The influence of motivational, personal, and environmental, factors on entrepreneurial intentions among entrepreneurship students

Entrepreneurship has been touted as the prime contributor to a countrys economy. The central figure credited for the progress of the economy as well as in improving peoples quality of life in the society is the entrepreneur. The importance of entrepreneurship spurred the expansion in entrepreneurship education and research the world over. The recognition of the crucial role of the entrepreneur inspired the investigation of entrepreneurial intentions. This study used Ajzens (1991) theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to assess and understand entrepreneurial intentions. The main objective of the study was to determine the extent of influence of motivational, personal, and environmental factors on entrepreneurial intentions among fourth year entrepreneurship students using a descripto-explanatory cross-sectional research design. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Composite reliability, Cronbach alpha, and item loading values were above the 0.70 threshold indicating reliability and convergent validity. Discriminant validity was also achieved. A total of 173 students from three universities in Central Visayas (Region VII) participated in the study. The final sample of 161 was used due to missing values. The study described the major research factors using means and standard deviations. The respondents mean age was 20.23 and the total sample had very strong entrepreneurial intention (M = 6.26, SD = 0.81). The analysis of relationships of the study variables was conducted using partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) with the aid of SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) software. Among the motivational factors, only attitude toward entrepreneurship (ATE) had a significant direct effect on entrepreneurial intention (EI) providing support to TPB (beta = 0.47, p \u3c 0.01). Of the personal factors, none were found to moderate the posited IV-DV relationships. However, obsessive passion had a significant direct effect on EI (beta = 0.26, p \u3c 0.01). The study did not find support to the two research hypotheses pertaining to subjective norm and collectivism. The educational factor was the only significant moderator among seven moderators (beta = -0.23, p \u3c 0.01). It moderated the ATE-EI link. A unique contribution of this study is an alternative model of entrepreneurial intention that included motivational, personal, and environmental factors. The coefficient of determination of this PLS path model was R2 = 0.64. This study informs curriculum improvement initiatives that are focused on fostering favourable attitude toward entrepreneurship and instilling entrepreneurial passion. The proposed entrepreneurial intention model has potential use for evaluating the entrepreneurship program and screening entrants into the program. It may also serve as a framework in mapping entrepreneurial intentions among student and non-student populations