own business (Crant, 1996), also found to be a good predictor of actual ..... seen as the âroad to successâ, (UCN4) Starting your own business is a respected ...
Exploring the Relationship between University Context and Entrepreneurial Intentions: Institutional Perspective Abstract Whether or not entrepreneurs are born or made is a highly debated topic. Although positive effects of entrepreneurial education are often hypothesised, recent empirical studies provide quite contradicting results (Souitaris et al., 2007). While entrepreneurial education becomes more and more common, in some educational institutions it proves to forester positive results (Fayolle et al., 2006) but not in other (Oosterbeek et al., 2010). At the same time students spend four or more years in the educational environment and that might also affect the way they perceive certain types of activities or behaviour. It is therefore can be suggested that entrepreneurial spirit of educational institutions can enhance student’s start-up intentions. In this study, we test this suggestion on the sample of 4425 Russian students enrolled into different educational programs. In order to estimate the impact of educational institutions on student’s entrepreneurial intentions, at least two components are important. First, the university context (UC) which refers to closest environment in which the students operate should be considered. Secondly, the personal traits and family entrepreneurial experience of the individuals involved in educational process are crucial for decision to start own business. Building on the institutional theory (Scott, 1995; Busenitz et al., 2000) this study suggests that regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of the university context (Oftedal et al., forthcoming) are positively related to student’s entrepreneurial intentions. However, the nature of these relationships is changed once we take into consideration student’s individual characteristics such as gender, family entrepreneurial background and self-efficacy. Key words: entrepreneurial intentions, university context, institutional perspective, regulative, normative, cognitive dimensions, Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS), Russia.
Introduction Entrepreneurship education seems to become more common than ever before, as both developed and developing countries are target to foster entrepreneurial activity among young generation.
Entrepreneurship education plays a key role in identifying entrepreneurial
opportunities (Shane, 2000; Davidsson, Honig, 2003; Ucbasaran et al., 2008) and in successfully exploiting them (Robinson, Sexton, 1994; Gimeno et al., 1997). Entrepreneurship 1
is seen as the key force for creating new working places and for bringing prosperity to nations (GEM, 2013). Entrepreneurial intentions that can be defined as one’s desire to start or acquire own business (Crant, 1996), also found to be a good predictor of actual entrepreneurial behavior (Kolvereid and Isaksen, 2006). As Krueger et al. (2000, p. 411) argue: “intentions have proven to be the best predictor of planned behavior, particularly when that behavior is rare, hard to observe, or involves unpredictable time lags.” In this perspective, entrepreneurial intentions serve as the key to understanding the entrepreneurial process as they guide subsequent action and motivation to create a new venture (Bae et al. 2014. It is therefore important to study factors that might enhance entrepreneurial intentions. During the last decade many studies in entrepreneurship literature have addressed factors that might increase student’s entrepreneurial desire (Autio et al., 2001; Bae et al. 2014; Iakovleva et al., 2011; Sanchez, 2013). There are several theories that tend to explain forces that drive individual intentions to start up a business1, with such concepts as self-efficacy (DeNoble et al., 1999), role models (Van Auken et al., 2006), risk taking propensity (Hisrich, Peters, 1995), gender (Wilson et al., 2007; Marlow, McAdam, 2011) proved to provide consistent results in explaining entrepreneurial behavior and entrepreneurial intentions. Although these theories are useful and important, they mainly address personal traits and patterns of an individual. At the same time, it is often argued that there are external factors, for example educational environment, that might positively affect entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes (Dohse, Walter, 2012; Fayolle et al., 2006; Kuratko, 2005; Mueller, 2011; Sanchez, 2013). However, empirical evidence for this hypothesis is mixed. Some authors report contradicting results indicating that participating in entrepreneurship courses dampens entrepreneurial intentions among students (Oosterbeek et al., 2010; Souitaris et al., 2007), while concurrently having a positive effect on skills and attitudes toward entrepreneurship. It should be noted that the current state of the art is based on a very diverse set of research attempts, mainly performed on students that were involved in very different type of programs in terms of length, intensity and purpose. It not surprising that the results are mixed. While it is difficult to compare outcomes of educational programs, it is much more feasible to compare and assess the effects of the general climate or sprit of the educational place. 1
Several theories tend to explain entrepreneurial intentions. These include the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Azjen, 1991), Shapero and Sokol’s (1982) theory of the entrepreneurial events, the model of implementing entrepreneurial ideas (Bird, 1988), and the maximization of the expected utility model (Douglas, Shepherd, 2002). In addition, recent studies argue that concepts like autonomy (Van Gelderen, Jansen, 2006), role models (Van Auken et al., 2006), improvisation (Hmieleski, Corbett, 2006), and affect (Baron, 2008) might be used to predict entrepreneurial intent. Personal traits such as locus of control (Bonnett, Furnham, 1991), risk taking propensity (Hisrich, Peters, 1995), and need for achievement (Johanson, 1990) are also proven to be related to intentions.
