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Research Proposal

On

³How the entrepreneurial intentions differ amongst the university

students? The case of entrepreneurship education in Pakistan´

Submitted By: Uzair Saeed (BS-07-32)

Supervised By: Ms. Seerat Fatima

Dr. Mujahid Ali

Department of Commerce

Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan.

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1. Introduction:

Entrepreneurial activities play an important role in the economic development of the country. But inPakistan Entrepreneurial activity remains limited. According to World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey

2007, that measures entrepreneurial activity in 84 developing and industrial countries, the average annual entry

rate in Pakistan, calculated as new registrations of companies as a percentage of total registered businesses

during previous year, was just 7 percent.

Entrepreneurship is now considered important for economic growth (Aghion et al, 1997; Schumpeter

1934), The low entrepreneurial activity rate of Pakistan deserves special attention. Therefore, the economic

perspective of entrepreneurship in Pakistan are needed to be reviewed so as to create the awareness of

entrepreneurship and to find how the environment can be adjusted to allow entrepreneurship to play a greater

role in the economy.

Since the last two decades the gover nments of developed countries are making different policies for

creating the awareness about Entrepreneurship Education. The tertiary education sector was considered to be

the most important one for developing and supplying a sufficient amount of Potential Entrepreneurs. It would

be much easier to provide the entrepreneurship education to the individuals if they are bor n with skills for

becoming an entrepreneur and providing them with all the facilities for successfully starting and running a

business but its not the case.

There is a need for better understanding of entrepreneurship in Pakistan and for this purpose the

gover nment has to take some serious actions and should devise policies so as to reap the fruits of

entrepreneurship. This project is focused on the Entrepreneurial environment in Pakistan especially to explore

the effects of entrepreneurship education at post secondary level on entrepreneurial intentions of business

graduates or young entrepreneurs who are about to enter in job market and can play an effective role in the

economic development of the country. The academic perspectives of entrepreneurship will be reviewed. The

results of this study will help in better understanding of the mindset of students of Pakistan and can be used in

making such policies regarding entrepreneurship. The objective of this study is to analyze the affects of

entrepreneurial education in developing the entrepreneurial intentions through a comparison of Business and

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non business students on the bases of their faculties and course of entrepreneurship that has been taken by them

The difference between the entrepreneurial orientation of males and females students in Bahauddin Zakariya

University would also be a key concer n of this study.

2. Literature Review:

2.1. Entrepreneurship Education:

According to Brown (2000) entrepreneurship education communicates and built the competencies, skills

and other abilities that are needed for recognizing the opportunities and starting a new venture. Gorman

Hanlon, and King, (1997) declared entrepreneurship education as training programs that focus on issues of

entrepreneurship. Creative thinking along with promoting a strong sense of self confidence is basic essence of

Entrepreneurship education which usually considered as a teaching business to someone (McMullan and Long

1987; Vesper and McMullen, 1998). Lear ning about how to start a business is a key feature of entrepreneurship

education but it does includes other emer ging issues like managing the business and successfully running it on a

long run.

2.2. Importance of Entrepreneurship Education:

Many authors Kolvereid and Moen, 1997; Noel, 2001; Tkachev and Kolvereid, 1999; Varela andJimenez, 2001) in their researches and empirical studies have found a link between entrepreneurial education

and propensity to become an entrepreneur. Economic relevance of entrepreneurial activity is determined by

various authors and entrepreneurial education altering the intentions of an individual thus matters in the

economic development of a country.

2.3. Entrepreneurial Education impact on Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Empirically, it is tested by various authors that the entrepreneurship education has direct impact on

different proxies of entrepreneurship which includes entrepreneurial intentions, various competencies regarding

entrepreneurship and feasibility and desirability of business ventures. Peterman & Kennedy, 2003; Souitaris et

al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2007; Char ney & Libecap, 2000; Athayde, 2009). The feasibility-quality of being

doable and desirability- quality of being desirable are the most important aspects of human behaviors towards

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doing anything. Intention to start a venture i.e. establishing a new firm or business, is the best predictor of a

person¶s behavior towards entrepreneurial activity. Consequently the results of entrepreneurship education are

measured by a positive change in entrepreneurship as a career choice as the studies do have found that the

entrepreneurial intentions can be affected by entrepreneurship education.

2.4. Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Intentions are basically the individual¶s motivation of making an effort to act upon a conscious plan or

decision (Conner and Armitage, 1998).Generally, intention is the cognitive state immediately prior to executing

behavior(Krueger, 2005).Thus, an entrepreneurial intention is about the inclination of an individual to start a

new entrepreneurial activity in the future (Davidson, 1995).It is a key determinant of the action of a new venture

creation moderated by exogenous variables such as family back ground, position in ones family, parent¶s

occupation and education and training (Bird and Jelinek, 1998)

Other studies includes Edger Izquierdo studied the impacts of different contextual and endogenous

factors on the intentions of university alumni for creating a new venture. Specifically factors individua

motivational dispositions, entrepreneurial competencies and perceived behaviors impact was seen on intentions

by him. (Izquierdo, et. al., 2005).Clement studued the drivers of interest in entrepreneurship among the

under graduate students of Singapore universities. He found that back ground factors like gender, family business

exposure and education level are significant with entrepreneurial interest and inadequate business k nowledge

and perceived. (Clement, et. al., 2004)

