Relationship Between Entrepreneurs Managerial Competencies and Innovative Start-Up Intentions in University Students: An Iranian Case

This study is aimed to investigate the relationship between entrepreneurs’ managerial competencies and innovative start-up intentions among university students in Iran. Entrepreneurs’ managerial competencies have been scarcely focused in previous studies on factors affecting start- up intentions. Seven independent factors such as administrative competency, knowledge and technologies, communication skills, network building competency, business model development competency, creativity and innovativeness, and attaining finance capability were adopted for the development of the hypotheses. Start-up intentions as dependent factors were divided into self- employing and innovative start-up intentions. Based on the result, administrative competencies, knowledge and technology, and creativity and innovativeness were significant for both innovative and self-employing start-up intentions while network building, business model development and attaining finance competencies were significant only for innovative start-up intentions. This result reveals that innovative start-up intentions in university students are influenced by more diverse competency related factors than in self-employing start-up intentions.