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In some universities or educational institutions entrepreneurship is seen as respected and natural carrier path, which, in combination with formally and informally supporting educational environment, can stimulate students to try start-up activities. In other institutions it is uncommon for students to consider themselves as entrepreneur or to choose entrepreneurship as a possible carrier path. Clearly, such environment can discourage individuals from being entrepreneurial. Moreover, Fayolle and Liñán (2014) raise the call for further research that could investigate the role of institutions and context and their influence on entrepreneurial intentions. Regulative, normative and cognitive institutions (Shane, 2008) influence, both directly and indirectly, the perceptions that individuals may have about the desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurship. Also institutions can both constrain and enable entrepreneurial desire and intentions (Welter, Smallbone, 2012). Thus, the first research question in this paper is how the different institutional dimensions of university context relate to the students’ entrepreneurial intentions? Furthermore, comparable to previous studies in developing countries and emerging economies such Byabashaija and Katono (2011), who studied the impact of college entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurial intentions in Uganda, and Zhang, Duystera and Cloodt (2014), who explored the role of entrepreneurship education as a predictor of university students’ entrepreneurial intentions in China, we also expect that in Russia there are some important moderating factors at the individual level that combine with university context to influence entrepreneurial intentions. In particular, our second research question is whether the student’s individual characteristics such as gender and family entrepreneurial background can change the relationship between university context and student’s entrepreneurial intentions? In order to address these research questions we adopt the institutional perspective for the university context proposed in (Oftedal et al., forthcoming) and apply reliable measures for three institutional dimensions of university context - regulative (entrepreneurial support), normative (image of entrepreneur) and cognitive (knowledge of fellow students) and empirically test the relationship of university context and entrepreneurial intentions of students with different individual characteristics based on the sample of 4425 students enrolled in the different educational programs across Russian Federation. The study contributes to existing literature on student’s entrepreneurial intentions in at least two ways. First, we further extend the theory of entrepreneurial intentions by exploring the relationship between university context and student entrepreneurial intentions by adopting the institutional perspective at the university level.
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Second, we emphasize the role of student’s individual characteristics and family entrepreneurial background in the relationship between the university context and student’s entrepreneurial intentions. Some recent studies indicate that consideration of pre-education entrepreneurial intentions will help us understand the true relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions (Bae et al., 2014; Oosterbeek et al., 2010; Graevenitz et al., 2010). The main idea behind this call for such studies that a student’s entrepreneurial intentions may not be determined by entrepreneurship education, but rather by prior beliefs before enrolling into university (Bae et al., 2014). Therefore we address this call for research by emphasizing the role of student’s individual characteristics and prior entrepreneurial experience when interacting with the university context. We argue that these moderators may change the relationship between university context and student’s entrepreneurial intentions. The paper proceeds as follows. We first examine the extant literature and develop the theoretical foundation for the study. Based on this foundation, a research model and set of hypotheses are formulated. The research design for an empirical study in which these hypotheses are tested is then presented, followed by a discussion of the results. Implications are drawn for ongoing development of entrepreneurial intentions literature as well as for the design of university entrepreneurship infrastructure and university institutional environment .
