Entrepreneurship education as a catalyst of business start-ups: A study on Malaysian community college students

This study investigates the effect of entrepreneurship education on the Malaysian community college students’ inclination towards entrepreneurship.It is built on the previous study by Ooi (2008) which examined the university students’ inclination towards entrepreneurship. A sample consisting of 235 students were drawn from four community colleges located in the Malaysian northern region.The students were in the final year of their diploma studies in various disciplines.A survey questionnaire was employed to elicit responses concerning their entrepreneurship inclination and characteristics.Descriptive statistics were used to analyse respondents’ characteristics and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (SEM-PLS) was employed in determining the relationship among the variables of the study.The results of the study indicated that 51 per cent of the community college students would consider commencing a business as their future vocation, whilst 33 per cent stated that they are probably to start a new business venture after completion of their studies. This could be attributed to the effort taken by the community colleges in promoting entrepreneurship among students.The entrepreneurial factors: role models and the role played by the community colleges in promoting entrepreneurship showed a statistically significant positive influence on community college students’ decision to pursue an entrepreneurial career. The Partial Least Square – Multi Group Analysis (PLS-MGA) employed for moderating the personal background variables indicated no significant differences on path coefficients between the various groups across gender and working experience.An exception was the effect of role models on entrepreneurial inclination, which was significantly higher with those participants without working experience. Recommendations and future research direction are delivered in relation to the findings of this study