Entrepreneurial intentions and the theory of planned behaviour

Abstract

The study aimed to validate the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behavior and to test its sufficiency within a contextual setting that has seemingly received limited prior focus. The sample comprised of 134 part-time learners from a university business school within South Africa; who are arguably older, hold more work experience and who are more ethnically diverse than subjects in most prior research. Importantly, this study combined construct measurement scales from two other studies in an attempt to improve measurement reliability. Findings suggest that the Theory of Planned Behavior was a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intention within the context of an emerging economy, explaining 21.1% of the variation in student‟s entrepreneurial intention. Further analysis revealed that demographic variables were found to have a significant residual effect beyond the predictor variables within the Theory of Planned Behavior, explaining 6.9% more of the total variation in student‟s entrepreneurial intention when added to the Theory of Planned Behavior. Closer investigation revealed that a particular racial group (black individuals) was solely responsible for the significant influence on intentions, thus rendering age, gender and all other racial groups as weak, insignificant contributors. These results suggest that the Theory of Planned Behavior is not sufficient in capturing all the variation in entrepreneurial intention.