Relationship Between Proactive Personality and Entrepreneurial Intentions in College Students: Mediation Effects of Social Capital and Human Capital

Exploring entrepreneurial intention: The roles of proactive personality, education, opportunity and Planned Behavior

Entrepreneurial intention is crucial in fostering an entrepreneurial culture and driving economic growth, especially among students from higher education institutions. Our study aims to examine the role of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), specifically attitude towards entrepreneurship (ATE) and perceived behavioral control (PBC), in the relationships between proactive personality (PP), entrepreneurship education (EE), entrepreneurial opportunity (EO), and entrepreneurial intention (EI) among final-year students higher education institutions in China. The TPB framework provides a theoretical foundation to investigate how psychological factors, such as ATE and PBC, mediate an individual's intention to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. The research model was analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings, derived from a sample of 250 final-year students from public universities in China, indicate that ATE and PBC mediate the relationships between PP, EO, and EI. However, only ATE was found to mediate the relationship between EE and EI. Our findings offer insights into the foundational mechanisms driving EI, significantly advancing the scholarly understanding of entrepreneurial behavior. By demonstrating the applicability of the TPB framework, our study sheds light on the psychological processes that underlie the connections between PP, EE, EO and EI.

Sustainable entrepreneurship out of entrepreneurial opportunity identification: The mediating role of psychological capital

Introduction

The aim of the present study, was to examine the simultaneous effects of entrepreneurial opportunity identification (EOI) and psychological capital (PC) on university students' entrepreneurial intention (EI). Compared with necessity-driven entrepreneurship, opportunity-driven entrepreneurship is more sustainable. Scholars have shown that EOI is key to forming EI, but little has been discussed about its association with PC.

Methods

A total of 555 university students in China were enrolled by means of convenience sampling. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis of variables were performed using SPSS 21.0 software. Structural equation modeling analysis (SEM) with AMOS 21.0 was used to examine the structural effects of EOI and PC on university students' EI.

Results

According to the results, university students' EOI and PC had a positive and insignificant influence on their levels of EI. Furthermore, PC was found to fully mediate the impact of EOI on EI.

Discussion

The present study could shed light on new instructions to examine the interaction between the cognitive and psychological components of EI in the field of entrepreneurship. It is recommended that educators and practitioners should pay regard to the role of EOI and PC.

The influence mechanism of the relationship between entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurial intention

Based on relevant literature, this study adopted entrepreneurial learning theory to construct a relationship model between entrepreneurial learning and entrepreneurial intention. In this framework, entrepreneurial learning was divided into three dimensions: entrepreneurial education learning, experiential learning, and social network learning. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,399 undergraduate students in Zhejiang Province to investigate how entrepreneurial learning influenced entrepreneurial intention, while considering the mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This empirical research found that: (1) experiential learning and social network learning had significant positive impacts on entrepreneurial intention, but there was no significant relationship between entrepreneurial education learning and entrepreneurial intention; (2) entrepreneurship education learning and social network learning had significant positive relationships with entrepreneurial self-efficacy, but experiential learning had a significant negative relationship with entrepreneurial self-efficacy; and (3) entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between experiential learning, social network learning, and entrepreneurial intention, and fully mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial education learning and entrepreneurial intention. These findings suggest that colleges and universities in China could broaden entrepreneurial learning and strengthen social network learning.

Research on the Influence of Non-Cognitive Ability and Social Support Perception on College Students' Entrepreneurial Intention

The entrepreneurship of college students is an important issue related to the harmony and sustainable development of society as a whole. At present, the existing research in the industry pays less attention to the influence mechanism of non-cognitive ability and social support perception on college students' entrepreneurial intention. Using 450 survey data, this paper examines the relationship between non-cognitive ability and college students' entrepreneurial intention in terms of five dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability. At the same time, it focuses on the role of social environmental factors, namely, social support perception in the relationship between the non-cognitive ability and entrepreneurial intention, and explores the influence path. The results show that openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, and emotional stability have significant positive effects on entrepreneurial intention; agreeableness has no significant effect on entrepreneurial intention; openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability have significant positive effects on social support perception. The mediating effect of social support perception is as follows-it is part of the intermediary effect between openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability on entrepreneurial intention; within the influence of agreeableness on entrepreneurial intention, it plays a complete intermediary role. This paper enriches the research results on the impact of non-cognitive ability on entrepreneurial intention, reveals the intermediary effect of social support perception on the impact of non-cognitive ability on college students' entrepreneurial intention, and broadens the field of vision for the study of college students' entrepreneurial intention. The research results can provide a decision-making reference for the promotion of the entrepreneurial intention of college students, alleviating the employment pressure of college graduates in China and promoting sustainable economic development.