Factors influencing self-employment intention among Nigerian post-graduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM)

• Main Author: Ali, Ali Iliyasu
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: HB615-715 Entrepreneurship. Risk and uncertainty. Property
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/4607/1/s815159.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/4607/2/s815159_abstract.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/4607/

Report shows that more than 60% of young individuals below 30 years of age are interested in owning their own business. However, only a small number of students start a business immediately after graduation due to the fact that being an entrepreneur is not considered as a career option. This study seeks to examine the relationship between entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial experience and societal entrepreneurship attitude as factors influencing self-employment intention. The study was theoretically based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT). Self-administered survey method was used to distribute questionnaire for collecting primary data through a simple random sampling technique from 113 Nigerian postgraduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) who are active in status. The collected data were then analyzed. The findings of this study found that entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial experience and societal entrepreneurship attitude are positively related to UUM’s Nigerian postgraduate student’s intention towards self-employment. The study provides an enriched contribution to knowledge and significant implication to the theory and practices of entrepreneurship. It also signaled to policy makers such as education authority as well as government to look into the effect of entrepreneurship education, prior entrepreneurship experience as well as societal entrepreneurship attitude as influencing factors on students’ intention of becoming self-employed.