Theory and Research Hypotheses University context and entrepreneurial intentions There is a large and growing literature dealing with individual-level determinants of entrepreneurship. In this stream of literature it is argued that individuals who are, for instance, more achievement oriented (Collins et al., 2004), more risk tolerant (Douglas, Shepherd, 2002), more self-efficacious (Chen et al., 1998; Krueger, Brazeal, 1994; Markman et al., 2002; McMullen, Shepherd, 2006), more creative (Lee, Wong, 2004), male (deBruin et al., 2007) are more likely to exploit an entrepreneurial opportunity (Dohse, Walter, 2012). In addition to personal traits, the importance of prior knowledge (Shane, 2000), social contacts and networks (Aldrich et al., 1987; Davidsson, Honig, 2003; Cope et al., 2007) to entrepreneurship has come into focus. Despite of important role of the personality traits on a person’s real entrepreneurial behaviors, there are other second-level variables that might affect behavior. In addition to personality traits, environmental factors impact on the entrepreneurial intentions of individuals
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(Sesen, 2013). Previous research has found that significant environmental antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions include access to capital (Lüthje, Franke, 2003; Scwarz et al., 2009), regional context (Dohse, Walter, 2012), formal and informal country-level institutions (Engle et al., 2011), and entrepreneurship education (Liñán, 2008; Martin et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2014). However, as some scholars claim, there is a strong need exists to examine the different aspects of the context that may influence entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors (Fayolle, Liñán, 2014; Welter, 2011; Zahra, Wright, 2011). In our study we focus on university context measured through the institutional theory perspective (Busenitz et al., 2000; Scott, 1995) adopted for university-level context. Institutional theory emphasizes social rules, expectations, norms and values as primary factors pressuring originations and individuals to conform. Scott (1995) defined institutions as “cognitive, normative and regulative structures that provide stability and meaning to social behavior”. Ruef and Scott (1998) followed Scott (1995; 2001) and claim that actors must conform to normative rules, regulative processes, and cognitive meanings of the closest environment. Irrespective of the source of these expectations (Ruef, Scott, 1998), to which extent an activity is legitimate, influences its frequency (Suchman, 1995). For instance, the extent to which a certain career choice is valued in a society can often determine whether or not individual continue to engage in it (Mueller, Thomas, 2001). Applying this line of arguments toward entrepreneurship, one can say that frequency of students choosing entrepreneurial carrier path might be increased if such behavior perceived as legitimate in the university context. According to an emerging stream of literature, there is relationship between university context, and intended entrepreneurial action by students (Bae et al., 2014; Kraaijenbring et al., 2009; Liñán et al., 2011; Saaed, Muffato, 2012; Sesen, 2013; Turker, Selcuk, 2009; Zhang et al., 2014). The spirit of the educational place, its shared values and norms can affect entrepreneurial intentions. University entrepreneurial context (UC) can be seen as number of interrelated parts that may have an indirect impact on entrepreneurship education. Whereas universities in the past were institutes for research and teaching, in the last decade a third role has emerged: knowledge commercialization (Etzkowitz, Leydesdorff, 2000; Zaharia, Gilbert, 2005). Rasmussen and Sørheim (2006) argue that by broadening the perspective and actually including the formation of new ventures as a part of education, a better match with these conceptions can be achieved. In addition, new venture creation will be in line with the overall mission of the university by contributing to economic development. This university context may include university governance and leadership (Sotirakou, 2004), its organizational culture 5
and infrastructure, and its approach to commercialization of research and technology (Poole, Robertson, 2003; Etzkowitz, 2003). In such studies, the university is often the unit of analysis. For example, Jacob et al. (2003) explored the Chalmers University of Technology and Lackéus and Williams Middleton (2011) compared venture creation programs in six universities. Within this third role, much attention has been given to patenting and licensing in addition to the creation of university spin-offs (e.g. Shane, Stuart, 2002; Rasmussen, Borch, 2010). However, a number of studies have also addressed university context as an input variable. In the study of Todorovic et al. (2010) a university entrepreneurship orientation construct
is
suggested,
consisting
of
such
sub-items
as
research
mobilization,
unconventionality, industry collaboration, and university policies. High levels of research mobilization suggests that researchers involve external partners in research, and make sure that outcomes are valued, useful, and shared with industry. Unconventionality refers to identifying opportunities, taking unconventional approaches and working outside the traditional university environment. Industry collaboration relates to the cooperation with industry and suggests both faculty and student’s involvement as well as department industry level of cooperation. And finally, university policies relate to the department perception of university policies and the extent to which they support department aspirations on intentions to innovate and be unconventional. This entrepreneurial orientation of a university was proven to be related to a number of spin-off activities and patenting in the university (Todorovic et al., 2010) as well as to the increased entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes of the students (Saeed, Muffatto, 2012) The results of this study correlates with the recent work of Davey et al. (2011). In their study, Davey et al. (2011) explored the role of universities in fostering entrepreneurship in seven countries, including four European developed nations (Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Portugal) as well as two African developing countries (Kenya and Uganda) and one emerging African nation (South Africa). It was concluded that bringing students in contact with the network needed to start a new business, as well as arranging conferences or workshops on entrepreneurship, and offering project work focusing on entrepreneurship were the most important type of support services requested by students at a university. Students in developing and emerging countries requested universities to provide required networks and workshops and ideas to start businesses as well as project work focusing on entrepreneurship. In European countries, students wanted to use university services and access to networks and support in finding other entrepreneurially-minded students. Neither group of respondents ranked specific entrepreneurship degrees high in their ranking lists.
