Examining the antecedents of entrepreneurial propensity: a study among university students in India

Purpose - The primary objective of this paper is to determine the factors that affect the entrepreneurship propensity of students undergoing compulsory entrepreneurship education courses at various universities. Design/methodology/approach - A research instrument was developed and implemented on a sample of 380 students who were offered compulsory entrepreneurship education courses at six major universities in the Jammu and Kashmir region of India. The study employed multiple cross-sectional designs with a simple random sampling technique to gather data. The collected data was subjected to descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling using SMART-PLS (Version 4). Findings - The findings reveal that conceptualization, opportunity identification and implementation are the three antecedents of entrepreneurship propensity. The results indicate that the conceptualization factor is one of the most important predictors of entrepreneurship propensity, followed by opportunity identification, whereas implementation through education has the weakest influence on students' entrepreneurship propensity. Practical implications - This research provides important insights to universities for designing and developing entrepreneurship courses that can foster the start-up culture. The results will be helpful for policymakers to devise various programs to boost entrepreneurship. Originality/value - The study integrated the theories of planned behavior and human capital to evaluate the effectiveness of entrepreneurship courses at the university level. The three factors, namely, conceptual factors, actualization factors and implementation factors of entrepreneurship propensity are under-researched.