Bolster entrepreneurial attitudes and intention among post- graduates in India

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Date
2015
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
There is a huge increase in youth unemployment compared to adult unemployment in many regions and persistently high throughout the world (ILO, 2013). Unfortunately, majority of youth labor force prevail in developing economies, where Asia takes the lead. Being the second largest country, huge number of youth domiciliate in India next to China. Large number of youth in India experiences the challenge of structural and frictional unemployment. The latest unemployment figures released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed a remarkable unemployment in India continued to rise. The entrepreneurship is one of the best career options to relieve from the challenges of unemployment. It plays a vital role in creating new, competitive markets and businesses which lead to job creation and have a multiplying effect on the economic development of the country (Christy & Dassie, 2000; Saini, 2001; UNDP, 2001; Lumpkin & Dress, 1996). Cognize the prominence of entrepreneurship, policy makers in India introduce several schemes to reduce the level of unemployment. Yet, the young generation in India recedes to take-up entrepreneurship as their career option. Becoming an owner of an enterprise could be an alternative for a young person who has an entrepreneurial mindset but needs a person to possess some basic requirements like skills, attitudes and knowledge. Individuals could exhibit varied level of skills, attitudes and knowledge, based on their education, personal traits, environmental and social influences. Hence there is link between education, personal traits, and entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus this research is aimed at providing additional insights and understanding of the relationship between educational differences, entrepreneurial attitude, intention and entrepreneurial behavior. This can help to develop interventions that will enable the individuals to channelize their efforts towards venture initiation. Methodology The empirical analysis has been carried-out on a sample of final year postgraduate students from science and humanities fields of study, during academic year 2013-2014 from non-autonomous colleges in India. The sample size consists of 701 postgraduate students from the various colleges affiliated to Bharathiar University which represents 77% response rate from the total of 900 in the targeted fields of studies. Study used stratified random sampling method to select the sample respondents for the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part consist demographic profile of the respondents. Second part consisted of questions eliciting information about Entrepreneurial Intention, Entrepreneurial attitude and Entrepreneurial Behavior. The survey instrument was based on a five point Likert scale to determine the extent of the agreement or disagreement with the statements. the relationship between entrepreneurial attitudes, intention and behavior and the differences among respondents’ behavior towards entrepreneurial activity according to their domain of specialty variation. Results and Discussion The structural regression model is presented in Figure1. The model is formulated in AMOS, notation using Achievement, Innovation, Self-esteem, personal control, commitment, risk-taking, attitude, feasibility, desirability, motivation, inclination and aspiration for the observed variables, f1 to f12 for the error terms associated with the observed variables, and latent variables are known as entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial behavior. The model on entrepreneurial behavior among postgraduate students.
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Keywords
Management, Entrepreneurship and management, Unemployment, Human Resource Management
Citation