Research Proposal On

How

the entrepreneurial intentions differ amongst the university

students? The case of entrepreneurship education in Pakistan

Submitted By: Uzair Saeed (BS-07-32) Supervised By: Ms. Seerat Fatima Dr. Mujahid Ali

Department of Commerce Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan.

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1. Introduction:
Entrepreneurial activities play an important role in the economic development of the country. But in Pakistan Entrepreneurial activity remains limited. According to World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey 2007, that measures entrepreneurial activity in 84 developing and industrial countries, the average annual entry rate in Pakistan, calculated as new registrations of companies as a percentage of total registered businesses during previous year, was just 7 percent. Entrepreneurship is now considered important for economic growth (Aghion et al, 1997; Schumpeter, 1934), The low entrepreneurial activity rate of Pakistan deserves special attention. Therefore, the economic perspective of entrepreneurship in Pakistan are needed to be reviewed so as to create the awareness of entrepreneurship and to find how the environment can be adjusted to allow entrepreneurship to play a greater role in the economy. Since the last two decades the governments of developed countries are making different policies for creating the awareness about Entrepreneurship Education. The tertiary education sector was considered to be the most important one for developing and supplying a sufficient amount of Potential Entrepreneurs. It would be much easier to provide the entrepreneurship education to the individuals if they are born with skills for becoming an entrepreneur and providing them with all the facilities for successfully starting and running a business but its not the case. There is a need for better understanding of entrepreneurship in Pakistan and for this purpose the government has to take some serious actions and should devise policies so as to reap the fruits of entrepreneurship. This project is focused on the Entrepreneurial environment in Pakistan especially to explore the effects of entrepreneurship education at post secondary level on entrepreneurial intentions of business graduates or young entrepreneurs who are about to enter in job market and can play an effective role in the economic development of the country. The academic perspectives of entrepreneurship will be reviewed. The results of this study will help in better understanding of the mindset of students of Pakistan and can be used in making such policies regarding entrepreneurship. The objective of this study is to analyze the affects of entrepreneurial education in developing the entrepreneurial intentions through a comparison of Business and
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non business students on the bases of their faculties and course of entrepreneurship that has been taken by them. The difference between the entrepreneurial orientation of males and females students in Bahauddin Zakariya University would also be a key concern of this study.

2. Literature Review:
2.1. Entrepreneurship Education:
According to Brown (2000) entrepreneurship education communicates and built the competencies, skills and other abilities that are needed for recognizing the opportunities and starting a new venture. Gorman, Hanlon, and King, (1997) declared entrepreneurship education as training programs that focus on issues of entrepreneurship. Creative thinking along with promoting a strong sense of self confidence is basic essence of Entrepreneurship education which usually considered as a teaching business to someone (McMullan and Long, 1987; Vesper and McMullen, 1998). Learning about how to start a business is a key feature of entrepreneurship education but it does includes other emerging issues like managing the business and successfully running it on a long run.

2.2. Importance of Entrepreneurship Education:

Many authors Kolvereid and Moen, 1997; Noel, 2001; Tkachev and Kolvereid, 1999; Varela and Jimenez, 2001) in their researches and empirical studies have found a link between entrepreneurial education and propensity to become an entrepreneur. Economic relevance of entrepreneurial activity is determined by various authors and entrepreneurial education altering the intentions of an individual thus matters in the economic development of a country.

2.3. Entrepreneurial Education impact on Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Empirically, it is tested by various authors that the entrepreneurship education has direct impact on different proxies of entrepreneurship which includes entrepreneurial intentions, various competencies regarding entrepreneurship and feasibility and desirability of business ventures. Peterman & Kennedy, 2003; Souitaris et al., 2007; Wilson et al., 2007; Charney & Libecap, 2000; Athayde, 2009). The feasibility-quality of being doable and desirability- quality of being desirable are the most important aspects of human behaviors towards
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doing anything. Intention to start a venture i.e. establishing a new firm or business, is the best predictor of a persons behavior towards entrepreneurial activity. Consequently the results of entrepreneurship education are measured by a positive change in entrepreneurship as a career choice as the studies do have found that the entrepreneurial intentions can be affected by entrepreneurship education.

