Study streams and student entrepreneurial intention

Abstract

Understanding the levels of entrepreneurial intention among university students is particularly critical in Africa where the scourge of unemployment is profound. Alive to this, governments and well-meaning institutions are investing in entrepreneurship development, the gains of which remain to be seen leading to an ebbing of hope in the youth population. To this end the study investigates the entrepreneurial intention of university students in South Africa with an aim to reveal differences arising from study streams. The study consequently extends knowledge by examining entrepreneurial intention within the context of an unemployment-ridden society while leveraging on the theories of planned behaviour. The study executed from a positivist standpoint surveyed 238 students and quantitatively analysed the data principally to test deductively derived hypothesised relationships. The empirical study concludes that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial intention levels between the two groups. Empirical in nature, this quantitative study and concludes that there is indeed a difference in entrepreneurial intention levels between the two groups. Interventions aimed at enhancing entrepreneurship can only generate desirable results if the entrepreneurial intentions of the target population are known. This would ensure that the right type of interventions are created and delivered to specific groups as the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach continues to fail. Serving a clearly heterogeneous population with seemingly homogenous interventions appears faulty and this reality needs to inform pro-entrepreneurship initiatives in future.