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In the related study Kraaijenbring et al. (2009) look at the relationship between entrepreneurial intent, entrepreneurial behavior, perceived university support, and desired university support. University context was explored in this study with the help of three conceptual variables: education support that university provides, concept development support, and business development support. Educational type of support is a part of the universities traditional role as a teaching institution. Concept development support concerns the provision of specific concept development such as awareness, motivation and business ideas and has to do with a creative and stimulating atmosphere in the university. Finally, business development support is oriented towards start-ups rather than individuals, and can include a provision of money and lending students the reputation of the university. In the study by Saeed and Muffatto (2012), this scale was tested upon entrepreneurial intention and attitudes from 805 Pakistan students. It is found that an integrated scale representing educational, concept development and business development support are significantly and positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes. Further, Turker and Selcuk (2009) developed scales of educational, relational, and structural support and tested it in relation to intentions on the sample of 300 university students in Turkey. Results of this study provide evidence that educational support is positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions. This factor is mainly associated with a supportive university environment. Structural support, including government system support, availability of loans, and overall attitudes toward entrepreneurship in a country, also show to be positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions. The above overview of the studies of university support provides some mixed results and suffers from the lack of strong theoretical argumentation for the scales applied. In the present study we build from the institutional theory (Busenitz et al., 2000; Scott, 1995) and argue that there are three dimensions of institutional environment at the university level that might be useful in guiding our research - regulative, normative and cognitive.
Regulative dimension of university context Regulative dimension refers to formal laws, rules and regulations. Rules can affect interaction, through constituting and regulating activities, defining them as activities of a certain sort and as subject to a given range of sanctions. In these conceptions, regulatory processes involve the capacity to establish rules, inspect others’ conformity to them and as necessary, manipulate sanctions – rewards or punishments in an attempt to influence future behavior (Scott, 2014). 7
In relation to university context, one might think of university policy and regulation towards entrepreneurship and commercialization. Presence of the student organizations, like for example student’s incubators, presence of the support in the firm of grants or organized competitions for the projects, presence of the arenas to meet real entrepreneurs – all that can be referred to regulations and rules with regard to entrepreneurship. Some studies indicate the importance of different types of regulative support at the university level in entrepreneurship. For example, study by Patzelt and Shepherd (2009) indicate that university entrepreneurs find financial support to be the central benefit of participating in policy programmes in comparison with other intangible benefits like networks and business knowledge. Also, Audretsch, Hulsbeck & Lehmann (2012) show that university spillovers have a great effect on fostering innovative activities of entrepreneurial firms. According to institutional theory, actors (in our case students) might either confirm with the present structures or rules, or try to change them. Most probable that if regulation and university policy support entrepreneurship, it will be easier for students to exhibit entrepreneurial behavior. On the contrary, if there is absence of the support for entrepreneurial thinking, students would rather concentrate on achieving excellence in their core studies. Within supporting regulative context students have an arena to train their competences. If the university context does actively promote student entrepreneurship (i.e. incentives, networkarenas, incubators), it makes it easier for students that do have ideas to find the time and resources to plan and implement entrepreneurial activities. It also reduces a tradeoff between investing their time in their core education versus investing their time into startup activities. Therefore, Hypothesis 1. Regulative dimension of university context will be positively associated with students’ entrepreneurial intentions.
