The antecedents of entrepreneurial intention a study among graduate students in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

There are few research on how factors impact on the entrepreneurial intention of graduate student in Vietnam. Moreover, most scholars just pay attention to the effect of personal traits or characteristics on entrepreneurial intention. This study proposed an integrated research model that explains intentions to start-up by adding two new variables: educational support and contextual elements to the famous theory of planned behavior. In the model, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, educational support and contextual elements are independent variables and entrepreneurial intention is the dependent variable. With the sample of 354 respondents, this cross-sectional research tried to find out the relationship between variables. Attitude is found to be the strongest factor that impacts the intention, followed by subjective norm. Contextual elements are considered as antecedents of personal attitude, and in return it is expected to have influence on entrepreneurial intention. The study makes theoretical contributions to the body of literature by proposing and validating the effect of contextual elements on attitude which in turn impact intention. Practically, the study provides useful knowledge for policy makers to improve the entrepreneurial-wave in our country.