2.4. Entrepreneurial Intentions:

Intentions are basically the individuals motivation of making an effort to act upon a conscious plan or decision (Conner and Armitage, 1998).Generally, intention is the cognitive state immediately prior to executing behavior(Krueger, 2005).Thus, an entrepreneurial intention is about the inclination of an individual to start a new entrepreneurial activity in the future (Davidson, 1995).It is a key determinant of the action of a new venture creation moderated by exogenous variables such as family background, position in ones family, parents occupation and education and training (Bird and Jelinek, 1998) Other studies includes Edger Izquierdo studied the impacts of different contextual and endogenous factors on the intentions of university alumni for creating a new venture. Specifically factors individual motivational dispositions, entrepreneurial competencies and perceived behaviors impact was seen on intentions by him. (Izquierdo, et. al., 2005).Clement studued the drivers of interest in entrepreneurship among the undergraduate students of Singapore universities. He found that background factors like gender, family business exposure and education level are significant with entrepreneurial interest and inadequate business knowledge and perceived. (Clement, et. al., 2004) Becahrd and others rose questions that to which extent entrepreneurship is a function of personality traits or whether entrepreneurship intrigues knowledge and skills which is affected or developed through education. Senem and Turker examines in their study that educational, structural and relational support alter the intentions of university students. (Turker, et. al., 2008). Jan Lepoutre contributed for understanding the affects of entrepreneurship education among the secondary school students and found that as the intensity of

experientiality (practicality) of entrepreneurship programs increases, its impact on the variables investigated also increases. (Leopoutre, et. al., 2006).Carr and Sequeira indicates that prior family buisenes exposure directly or indirectly affects the entrepreneurial intent.(Carr, et. al., 2006). Azhar and Annum measured factors affecting Entrepreneurial Intentions among business students in Pakistan. They found that personal attraction, perceived social norms and perceived social behavior.(Azhar, et. al., 2009)
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Souitaris, Zerbinati and Al-Laham tests the affect of entrepreneurial education and programs

on the

entrepreneurial intentions of science and engineering students. Their results show that these programs raise some attitudes and intentions and the most important benefit of these programs was Inspiration amongst the learning and incubation of recourses.( Souitaris, et. al., 2004)The changes in entrepreneurial intentions were than further explored through using different intention models like Shapero Entrepreneurial Event(Shapero & Sokol, 1982) or the Ajzens Theory of Planned Behavior(TPB) (Ajzen, 1991. Both models have different approaches towards personality traits and entrepreneurship. In the end, it can be concluded that entrepreneurship education initiatives are still inconclusive and further study is needed to explore this area.

3. Research Questions:
y What is the influence of entrepreneurial education along with the factors such as personality traits and demographics on the entrepreneurial intentions of the students? y Whether there lies a difference between the entrepreneurial orientation of business students and students belonging to other disciplines. y Whether the entrepreneurial intentions of the students having a major in business differ amongst those who have taken an entrepreneurship course and those who have not taken. y Whether the entrepreneurial intentions differs amongst male and female students.

4. Hypothesis:
Ho1: The students having a major in business have higher entrepreneurial intentions than students from other areas of study. Ho2: The students who have taken an entrepreneurship course have higher entrepreneurial intentions than those who have not taken an entrepreneurship course. Ho3: The male students have higher entrepreneurial intentions as compared to female students. Ho4: The business students have higher entrepreneurial competencies than non business students.

5. Research Methodology:
5.1 Population:
For measuring the impacts of entrepreneurship education the population for this study constitutes the undergraduate students from all the present faculties of Bahauddin Zakariya University.