Becahrd and others rose questions that to which extent entrepreneurship is a function of personality

traits or whether entrepreneurship intrigues k nowledge and skills which is affected or developed through

education. Senem and Turker examines in their study that educational, structural and relational support alter the

intentions of university students. (Turker, et. al., 2008). Jan Lepoutre contributed for understanding the affects

of entrepreneurship education among the secondary school students and found that as the intensity of

experientiality (practicality) of entrepreneurship programs increases, its impact on the variables investigatedalso increases. (Leopoutre, et. al., 2006).Carr and Sequeira indicates that prior family buisenes exposure

directly or indirectly affects the entrepreneurial intent.(Carr, et. al., 2006). Azhar and Annum measured factors

affecting Entrepreneurial Intentions among business students in Pakistan. They found that personal attraction

perceived social norms and perceived social behavior.(Azhar, et. al., 2009)

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Souitaris, Zerbinati and Al-Laham tests the affect of entrepreneurial education and programs on the

entrepreneurial intentions of science and engineering students. Their results show that these programs raise

some attitudes and intentions and the most important benefit of these programs was Inspiration amongst the

lear ning and incubation of recourses.( Souitaris, et. al., 2004)The changes in entrepreneurial intentions were

than further explored through using different intention models like Shapero Entrepreneurial Event(Shapero &

Sokol, 1982) or the Ajzen¶s Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB) (Ajzen, 1991. Both models have different

approaches towards personality traits and entrepreneurship. In the end, it can be concluded that entrepreneurship

education initiatives are still inconclusive and further study is needed to explore this area.

3. Research Questions:

y What is the influence of entrepreneurial education along with the factors such as personality

traits and demographics on the entrepreneurial intentions of the students?

y Whether there lies a difference between the entrepreneurial orientation of business students and

students belonging to other disciplines.

y Whether the entrepreneurial intentions of the students having a major in business differ amongst

those who have taken an entrepreneurship course and those who have not taken.

y Whether the entrepreneurial intentions differs amongst male and female students.

4. Hypothesis:

Ho1: The students having a major in business have higher entrepreneurial intentions than students from other

areas of study.

Ho2: The students who have taken an entrepreneurship course have higher entrepreneurial intentions than those

who have not taken an entrepreneurship course.

Ho3: The male students have higher entrepreneurial intentions as compared to female students.

Ho4: The business students have higher entrepreneurial competencies than non business students.

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5. Research Methodology:

5.1 Population:

For measuring the impacts of entrepreneurship education the population for this study constitutes the

under graduate students from all the present faculties of Bahauddin Zakariya University.

5.2. Sampling Methodology:

Sampling would be done for the general students from all disciplines by pilot testing and than using the

standard error and variance methods. Whole population of students who have taken an entrepreneurship course

would be taken as a sample whether they belong to Business studies or other studies. The population of business

students who would be present on the time of Survey and who have not taken an entrepreneurship course would

also be taken as whole for sample. The scheme of selecting the sample is attached in the end of this paper in

Appendix B.

5.1 Data Collection techniques:

In this study we will conduct survey through Questionnaires adopted from Liñán (2005), k nown as

³Entrepreneurial Intension Questionnaire´ to collect the data for analysis .The Questionnaire is attached in the

Appendix A. This questionnaire assesses the entrepreneurial intensions based on different variables. All of these

variables have been measured using Likert ±type scale.

1. Education and experience

2. Entrepreneurial K nowledge

3. Professional Attraction

4. Social valuation

5. Entrepreneurial Capacity

6. Entrepreneurial Intention

7. Entrepreneurship education

8. Personnel data (demographics)

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5.3. Analytical techniques:

The data collected will be analyzed through the following techniques:

y Cor n Bach¶s Alpha

y SPSS

y R egression Analyses

y Factor analyses

y R eliability analyses.

5.4. Time Frame of activities (Gantt chart)

Survey: 10 days from the acceptance of proposal

Analyses: 20 days after the survey would be conducted

Thesis writing: 1month and 10 days from findings.

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List of References:

Already consulted:

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Kolvereid, L. and Moen, Ø. (1997), ³Entrepreneurship among business graduates: does a major in

entrepreneurship make a difference?´, Jour nal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 154-60.

Lin×a n, F. (2004b), ³Intention-based models of entrepreneurship education´ , Piccolla Impresa/Small Business

No. 3, pp. 11-35.

Ajzen, I. (2002): ³Perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy, locus of control, and the theory of planned

behavior ́ , Jour nal of Applied Social Psychology, 32, 1-20.

Krueger, N.F. and Carsrud, A.L. (1993): ³Entrepreneurial intentions: applying the theory of planned behavior ́

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Krueger, N. F., R eilly, M. D., & Carsrud, A. L. 2000. Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions. Jour nal of

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Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority, (2007)ìDeveloping SME

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http://www.smepolicy.net.pk/SME_Issues_Paper.pdf

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Gorman, G., Hanlon, D., and King, W. (1997), Some Research Perspectives on

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high growth firms?´, Education þ Training, Vol. 44 Nos 8/9, pp. 398-405.

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Singapore´, Technovation, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 163-72. Peterman, N.E. & Kennedy, J(2003).

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Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 28, 129±144.

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