Understanding entrepreneurial intentions of students in agriculture and related sciences

Leonidas Zampetakis (), Afroditi Anagnosti () and Stelios Rozakis
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Leonidas Zampetakis: 1 Department of Production Engineering & Management Technical University of Crete, 73100, Chania, Crete, GR
Afroditi Anagnosti: 3 Innovation & Entrepreneurship Unit, Agricultural University of Athens, Iera Odos 75, 11855 Athens, GR

No 2013-4, Working Papers from Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics

Abstract: There is a growing body of literature arguing that an individual's intention to start an enterprise is a strong predictor of individual entrepreneurial action. The present research uses Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate entrepreneurial intent of agricultural students. The TPB offers a parsimonious explanation of purposeful behavior and has been used with success in previous research studies to explain the entrepreneurial intent of business and engineering students. However, research studies that examine the application of the theory to students from agricultural universities are scarce. In the present research, we empirically examine the TPB using data from 65 students from the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece. Results, using path analysis, support previous studies that used TPB to predict entrepreneurial intentions, which suggest that students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship are related to their intention (INT) to start a business. In addition perceived behavioral control (PBC) is a strong predictor of INT. As far the role of subjective norm (SN) is concerned, results of the present study suggest that it has a small negative, and statistically significant effect. Furthermore, in line with recent theoretical and empirical studies about the potential role of emotions in entrepreneurship, we investigated the role of anticipated emotional ambivalence in students’ entrepreneurial intent. Results suggest that anticipated emotional ambivalence from nascent entrepreneurship (that is, students’ future oriented emotions relating to the expectancy of feeling both positive and negative affect) relates negatively to perceived behavioral control.

Keywords: Agricultural university; entrepreneurship education; entrepreneurial intentions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A22 C39 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-edu and nep-ent
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Understanding entrepreneurial intentions of students in agriculture and related sciences (2014)
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