Entrepreneurial Intentions and Behaviors Among Hawassa University Graduating Students, Ethiopia

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is thought to be the solution for urgent need for new jobs. Since the number of Ethiopian higher education students interested in becoming entrepreneurs is significantly lower than their neighboring countries counterparts, entrepreneurship education should be further stimulated across Ethiopia. It is important to know what drives a students’ decision towards self-employment. In order to contribute to an improvement of entrepreneurship education in the Ethiopia, this study explores the influence of students’ personality and participation in entrepreneurship education on their entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. The data were collected with a questionnaire among 205 students of the collage of Business and Economics and the rest other departments randomly of Hawassa University. The regression results give further evidence for the usefulness of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 2012) in explaining entrepreneurial intentions. The results confirm the importance of a student’s attitude, as measured with proactive personality and willingness to take risks, in the entrepreneurial intentions framework. Since a ‘positive entrepreneurial attitude’ increases the ultimate entrepreneurial intentions, entrepreneurship education would be more effective for a certain group of ‘promising’ students. Hawassa University should attract these students to participate in entrepreneurship education. To achieve this, a thorough expansion of entrepreneurship courses and activities is needed. The image of entrepreneurship as an interesting career alternative should improve and the Hawassa University should emphasize an ‘entrepreneurial atmosphere’. Furthermore, teachers with an extensive knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship should reveal the ‘right’ students and encourage them to participate in entrepreneurship courses, business plan competitions, etc. Still, further research is needed to fully understand to true influence of entrepreneurship education on personality traits. Can education really influence a student’s personality?

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Intention, Entrepreneurial Behaviors

Paper type: Research paper