Comparing the Entrepreneurial Intention between Female and Male Engineering Students
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Sep 27, 2017
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Abstract
Women business ownership contributes to entrepreneurship quality and diversity. However, the new venture creation rate of females lags far behind that of males. How to increase female entrepreneurship by entrepreneurship education is an important topic in the field. It has been reported that students’ entrepreneurial intention is a key to their future entrepreneurial behaviors. This paper aims to empirically compare the entrepreneurial intentions between female and male engineering students with the exertion of entrepreneurship education. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was used as the theoretical basis of this study. A total of 411 engineering students from three universities in Hong Kong, 303 males and 108 females, were involved in this study. The results show that TPB is appropriate to explain entrepreneurial intention of both female and male students. Further, male and female students are different in terms of entrepreneurial attitudes, social norms and entrepreneurial intentions even they experienced entrepreneurial education. This study suggests that teaching strategies to foster entrepreneurial intention of females should (1) emphasize female entrepreneurship, 2) provide female entrepreneurial models, and (3) create an entrepreneurial culture in campus. This study is perhaps the first study to investigate the entrepreneurial intentions by gender in association with entrepreneurship education. It contributes to developing appropriate education measures to aid female students to achieve entrepreneurial potential and promote female entrepreneurship.
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References
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[2] Ajzen, I. 2005. Attitudes, personality and behavior. New York: Open University Press.
[3] Arenius, P., and M. Minniti. 2005. “Perceptual variables and nascent entrepreneurs. ” Small Business Economics , 24: 233-247.
[4] Armitage, C. J., and M. Conner. 2001. “Efficacy of the theory of planned behavior: Meta-analysis review.” British Journal of Social Science, 40 (4): 471-499.
[5] Armitage, P., G. Berry, and J. Matthews. 2002. Statistical methods in medical research. 4th ed. Boston: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
[6] Autio, E., R. Keeley, M. Klofsten, G. Parker, and M. Hay. 2001. “Entrepreneurial intent among students in Scandinavia and in the USA.” Enterprise and Innovation Management Studies, 2(2): 145-160.
[7] Bandura, A. 1986. The social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
[8] Bryman, A., and D. Cramer. 2005. Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS12 and 13. A guide for social scientists. New York: Routledge.
[9] Cardoso, P., and J.F. Marques. 2008. “Perception of career barriers: The importance of gender and ethnic variables.” International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 8(1): 49-61.
[10] Chowdhury, S., and M. Endres, 2005. “Gender difference and the formation of entrepreneurial self-efficacy.” Paper presented at the United States Association of Small Business (USASBE) Annual Conference, Indian Wells, CA.
[11] Cohen, J. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. 2 ed. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
[12] Dickson, P.H., G.T. Solomon, and K.W. Weaver. 2008. “Entrepreneurial selection and success: does education matter?” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 15(2): 239-258.
[13] Dutta, D., J. Li, and M. Merenda. 2010. “Fostering Entrepreneurship: Impact of Specialization and Diversity in Education.” International Entrepreneurship Management Journal, April. Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.
[14] Fairlie, R., and A. Robb. 2009. “Gender differences in business performance: Evidence from the characteristics of business owners survey.” Small Business Economy, 33: 375-395.
[15] Fayolle, A., B. Gailly, and N. Lassas-Clerc. 2006. “Assessing the impact of entrepreneruship education programs: A new methodology.” Journal of European Industrial Training, 30 (9): 701-720.
[16] Fiet, J. 2001. “The Theoretical Side of Teaching Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Business Venturing, 16: 1-24.
[17] Gird, A., and J. Bagraim. 2008. “The Theory of Planned Behaviour as Predictor of Entrepreneurial Intent amongst Final-year University Students.” South African Journal of Psychology, 38 (4): 711-724.
[18] Gupta, V., D. Turban, S. Wasti, and A. Sikdar. 2005. “Entrepreneurship and stereotypes: Are entrepreneurs from Mars or from Venus?” Paper presented at the Academy of Management conference, Honolulu, Hawaii.
[19] Hair, J., B. Black, B. Babin, R. Anderson, and R. Tatham. 2006. Multivariate Data Analysis. 6 ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
[20] Johnson, R., D. Stone, and T. Phillips. 2008. “Relations among ethnicity, gender, beliefs, attitudes, and intention to pursue a career in information technology.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38: 999-1022.
[21] Kline, R. 2005. Principles and practice of structural equation modeling. New York and London: The Guilford Press.
[22] Kolvereid, L. 1996. “Predictions of Employment Status Choice Intentions.” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 21 (1): 47-57.
[23] Kolvereid, L., and E. Isaksen. 2006. “New business start-up and subsequent entry into self-employment.” Journal of Business Venturing, 21 (6): 866-885.
