Factors Affecting the Entrepreneurial Intention of PhD Candidates: A study of Nigerian International Students of UUM

Abstract

The increase number of unemployment and understanding of the importance of entrepreneurship in job creation among scholars and policy makers has led to the postulation that entrepreneurial intentions would spur entrepreneurship activities. This paper examines the entrepreneurial intention of Nigerian PhD candidates due to the lack of studies on the connection between entrepreneurship and the PhD candidates. Studying the entrepreneurial intent of the PhD candidates will, therefore, be very important considering their knowledgeability and potentialities. This is because, entrepreneurship represents the opportunity to spawn employment, wealth, and revenue. A survey data of 130 usable questionnaires were conducted and the data were analyzed using SPSS. The finding reveals the sufficiency of the TPB in predicting the entrepreneurial intentions of the PhD’s. A significant positive relationship was found between attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control on entrepreneurial intentions. The Policy implication and direction of future studies were discussed.

Keywords: Theory of Planned Behaviour, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control, entrepreneurial intentions, and Nigeria.