5.2. Sampling Methodology:

Sampling would be done for the general students from all disciplines by pilot testing and than using the standard error and variance methods. Whole population of students who have taken an entrepreneurship course would be taken as a sample whether they belong to Business studies or other studies. The population of business students who would be present on the time of Survey and who have not taken an entrepreneurship course would also be taken as whole for sample. The scheme of selecting the sample is attached in the end of this paper in Appendix B.

5.1 Data Collection techniques:

In this study we will conduct survey through Questionnaires adopted from Lin (2005), known as Entrepreneurial Intension Questionnaire to collect the data for analysis .The Questionnaire is attached in the Appendix A. This questionnaire assesses the entrepreneurial intensions based on different variables. All of these variables have been measured using Likert type scale. 1. Education and experience 2. Entrepreneurial Knowledge 3. Professional Attraction 4. Social valuation 5. Entrepreneurial Capacity 6. Entrepreneurial Intention 7. Entrepreneurship education 8. Personnel data (demographics)

5.3. Analytical techniques:

The data collected will be analyzed through the following techniques: y y y y y Corn Bachs Alpha SPSS Regression Analyses Factor analyses Reliability analyses.

5.4. Time Frame of activities (Gantt chart)

Survey: 10 days from the acceptance of proposal Analyses: 20 days after the survey would be conducted Thesis writing: 1month and 10 days from findings.

List of References:
Already consulted:
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Krueger, N. F., Reilly, M. D., & Carsrud, A. L. 2000. Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Business Venturing, 15(5-6): 411-432. Kuratko, D. F. 2005. The emergence of entrepreneurship education: Development, trends, and challenges. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 29(5): 577-598. Peterman, N. E. & Kennedy, J. 2003. Enterprise education: Influencing students' perceptions of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship-Theory and Practice, 28(2): 129-144. Pratt, C. C., McGuigan, W. M., & Katzev, A. R. 2000. Measuring program outcomes: Using retrospective pretest methodology. American Journal of Evaluation, 21(3): 341-349.

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Gorman, G., Hanlon, D., and King, W. (1997), Some Research Perspectives on

To be consulted:
Bonnett, C. and Furnham, A. (1991), Who wants to be an entrepreneur? A study of adolescents interested in a young enterprise scheme, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 12, pp. 465-78. Galloway, L. and Brown, W. (2002), Entrepreneurship education at university: a driver in the creation of high growth firms?, Education Training, Vol. 44 Nos 8/9, pp. 398-405. Henderson, R. and Robertson, M. (2000), Who wants to be an entrepreneur? Young adult attitudes to entrepreneurship as a career, Career Development International, Vol. 5 No. 6 pp. 279-87. Wang, C.K. and Wong, P.K. (2004), Entrepreneurial interest of university students in Singapore, Technovation, Vol. 24 No. 2, pp. 163-72. Peterman, N.E. & Kennedy, J(2003). Enterprise education: Influencing students perceptions of entrepreneurship. 10

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 28, 129144. Peterson, R. (1994). A meta-analysis of Cronbachs coefficient alpha. Journal of Consumer Research, 221(September), 381391. Femald, L. W. 1985. The entrepreneurial potential of university graduates. 30th Annual World Conference of the International Council for Small Business. Montreal, Canada, pp. 3146 Audet, J. (2004, April). A longitudinal study of the entrepreneurial intentions of university students. Academy of Entrepreneurship Proceedings. Allied Academies International Conference, April 710, New Orleans,Louisiana Frank, N. & Lthje, C. (2004). Entrepreneurial intentions of business studentsA benchmarking study. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, (3), 269288.

McMullan, W.E. and Long, W. A. (1987), Entrepreneurship Education in the Nineties. Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 2, pp. 261-275. Bird, B. and Jelinek, M. (1988), The Operation of Entrepreneurial Intentions, Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 21-29. Krueger, N. (2005), A Cognitive Processing Model of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and

Davidsson, P. (1995), Determinants of Entrepreneu rial Intentions . In Proceedings RENT http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00002076/Retrieved on Sept. 2007.

XI Workshop, Piacenza, Italy.

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