Entrepreneurial intention among university students of a developing economy: the mediating role of access to finance and entrepreneurship program

Figures & data

Figure 1. Research framework.

Table 1. Study program and participants.

		No. of Participants
	Entrepreneurship Programs
Study Program	Bachelor of Entrepreneurship	40
	Bachelor of Business Administration	100
	Master of Business Administration	60
	Total students from the Faculty of Business & Entrepreneurship	200
	Bachelor of Computer Science & Engineering/Science	194
Gender	Male	211
	Female	183
Bachelor’s Degree Education Status Ongoing	1^st Year	55
	2^nd Year	78
	3^rd Year	123
	4^th Year	138

Table 2. Reliability analysis and convergent validity.

	Cronbach’s Alpha	Composite Reliability	Average Variance Extracted (AVE)
AF	0.874	0.913	0.725
ATT	0.899	0.926	0.713
EI	0.804	0.885	0.719
EP	0.826	0.896	0.741
PBC	0.768	0.852	0.593
SN	0.846	0.891	0.621

Table 3. Outer loadings.

	AF	ATT	EI	EP	PBC	SN
AF1	0.854
AF2	0.853
AF3	0.875
AF4	0.824
ATT1		0.854
ATT2		0.836
ATT3		0.851
ATT4		0.845
ATT5		0.837
EI1			0.866
EI2			0.859
EI3			0.817
EP1				0.849
EP2				0.842
EP3				0.890
PBC1					0.805
PBC2					0.825
PBC3					0.618
PBC4					0.815
SN1						0.813
SN2						0.841
SN3						0.705
SN4						0.802
SN5						0.772

Table 4. Fornell-Lacker criteria.

	AF	ATT	EI	EP	PBC	SN
AF	0.852
ATT	0.690	0.844
EI	0.721	0.659	0.848
EP	0.753	0.562	0.657	0.861
PBC	0.705	0.671	0.685	0.608	0.770
SN	0.632	0.569	0.617	0.584	0.603	0.788

Table 5. Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT).

	AF	ATT	EI	EP	PBC	SN
AF
ATT	0.775
EI	0.858	0.773
EP	0.880	0.645	0.801
PBC	0.855	0.795	0.863	0.754
SN	0.735	0.651	0.750	0.695	0.749

Table 6. Model fitness.

Indices	Recommended Criteria	Default Model
SRMR	Less than 0.08	0.058
NFI	More than 0.90	0.91

Table 7. Test of multi-collinearity (VIF).

	VIF
AF1	2.199
AF2	2.225
AF3	2.378
AF4	1.961
ATT1	2.495
ATT2	2.329
ATT3	2.493
ATT4	2.338
ATT5	2.285
EI1	1.850
EI2	1.881
EI3	1.576
EP1	1.693
EP2	1.938
EP3	2.226
PBC1	1.684
PBC2	1.797
PBC3	1.246
PBC4	1.633
SN1	2.044
SN2	2.275
SN3	1.499
SN4	1.910
SN5	1.858

Table 8. Coefficient of determination.

	R Square	R Square Adjusted	Q^2
Access to Finance	0.617	0.614	0.602
Entrepreneurial Intention	0.630	0.625	0.568
Entrepreneurship Program	0.463	0.459	0.442

Figure 2. PLS structural model.

Table 9. Direct path co-efficient results.

	Original Sample (O)	Sample Mean (M)	Standard Deviation (STDEV)	T Statistics (|O/STDEV|)	P Values
AF -> EI	0.226	0.225	0.070	3.210	0.001
ATT -> AF	0.322	0.318	0.067	4.791	0.000
ATT -> EI	0.183	0.185	0.055	3.341	0.001
ATT -> EP	0.193	0.189	0.080	2.421	0.016
EP -> EI	0.172	0.173	0.059	2.897	0.004
PBC -> AF	0.343	0.347	0.063	5.456	0.000
PBC -> EI	0.214	0.212	0.054	3.928	0.000
PBC -> EP	0.303	0.306	0.076	3.987	0.000
SN -> AF	0.241	0.242	0.049	4.959	0.000
SN -> EI	0.141	0.140	0.052	2.727	0.006
SN -> EP	0.292	0.292	0.056	5.229	0.000

A significant relationship exists to be accepted if it is significant at a 5 percent (p < 0.05) level or if the t statistics is higher than 1.96 (Hair et al., 2014). Table 7 shows that all the p-values are below 0.05. So, all the direct path hypotheses are accepted. Among the variables access to finance showed the highest impact on EI followed by PBC, ATT, EP, and SN.

Table 10. Mediation effects.