[24] Krueger, N., M. Reilly, and A. Carsrud. 2000. “Competing Models of Entrepreneurial Intentions.” Journal of Business Venturing, 15: 411-432.
[25] Langowitz, N., and M. Minniti. 2007. “The Entrepreneurial Propensity of Women.” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31(3): 341-364.
[26] Leroy H., S. Manigart, and M. Meuleman. 2009. “The planned decision to transfer an entrepreneurial company.” Working Paper Series of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University.
[27] Linan, F., J. C. Rodriguez-Cohard, and J.M. Cantuche. 2011. “Factors affecting entrepreneurial intention levels: A role for education.” International entrepreneurship and management journal, 7(2): 195-218.
[28] Lind, A. 2006. “Reflections on mainstreaming gender equality in adult basic education programmes.” International Journal of Educational Development, 26 (2): 166-176.
[29] Luthje, C., and N. Franke. 2003. “The 'making' of an entrepreneur: Testing a model of entrepreneurial intent among engineering students at MIT.” R&D Management, 33: 135-147.
[30] Matlay, H. 2005. “Researching entrepreneurship and education: Part 1: What is entrepreneurship and does it matter?” Education + Training, 47 (89): 665-677.
[31] Mbaziira, S., and C. Oyedokun, 2007. “Advancing entrepreneurship education in Namibia: A practical approach.” Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Polytechnic of Namibia, 24-25 October.
[32] OECD. (2008). OECD labour force statistics. Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/labour-force-statistics-2008_lfs-2008-en-fr.
[33] Petridou, E., A. Sarri, and L. Kyrgidou. 2009. “Entrepreneurship education in higher educational institutions: The gender dimension.” Gender in Management: An International Journal, 24 (4): 286-309.
[34] Reynolds, P., S. Camp, W. Bygrave, E. Autio, and M. Hay. 2002. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2001 Executive Report. London Business School: Babson College.
[35] Rivera, K., E. Chen, L. Flores, F. Blumberg, and J. Ponterotto. 2007. “The effects of perceived barriers, role models, and acculturation of the career self-efficacy and career consideration of Hispanic women.” Career Development Quarterly, 56: 47-61.
[36] Sanchez, J.C. 2011. “University training for entrepreneurial competencies: Its impact on intention of venture creation.” International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 7(2): 239-254.
[37] Sheeran P. 2002. “Intention-behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review.” In European Review of Social Psychology, ed W. Stroebe and M. Hewstone, 1-36. New York: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
[38] Solomon, G. 2007. “An examination of entrepreneurship education in the United States.” Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 14 (2): 168-182.
[39] Souitaris, V., S. Zerbinati, and A. Al-Laham. 2007. “Do entrepreneurship programs raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning, inspiration and resources.” Journal of Business Venturing, 22: 566-591.
[40] Steinberg, W. 2011. Statistics alive! 2 ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.
[41] Stevens, J. 2002. Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. 4 ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
[42] University Grant Committee. 2010. First-Year Student Intakes (Headcount) of UGC-funded Programes 2003/04-2009/10. Retrieved from http://cdcf.ugc.edu.hk/cdcf/searchStatisticReport.do; jsessionid=B3D55A2F3377503BFFFFF0ECE305CBB5.
[43] van Gelderen, M., M. Brand, M.van Praag, W. Bodewes, E. Poutsma, and A. van Gils. 2008. “Explaining entrepreneurial intentions by means of the theory of planned behaviour.” Career Development International, 13: 538-559.
[44] van Stel, A., M. Carree, and R. Thurik. 2005. “The effect of entrepreneurial activity on national economic growth.” Journal Small Business Economics, 24 (3): 311-321.
[45] Veciana, J. 2007. “Entrepreneurship as a Scientific Research Program.” In Entrepreneurship: Concepts, Theory, and Perspective, ed. A. Cuervo, D. Ribeiro, and S. Roig, 23-71. Berlin: Springer.
[46] Verheul, I., A.Van Stel, and R. Thurik. 2006. “Explaining female and male entrepreneurship at the country level.” Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 18: 151-183.
[47] Verheul, I., and A. Thurik. 2001. “Start-up capital: does gender matter?” Small Business Economics, 16: 329-345.
[48] Verheul, I., R. Thurik, and I. Grilo. 2006. “Determinants of self-employment preference and realization of women and men in Europe and the United States.” SCALES (Scientific Analysis of Entrepreneurship and SMEs) -paper N200513, Zoetermeer, January.
[49] Watson, J. 2002. “Comparing the performance of male and female controlled busiensses: Relating outputs to inputs.” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 26 (3): 91-100.
[50] Wilson, F., J. Kickul, and D. Marlino. 2007. “Gender, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial career intentions: Implications for entrepreneurship education.” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 31 (3): 387- 406.