Normative dimension of university context Normative dimension refers to shared values and attitudes in the society. Normative systems include both values and norms. Values are conception of the preferred or the desirable together with the construction of standards to which existing structures or behaviors can be compared and assessed. Norms specify how things should be done; they define goals or objectives, but also designate appropriate ways to pursue them. Some values and norms are applicable to all members of the collectivity; others apply to selected types of actors or positions. The latter give rise to roles; conceptions of appropriate goals and activities for particular individuals or specified social positions (Scott, 2014). The theoretical aspect of the 8
normative construct is supported by social learning theory, which suggests individuals are more likely to adopt behavior observed in others, especially if the outcomes of such behavior are valued (Bandura, 1977). The importance of social norms regarding entrepreneurial behavior is discussed by Souitaris et al., (2007) as well as Redding (2005) and North (1991; 2005) who would see social norms (e.g. the belief that starting a business is a relatively common and desired social activity) as a manifestation of an important informal institution and one that would be expected to have an impact on entrepreneurial intentions. It is widely acknowledge in literature that the university context can provide a significant influence on the attitude and behavior of students (e.g., Dey, 1997; Hastie, 2007; Politis et al., 2012). Such influence comes from various sources, such as interactions with peers and faculty, the general presuppositions, disciplinary paradigms as well as the normative contexts of college campuses. In this process of socialization, students can be argued to acquire ‘the norms and standards, the value and attitudes, as well as the knowledge, skills, and behavior patterns associated with particular statuses and roles’ (Zuckerman, 1977: 123). Desirable behavior often results in increasing self-confidence as one performs accepted behavior. Spending four or more years in the university, students share some accepted values, jargon, develop specific culture, adapt to certain procedures when they enter the university. This acquired knowledge affects the way they are able to apply their skills and abilities. They also learn about their work group, the specific people they work with on a daily basis, their own role among their peers and the skills needed to perform within the university system. If such norms and values supportive of entrepreneurial behavior, that might reduce risk associated with business start-up activities. If the university’s normative context perceives student entrepreneurs as heroes and associate positive values with student who show entrepreneurial behavior, students will adopt favorable attitudes and intentions towards entrepreneurship. We therefore suggest that Hypothesis 2. Normative dimension of university context will be positively associated with students’ entrepreneurial intentions.
Cognitive dimension of university context Cognitive dimension refers to shared skills and knowledge in the organisation. Scott (2014) describes the cognitive dimension as “the shared conception that constitutes the nature of social reality and creates the frames through which meaning is made. In the cognitive paradigm, individuals’ behavior is in large part a function of internal representation of their environment” from determining what information will receive attention, how it will be encoded, 9
how it will be retained, retrieved, and organized into memory to how it will be interpreted thus affecting evaluations, judgments, predictions and inferences (North, 2014) relation to business start-up. Cognitive legitimacy in relation to start-up activities deals with accepts for behavior based on the knowledge that lies within a certain context. If in the university the knowledge about entrepreneurial activities is spread across the campus and shared by the fellow students that might increase one’s beliefs in the easier acquisition of such knowledge, thus enhancing student’s self-efficacy and therefore, entrepreneurial intentions (Douglas, 2013; Fitzimmons, Douglas, 2011, Krueger et al., 2000; Scott, Twomey, 1988; Wilson et al., 2007; Zhao, Seibert and Hills, 2005). According to Nielsen and Lassen (2012), in order to learn what it means for them to become entrepreneurs, the students look for information on the Internet, read articles about entrepreneurs, and get inspiration from lectures and television; however, most students reach out to others in their search for meaning. For example, they try to get feedback from people with entrepreneurial experience in order to learn ‘who they can be’ within the world of entrepreneurship. Also, the students turn to the university context, and this context is the most important career-preparing context for university student (Lannegrand-Willems, Bosma, 2006). They try to engage their teachers and supervisors in their entrepreneurial activities, they participate in mentoring and coaching programs providing by university, participate in business plan competitions and when possible use contact platforms with potential investors in order to discuss their entrepreneurial ideas. They engage in dialogue with various people within the university context to reach an insight and get feedback on ‘who they are as entrepreneur”, and whether the being an entrepreneurs is something for them or not (Nielsen, Lassen, 2012). The cognitive structure may be where knowledge of entrepreneurship is spread through peers, faculty and knowledge network. Therefore, routinized social practices do not stem from coincidence, “but the skilled accomplishments of knowledgeable agents” (Goffman, 1976). Transferring knowledge requires that it be accessible to as needed. A way to retrieve content is also needed, which requires a communication and network infrastructure. Tacit knowledge may be shared through communities of practice being developed at the university. Therefore, knowledge of entrepreneurial processes and practices among fellow students and faculty members makes the utilization of such knowledge an easier task. We therefore suggest that Hypothesis 3. Cognitive dimension of university context will be positively associated with students’ entrepreneurial intentions.
