Am I an entrepreneur? Students' creative dispositions and entrepreneurial intentions examined using the theory of planned behaviour

Abstract

This study has two major objectives. The first objective is measuring the impact of entrepreneurship education courses (EECs) on creative role identity (CRID) and creative self-efficacy (CSE), in addition to attitudes (ATTs) toward entrepreneurship, desires toward entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial intentions (EIs/INT). The second objective is addressing some of the limitations of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) by incorporating new constructs into the traditional model to better theorize the process and testing a new 2*2 model that is based in TPB. Using a pretest posttest quasi-experimental design, data were collected from a sample of 375 students at time 1 in comparison to 295 students at time 2 (both graduate and undergraduate) university-level students enrolled in entrepreneurship and non-entrepreneurship courses at three universities in eastern Canada. Two courses-derived benefits were examined, perceptions of formal learning (FL) and perceptions of creativity learning (CL). Results of a paired sample t-test showed that there were significant differences in the means of ATTs among the 115 students who attended the entrepreneurship courses at both time 1 and time 2, but in the opposite direction, and no significant differences in the means of other study variables. However, when conducting a univariate analysis, the results of the experimental group, in comparison to the control group, showed a significant increase in all the variables, except for ATTs and CSEs. Moreover, a FL had a significant influence on students' EIs. To test the second objective, I conducted structural equation model (SEM). It revealed that that while attitudes and desires had strong positive relations with EIs, CSE had a significant positive relationship with entrepreneurial desires. ATTs were significantly related to FL. Then, I proceeded to develop a unique model capturing the cross-classification of attitudes and CSE on EIs. Findings showed significant differences between the outcomes of at least two profiles with students reporting high CSE and high attitudes showing highest in EIs. However, contrary to my prediction, attitudes proved to be the stronger predictor of entrepreneurial intentions in comparison to CSE. The study findings contribute to the development of TPB, the emerging field of integrated entrepreneurial intention models, and entrepreneurship education.