Factors influencing polytechnic students’ decision to graduate as entrepreneurs

Abstract

The existence of supply–demand gaps in graduate output not only contributes to the problem of graduate unemployment but also undermines the efficiency of public investment in tertiary education, and therefore the issue needs to be addressed. Because of this, it is critical to focus on graduates and understand which factors affect their intentions to start-up a business in the future. This paper examines the factors that influence polytechnic students’ decision to graduate as entrepreneurs. The study used primary data which was collected from 250 students randomly selected from the Kumasi polytechnic. It employed descriptive statistics and the probit model to analyse the factors influencing the decisions by polytechnic students to graduate as entrepreneurs. The results of this study show that personality factors (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness), support from family members and friends, occupation of parents, entrepreneurship education, gender and access to finance have significant positive effect on polytechnic students’ decision to graduate as entrepreneurs while students care about public remarks on their decisions has a significant negative effect.