Individual difference as moderators 10
Gender. It is generally accepted that men have stronger entrepreneurial intentions than women (Chen et al., 1998; deBruin et al., 2007; Gupta et al., 2009; Scherer et al., 1990; Zhao et al., 2005); however, the impacts of university context on entrepreneurial intentions may be as effective for men as for women (Bae et al., 2014). Although some scholars argue that there is a little or no gender differences in entrepreneurship, other scholars still suggest that some differences such as perspectives (Brush, 1992) and psychological traits (Sexton, BowmanUpton, 1990) still exist. Empirical evidence also indicates that, in spite of growth in female entrepreneurship, there are still almost twice as many male entrepreneurs (Bosma, Levie, 2009; Shinnar et al., 2012). Cultural values shape societal roles and stereotypes in terms of the occupations considered appropriate for men or women. According to social role theory (Eagly, 1987), gender-based expectation leads both men and women to pursue gender-stereotype occupations, which is also consistent with the perceived lack of necessary skills by women (Bandura, 1992). Moreover, “women tend to perceive themselves and their business environment in a less favourable light compared to men” (Langowitz, Minniti, 2007, p. 356). At the same time, perceived knowledge gap for entrepreneurship is narrower for men than for women (BarNir et al., 2011; Williams, Subich, 2006). Therefore, entrepreneurship education and university institutional environment could be more helpful for women to strengthen their skills and increase their entrepreneurial intentions in comparison with men. As some scholars claim that there is “lower neediness of entrepreneurial education for men” (Haus et al., 2013). Taking into consideration above arguments, we can expect that, Hypothesis 4. The positive relationship between three institutional dimensions of the university context (regulative, normative, and cognitive) and students’ entrepreneurial intentions will be weaker for males than for females.
Entrepreneurial family background. Entrepreneurial family background refers to those people whose parents or family members are involved in self-employment (Bae et al., 2014). There several evidence in student entrepreneurship literature that students with family business background stem from a particular familial context that may influence their future career intentions (Laspita et al., 2012; Zellweger et al., 2011) and prior entrepreneurial exposure such as having self-employed parents is considered to be a key predictor of self-employement (Dunn, Holtz-Eakin, 2000; Hout, Rosen, 2000; Krueger, 1993). For example, parents, as business owners, can influence their children’s entrepreneurial career choices by providing social capital, including contacts with suppliers, business partners, customers etc., and they may benefit from 11
parents’ network when trying to establish a new business (Laspita et al., 2012; Sørensen, 2007). Very often, parents are serving as a role models (Aldrich et al., 1998); transferring financial capital (Dunn, Holtz-Eakin, 2000); providing a chance for their children to acquire human capital (Lentz, Laband, 1990). A number of other studies have suggested the importance of parental experience, suggesting a significant impact on entrepreneurial intentions and behaviour (Bowen, Hirsch, 1986; Carr, Sequeira, 2007; Dubini, 1989; Scott, Twomey, 1988; Van Auken et al., 2006). Despite the motivational benefits of an entrepreneurial family background for developing student’s entrepreneurial carrer path, recent studies indicate that entrepreneurship education is less likely to enhance the entrepreneurial intentions of students who come from such background (Zellweger et al, 2011; Zhang et al., 2014). There are several rationales behind this argument. First, students with family entrepreneurial background tend to more critically access the knowledge on entrepreneurship offered by universities in comparison with students from non-entrepreneurial families. This is because the family entrepreneurial background provides them experience about the difficulties of being entrepreneur. Second, because students with family entrepreneurial background have already have an access to valuable resources for starting a new business, it could reduce their neediness for additional inputs from entrepreneurship education and university
institutional environment. Therefore, we
hypothesize: Hypothesis 5. The positive relationship between three institutional dimensions of the university context (regulative, normative, and cognitive) and students’ entrepreneurial intentions will be weaker for students with family entrepreneurial background than for students without such background.
