Purpose: The aim of the study is to measure entrepreneurial intentions of students
in their last year of study in Further Education and Training institutions (FETs) in
South Africa. The study explored the impact of the following aspects on EI: personal
backgrounds (gender, study discipline, and entrepreneurial family backgrounds);
geographical location; and the self-assessed supportiveness of the contextual
environment. Lastly, the strength of association between antecedents to
entrepreneurial intentions and EI itself were also explored.
Design: A questionnaire was administered to 360 final-year students undertaking
technical and entrepreneurship-related studies at FETs in four different provinces in
South Africa. Regression, Stepwise regression, ANOVA, t-test, and correlation
matrix analyses were conducted to test the proposed relationships.
Findings: FET students generally exhibit high levels of entrepreneurial intentions.
Gender, study discipline and geographic location have no direct influence on
entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurial family background, however, exerts a
significant influence on entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, conviction has the
strongest association with entrepreneurial intentions compared with the other
antecedents that were tested, that is, general attitudes, image of entrepreneurship
and FET supportiveness.
Research limitations: The use of cross-sectional non-experimental design does not
allow for conclusions to be drawn regarding causality. Only five FETs participated in
the study; therefore, the generalisability of the findings to all FETs nationally is
limited.
Practical implications: The study indicates high levels of entrepreneurial intentions
in circumstances where literature has found the opposite findings. It therefore
becomes critical to find integrated teaching methods that take into account the South
African environment in order to harness the high entrepreneurial intentions of
students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/12590 |
| Date | 20 March 2013 |
| Creators | Skosana, Blessing Vusumuzi |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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