2014
Published online: 20 Aug 2015 *

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