The overall theoretical model is presented in Figure 1. ---------------------------------Insert Figure 1 about here ----------------------------------
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Method Sampling and Data Collection We use a dataset originating from the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS) conducted in 2013/2014. The international research project has been founded at the Swiss Research Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of St.Gallen in 2003. The data are collected every two years. The main research focus is on students’ entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and activities. Russia has already participated in two waves: in 2011 and 2013/2014. GUESSS participants were approached vie email and asked to participate the online survey and fulfill the questionnaire. The link was distributed randomly among Russian universities and the research subject were current students studied at different programs. The survey was developed in English and translated into Russian. The questionnaire was completed anonymously to ensure confidentiality. In the main survey, 4578 valid responses from 32 higher educational institutions were collected, yielding a 17.34% response rate and considered satisfactory based on chosen method of communication (Shirokova et al., 2014). Due to the purpose of our study we left bachelor and master students and excluded those students who were doing their exchange program at that moment, and resulting in the final sample with 4425 responses. Survey respondents were on average 20 years old (SD=2.4). In relation to gender, 3090 respondents (or 69.8%) were females. Also, 4041 respondents (or 91.3%) were bachelor students, 384 respondents (or 8.7%) were master students. A half of respondents (52%) have families where at least one of their parents or other family members were self-employed (see Table 1).
---------------------------------Insert Table 1 about here ----------------------------------
Measures The main GUESSS survey is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and this theory is used as the theoretical basis (Ajzen, 2002). The questionnaire includes the questions about different dimensions related to student and entrepreneurship. Questions regarding the students’ entrepreneurial intentions, family background and gender. Based on the conditions of participation each country has an opportunity to add the block of its national questions that can 13
be available only for its students. In Russia we included the block of questions aimed at the measurement of the university context. Dependent Variable Entrepreneurial intentions are measured using six items suggest by Liñán and Chen (2009): (EI1) I am ready to do anything to be an entrepreneur, (EI2) My professional goal is to become an entrepreneur, (EI3) I will make every effort to start and run my own firm, (EI4) I am determined to create a firm in the future, (EI5) I have very seriously thought of starting a firm, (EI6) I have the strong intention to start a firm someday. The responders were asked about their level of agreement with these statements and their answered were based on 7-point scale, where 1 means ‘strongly disagree’, and 7 means ‘strongly agree’. Independent Variables We measure the university context along three dimensions: regulative, normative and cognitive (Oftedal et al., forthcoming). All these variables were measured along a seven point Likert scale. A score of 1 suggested ‘strongly disagree’, 4 suggested ‘neither agree nor disagree’, and a score of 7 suggested ‘strongly agree’. Regulatory Dimension was measured with the help of the following four questions: In my University there is (UCR1) Support for students’ entrepreneurial activities, (UCR2) Support for business plan/ pitch competitions, (UCR3) Support for start-ups (faculty and student start-ups), (UCR4) Policies rewards students who engage in entrepreneurial activities. Normative Dimension reflect the entrepreneurial image among the fellow students and was measured with the help of the following five questions: (UCN1) Those who start their own businesses are respected, (UCN2) Fellow students look up to those who develop their own ideas, (UCN3) Entrepreneurial initiatives are seen as the “road to success”, (UCN4) Starting your own business is a respected career path, (UCN5) Fellow students look up to those who have many ideas. Cognitive Dimension was measured by five items relates to knowledge of fellow students: (UCC1) My fellow students know how to handle the risks associated with a start-up, (UCC2) My fellow students know the procedures to start up their own businesses, (UCC3) My fellow students have the skills to start up their own businesses, (UCC4) My fellow students know how to develop their own ideas, (UCC5) My fellow students know who may be helpful in launching a start-up. Gender was coded ‘1’ for males and ‘0’ for females. Entrepreneurial family background is supposed to moderate the relationship between the university context and entrepreneurial intentions. Students whose parents or other family members (siblings, grandparents, etc.) were self-employed were coded ‘1’, and otherwise they were coded ‘0’.. The level of study was used as the control variable. Bachelor students were coded ‘1’, and master students were coded ‘0’. 14
