A Study on Determinants of Tertiary Education Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention in Malaysia

Khong, Chi Yen (2022) A Study on Determinants of Tertiary Education Students’ Entrepreneurial Intention in Malaysia. Masters thesis, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Entrepreneurship is considered one of the main pillars in the development of Malaysia. Increase in entrepreneurial activities within the nation will have a positive impact on innovation, nation's wealth, industrialization, employment rate, economic growth and healthy competition. In the midst of Covid-19 pandemic, both the economic and social world has been severely affected, massive and ongoing outbreaks of the Covid-19 virus have caused serious threats with profound consequences for the market. Unemployment rate increased to 4.8 % in July 2021, which is the highest on record. The tourism industry alone has suffered an estimated loss of RM 3.37 billion in two months. Consequently, it is essential to encourage entrepreneurial activity in the context of a health crisis as it could be the remedy in an economic crisis, as entrepreneurial activities are able to stimulate development of the economy. Despite the fact Malaysia’s government has implemented initiatives like the National Entrepreneurship Policies (NEP) 2030 and Malaysian Family Digital Economy Centres (PEDi), results are yet to be satisfactory. Hence, studying the entrepreneurial intention of people is crucial as it represents the motivators behind a person’s decision to be an entrepreneur. Hence, this research aims to investigate the determinants of entrepreneurial intention through the perspectives of tertiary education students in Malaysia. Through reviewing existing literature, there is a lack of empirical research on the roles of social media, entrepreneurial outcome expectations, subjective norms and perceived risk in entrepreneurial intention, as well as the moderating effect of self-confidence. For the development of conceptual framework, this study employed Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour and the social cognitive career theory as theoretical support for the framework. From there, this study investigates the direct and indirect relationship between social media, entrepreneurial outcome expectations, subjective norms, perceived risk and attitude towards entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intention, as well as the moderating effect of self-confidence on relationship between subjective norm and perceived risk on entrepreneurial intention. To achieve the research objectives, 407 questionnaires were collected through online self-administered questionnaires, collected data is analysed through Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Partial Least Square - Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). The results of this study has showed that social media, perceived risk and attitude towards entrepreneurship significantly affect entrepreneurial intention, whereas entrepreneurial outcome expectation and subjective norm have no significant impact on tertiary education students’ entrepreneurial intention. Attitude towards entrepreneurship mediates the relationship between social media and entrepreneurial intention as well, but entrepreneurial outcome expectations have no mediating effect on the same variables. Besides, self-confidence found to be no moderating effect on the relationship between both perceived risk and subjective norms towards entrepreneurial intention. Nonetheless, this study has generate valuable information in the determinants of entrepreneurial intention that is beneficial for private higher education institutions and policy makers in Malaysia.