Mediation Path	Indirect Effect (β)	Standard Error (SE)	z-value	p values
ATT -> AF -> EI	0.073	0.024	2.692	0.003
PBC -> AF -> EI	0.077	0.030	2.783	0.009
SN -> AF -> EI	0.054	0.022	2.699	0.013
ATT -> EP -> EI	0.033	0.018	1.886	0.068
PBC -> EP -> EI	0.052	0.024	2.379	0.032
SN -> EP -> EI	0.050	0.019	2.555	0.007

Table

Measurement Items		Resources
Entrepreneurial Intention (EI)
EI1	I like to work in an organization for an income than become an entrepreneur.	Dohse and Walter (2011) and Malebana (2014)
EI2	I will definitely start a business during or upon completion of my entrepreneurship studies
EI3	If I pursue a career as an entrepreneur, the chances of failure rate will be high.
Attitude (ATT)
ATT1	I would prefer to be my own boss than to have steady employment.	Paço et al. (2011), Liñán and Chen (2009), and Rengiah (2013)
ATT2	I will take risks to adopt entrepreneurship as a career option
ATT3	I would be inclined to start my own startup if I had the opportunity and resources.
ATT4	I will earn more when I am self-employed than being paid by an employer
ATT5	I am highly pleased and satisfied that I can be an entrepreneur
Subjective Norms (SN)
SN1	Our family business motivated me towards entrepreneurship as a career option.	Rengiah (2013) and Leong (2008)
SN2	My parents, relatives, teachers and others often inspire me to become an entrepreneur.
SN3	My friends believe that being an entrepreneur is a logical career choice.
SN4	The environment and support system have increased my desire to be an entrepreneur.
SN5	I am convinced that people important to me think that I should choose an entrepreneurial career
Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC)
PBC1	It would be easy for me to develop a business startup	Aykol and Gurbuz (2008) and Paço et al. (2011)
PBC2	It would be difficult for me to make my business successful
PBC3	I am skilled and competent enough to handle the operations of an entrepreneurial venture
PBC4	Following my studies, I could be self-employed if I wanted to be so.
Entrepreneurship Programs (EP)
EP1	The entrepreneurship courses/program of my university prepares students effectively to pursue an entrepreneurial career	Ooi et al. (2011) and Rengiah (2013)
EP2	The program is interesting because of its teaching of real-world situations and practical ‘learning by doing’ lessons
EP3	The program covers most of the following teaching approaches: Seminar, case studies, business games, problem-solving exercises, projects, industry visits, formation of enterprise and internship
Access to Finance (AF)
AF1	My university provides seed money for students to start businesses.	Islam and Haque (2020) and Keat et al. (2011)
AF2	The Government and other associated companies help the students to get funds for startup initiatives.
AF3	Financial institutions do not readily provide loans to startup companies
AF4	My family and friends provide me with financial support.

Note: EI1, EI3, PBC2 were reverse coded (scored) during the survey and data analysis.

Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2014). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). In Sage Publisher.

 Google Scholar

Dohse, D., & Walter, S. (2011). Knowledge context and entrepreneurial intentions among students. Small Business Economics, 39(4), 877–895. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-011-9324-9

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Malebana, J. (2014). Entrepreneurial intentions of South African rural university students: A test of the theory of planned behaviour. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, 6(2), 130–143. https://doi.org/10.22610/jebs.v6i2.476

 Google Scholar

Paço, A. M. F., Ferreira, J. M., Raposo, M., Rodrigues, R. G., & Dinis, A. (2011). Behaviours and entrepreneurial intention: Empirical findings about secondary students. Journal of International Entrepreneurship, 9(1), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10843-010-0071-9

 Google Scholar

Liñán, F., & Chen, Y. (2009). Development and cross-cultural application of a specific instrument to measure entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33(3), 593–617. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6520.2009.00318.x

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Rengiah, P. (2013). Effectiveness of entrepreneurship education in developing entrepreneurial intentions among Malaysian university students [Doctoral dissertation, Southern Cross University]. https://researchportal.scu.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/alma991012821351302368/61SCU_INST:ResearchRepository?tags=scholar

 Google Scholar

Leong, C. K. (2008). Entrepreneurial intention: An empirical study among Open University Malaysia (OUM) students [Doctoral dissertation, Open University Malaysia (OUM)].

 Google Scholar

Ooi, Y., K., Selvarajah, C., & Meyer, D. (2011). Inclination towards entrepreneurship among university students: An empirical study of Malaysian university. International Journal of Business and Social Sciences, 2(4), 206–220.

 Google Scholar

Islam, B., & Haque, M. (2020). Bangladesh entrepreneurship ecosystem: The next step. LightCastle Analytics Wing. lightcastlebd. https://www.lightcastlebd.com/insights/2020/04/bangladesh-entrepreneurship-ecosystem-the-next-step

 Google Scholar

Keat, O., Selvarajah, C., & Meyer, D. (2011). Inclination towards entrepreneurship among university students: An empirical study of Malaysian university students. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2(4), 206–220.

 Google Scholar

Data availability statement

Data available in article.