Construct Validity and Reliability We conducted the Exploratory Factor Analysis for the new scale for the university context. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed to explore the underlying factors associated with 14 items aimed at the measurement of the university context. The construct validity was tested using Barlett’s Test of Sphericity and the Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin Measure of sampling adequacy. The results for both tests were significant and showed that the variable was suited for the factor analysis. The factor analysis confirmed that we have three dimensions in the university context and based on factor loadings all of them are significant and higher than 0.50 (Hair et al., 1992). The factor analysis run successfully and the result showed the total variance explained by 3 factors was 74.77%. The factor loadings are represented in the Table 2 where one can see the indication of items to the factors. The findings of this analysis demonstrate that each of three dimensions (regulative, normative and cognitive) of the university context was homogeneously loaded into different factors, which means that each of these dimensions was loaded into three different factors. ---------------------------------Insert Table 2 about here ---------------------------------In order to perform the reliability test we use the Crobnach’s alpha. Alpha coefficient values range between 0 and 1 with higher values indicating higher reliability among variables (Hair et al., 1992). It is considered that an instrument has an acceptable level of reliability when alpha is greater than 0.7 (Nunally, Bernstein, 2010; Sekaran, Bougie, 2009). In accordance with this test, the total scale reliability for this study varies from 0.843 to 0.950 (Table 3), indicating an overall higher reliability factors. We also calculated composite reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) values for each of the factors. All of them are high (exceed 0.6 criterion) and it indicates that these multiple items are highly reliable for measuring each construct and all factors have high internal consistency. ---------------------------------Insert Table 3 about here ---------------------------------15
The results of the item reliability, construct reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) of the measurement model indicates that the convergent validity is satisfactory and thus the hypothesized measurement model is reliable for further examination of structural relationships among the constructs. The correlations of the variables included in the analysis are presented in the Table 4. ---------------------------------Insert Table 4 about here ---------------------------------Data Analysis This study used OLS regression to the test the hypothesized main effects and interaction (moderating) effects. Before running the regression we created the single regression scores for each of factors (Skrondal, Laake, 2001). We examined the variation inflation factors (VIFs) for all regression models. The VIFs associated with each coefficient did not exceed 2 (with acceptable level of 5), indicating that there are no serious problems with multicollinearity. The regression results are presented in the Table 5 and depicted in the figures 2-6 in the Appendix. In all models the level of study was used a control variable. ---------------------------------Insert Table 5 about here ---------------------------------Based on our model we expect that an observed relationship between the university context and students’ entrepreneurial intentions can be part of more complex system that can be described by interaction concept. In our model we consider gender, entrepreneurial family background and self-efficacy as moderators, or the potential changers of a relationship in a model (Little et al., 2007, p. 207). In order to check this relationship we create a new variable that is a product of the variable that is being moderated (X) and the variable that is moderating (Z) for each of supposed moderators. If the effect of this interaction term (XZ) is significant in the model it means that the effect of independent variable (X) on the dependent variable (Y) depends on the level of the moderator (Z). The measurements of our variables are based on Likert scale or binary classification; there was no need to center our variables on their means (Aiken, West, 1991; Cronbach, 1987).
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In order to test for interaction effect (our ‘Z’ are gender, entrepreneurial family background, and self-efficacy) we have to statistically compare of the following two models: Model 1: Y=b0+b1X+b2Z, and Model 2: Y=b0+b1X+b2Z+b3X*Z If the change in R2 is statistically significant, then a significant moderator effect is present. Thus, only incremental effect is assessed, not the individual variables (Hair et al., 1998). The interpretation of the regression coefficients changes slightly in moderated relationships. The b3 coefficient, the moderator effect, indicates the unit change in the effects of X as Z changes. The b1 and b2 coefficients now represent the effects of X and Y respectively, when the other independent variable is zero. In the unmoderated relationship, the b1 coefficient represents the effects of X across all levels of Z, and similary for b2.Thus, in unmoderated regression, the regression coefficients b1 and b2 are “averaged” across levels of other independent variables. To determine the total effect of an independent variable, the separate and moderated effects must be combined. The overall effect of X for any value of Z can be found by substituting the Z value into the following equation b total=b1+b3Z In general, all regression models are statistically significant and in all models the R2 was slightly increased once we added the moderating effects. Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 postulated the positive relationship between the university context and the students’ entrepreneurial intentions. In the Model 1 (Table 5) the results indicate that the regulative, cognitive and normative dimensions are positively related to the entrepreneurial intentions (br=0.126; bn=0.342; bc=0.111; for all p entrepreneurial intentions H4c. Cognitive dimension x gender => entrepreneurial intentions Family Entrepreneurial Background => entrepreneurial intentions H5a. Regulative dimension x family entrepreneurial background => entrepreneurial intentions H5b.Normative dimension x family entrepreneurial background => Entrepreneurial Intentions H5c.Cognitive dimension x family entrepreneurial background => entrepreneurial intentions Note: ***p
