Understanding the Motivation that Shapes Entrepreneurship Career Intention

Entrepreneurship intention for graduate students like many other job and work career options depends on other considerations. Individuals who pursue their intentions are most likely to implement their intention. Interest in entrepreneurship as career appears to be growing. Reviews show the need in investigating the determinants of entrepreneurship as a career intention of students and it has remains the focus of most of the recent studies. This is due to the facts that entrepreneurs are creating jobs and driving economic development of a nation. In this study, the Theory of Planned Behaviour is applied to investigate students' entrepreneurial motivation and entrepreneurship intention. A total of 413 sets of completed questionnaire collected using the structured sampling methodology from the various faculties, races and student seniority at a University located in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia were used in the analyses. The factors of entrepreneurial motivation affecting career entrepreneurship intention were found to be behavioural control, subjective norm, and attitude towards entrepreneurship. Behavioural control is found to be at a very good level while subjective norm and attitude towards entrepreneurship are both at a good level. Multiple regression analyses indicated that subjective norm and attitude of self-employment are both significantly related to student immediate and future entrepreneurship intentions. The behavioural control entrepreneurial motivation indicated significant relationship with student immediate career intention. However it was found that it is not related to entrepreneurship career intention. This study implies that young aspirant entrepreneur can be identified and targeted for development via the Planned Behaviour model for entrepreneurial interventions initiatives.