Examining the Drivers of Entrepreneurial Career Intention among Female Undergraduates

Background - Entrepreneurship is seen as an important pillar to elevate Malaysia to a high-income nation. Hence, lots of attention have been tailored to promote entrepreneurship. Despite many initiatives and resources being channeled to encourage entrepreneurship, uptake among Malaysians particularly women, are still clouded. On the other hand, given the high unemployment and underemployment rates among the graduates, the Malaysian government is obliged to help them to build their career plans and improve their employability. Therefore, it is deemed vital to examine the entrepreneurial orientation of undergraduates which leads to entrepreneurial career intention. Thus, this study is poised to discover the roles of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) (innovativeness, risk taking propensity, proactiveness) and two emerging dimensions, perseverance and entrepreneurial passion in determining entrepreneurial career intention through the mediating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). Purpose - This research is poised to discover elements that can encourage female undergraduates’ participation in entrepreneurship by investigating the predictive value of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) which consist of innovativeness, risk taking propensity, proactiveness, perseverance and entrepreneurial passion on the entrepreneurial intention of female undergraduates in the Malaysian Higher Learning Institutions (HLI). The study also examines the mediating role of entrepreneurship selfefficacy on the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO), Entrepreneurship Education (EE) and Entrepreneurial Role Model (ERM) which in turn affects their entrepreneurial intention (EI) towards entrepreneurship. The study is underpinned by Human Capital Theory (HCT) and Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). Design/methodology/approach - The sample will comprise of public and private universities followed by female undergraduates being the unit of analysis. The study resides on a positivistic paradigm and will adopt quantitative method using survey questionnaires to produce empirical outcomes and validation in corresponding to research questions and objectives. Variance based structural equation modeling (PLSSEM) will be employed as the analysis tool.9 Findings/Expected Contributions - The outcome of the study is expected to foster understanding the phenomena of entrepreneurial career intention among female undergraduates hence provide insights towards reducing unemployment and boosting women participation in entrepreneurship. In addition, this study is expected to give implication on the design and focus of entrepreneurship education to support entrepreneurship. Originality/value - Although few studies investigated the role of entrepreneurship education affecting undergraduates’ entrepreneurial intention, these studies produced inconclusive results requiring further investigations. Furthermore, in most studies, Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been applied to predict entrepreneurial intention, assuming becoming an entrepreneur is a planned behavior. In this study, EO construct will be applied to predict intention at the individual level which has been vastly studied at the firm(organizational) level. The paper also attempts to examine two emerging dimensions, entrepreneurial passion and perseverance as part of IEO construct