Professional Documents
Culture Documents
OF TAMIL NADU
National Conference On 'Entrepreneurship in IndiaRoad Ahead' 20th March, 2013
Organized by Entrepreneurship-cum-Skill Development
Center (ESDC) Department of Commerce University of
Madras Chennai- 600 005
MEDIATING EFFECT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS ON ATTITUDE TOWARDS
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Dr.K. Manivannan, Professor, RMK Engineering College
Dr. T.N. Srikantha Dath, Professor, RMK Engineering College
Ms.S.D. Uma Mageswari, Associate Professor, RMK Engineering College
Abstract
Purpose: Entrepreneurship is becoming a very relevant instrument to promote economic
growth and development in different economies. Entrepreneurs are considered without
any doubt as pillars on which societies are built. To compete in the globalizing economy,
developing countries like India have to tap the potential for entrepreneurial activity. The
number of graduates from public and private higher educational institutions that join the
job market also leads to greater unemployment. A paradigm shift among graduates from
seeking jobs to providing jobs is needed, as their contributions to entrepreneurship would
stimulate the countrys economic growth, and help it move towards becoming a
developed nation by 2020. This paper attempts to probe into the attitudes of the
Engineering and technology graduate students in Tamil Nadu towards Entrepreneurship
as their career.
1.0
INTRODUCTION
doubt as pillars on which societies are built. To compete in the globalizing economy,
developing countries like India have to tap the potential for entrepreneurial activity.
Entrepreneurial ventures in India are encouraged by systematic attempts at the removal of
imposed structural and regulatory roadblocks. The growth of Bangalore, Hyderabad and
Chennai as industrial hubs for IT and automobile business stand as evidence for
Governments support.
On the other hand, the number of graduates from public and private higher educational
institutions that join the job market which leads to greater unemployment. An increasing
number of tertiary education graduates are unable to secure suitable jobs and are facing
unemployment or underemployment, which potentially poses a social challenge to the
society. (Rucai 2004; ChinaCSR 2007). A paradigm shift among graduates from seeking
jobs to providing jobs is needed, as their contributions to entrepreneurship would
stimulate the countrys economic growth, and help it move towards becoming a
developed nation by 2020.
1.1
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
Extensive attitudinal research has investigated this topic because attitude is assumed to be
a better explanatory factor for entrepreneurial career choice than demographic and
personality variables (Robinson et al. 1991). Several studies have also investigated the
influence of attitude towards entrepreneurial aspiration (Krueger et al. 2000).
The influence of attitude towards entrepreneurship as the career choice among young
graduate students in countries like USA, China, Malaysia, Pakistan etc. are studied. But
such studies involving Indian students attitude appear to be very less from the
extant literature.
Graduate entrepreneurship is portrayed as a solution to the youth unemployment crisis in
many countries such as the United States and the European Union, and could provide one
path for the Indian government to decrease the pressure of creating millions of suitable
jobs for graduates by encouraging them to create their own jobs as well as employment
for further employees of their venture.
Therefore this research is crucial as:
1. It is the study of students intentions towards entrepreneurship among students as
a career choice.
2. Government of India takes many steps to foster entrepreneurship among college
students through sponsored entrepreneurship. This research provides essential
input to develop programs and support services that meet the needs of the
students.
3. A study conducted in USA on students enrolled in Small Business Institute by
Michael Harris et al. (USASBE, 2008) strongly supported the notion that
entrepreneurial drive can be developed and entrepreneurship education developed
positive attitudes.
4. Indias graduate employment gap needs to be filled through entrepreneurship and
bold individuals creating ventures that provide employment to others. Therefore it
is crucial to understand how Indian students can positively impact the stressed
labor market by creating employment and economic impact.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Theoretical Background:
Entrepreneurship is a purposeful activity includes in initiation, promotion and distribution
of wealth and service. It is a risk taking activity and challenging tasks, needs utmost
devotion, total commitment and greater sincerity with fullest involvement for his personal
growth and personality. The entrepreneurial career takes time and needs hard work.
Systematic planning and business acumen are the essential requirements of a successful
entrepreneur. Therefore, before choosing this path one should be very careful in knowing
about his own self.
(http://assamagribusiness.nic.in/agriclinics/entrepreneurship%20concept%20&
%20definition.pdf, accessed on 20.07.2012)
Influences that affect career choice begin early in life; this study focuses on the next
generation of entrepreneurs, and on their career motivations, attitudes and selfperceptions.
Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgements concerning objects, people or events.
They reflect how one feels about something.
Extensive research is done in personality traits of an entrepreneur like risk taking, self
control, self confidence, proactive, innovative, independence; achievement oriented and
has an influence on the attitude. Similarly environmental factors like cultural,
demographic, social factors and government policies affect the attitudinal level of the
individual.
Research outside India:
Previous studies in the literature provide explanation to a question on why some people
choose entrepreneurial career and others do not. Some scholars primarily focus on the
effect of personality characteristics in the decision making process (Bonnet and Furnham,
1991). The results vary across the studies and reveal the existence of a link between
entrepreneurial intention and some personality factors.
that
entrepreneurial activity and one policy could address issues in all regions. It was argued
that societal attitudes towards entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship are important
determinants for future entrepreneurial activity. These attitudes would be impacted by the
family background of an individual and entrepreneurial development in the region an
individual comes from.
Several studies were conducted on entrepreneurship among students and reported that
students traits and perceptions have an influence entrepreneurial attitude (Dr.J.P.Kumar
(2012), Dr.Mohsin Shaikh (2012), Tarak Nath Shaw ( 2008). Eight factors were identified
as crucial in determining the students perceptions towards entrepreneurial career include
Personality, Cultural, Risk Taking Propensity, Perceived Desirability, Perceived
Feasibility, Attitude Towards Entrepreneurship Education or Perception on University
Environment,
Subjective
Norms,
Market
and
Finance
Conditions(Soumya
Gaddam,2008).
The traditional gender influences also emerge as male students are more likely start their
business than female students. The age of the students also have an influence on their
entrepreneurial intention as it was found that students in the age group 30-35 were more
inclined towards entrepreneurship than the middle aged. The influence of educational
qualification of the students towards the entrepreneurial attitude is significant. It was
found
that
engineering
students
have
positive
tendency
towards
revealed in the studies was that as the level of education increases the likelihood of
venturing into entrepreneurship decreasing.
3.0 OBJECTIVES:
Primary Objective:
To study the attitude of students towards entrepreneurship as their career choice and the
factors influencing the attitude
Secondary Objectives:
1. To identify the key factors influencing the attitude of the graduates towards
entrepreneurship
2. To study the attitude of undergraduate engineering students towards
entrepreneurship
The family background of the students based on parents in business and relatives in
business are as given below:
The next step in the process is to decide about the number of factors to be derived. The
component matrix so formed is further rotated orthogonally using Varimax rotation
algorithm which is the standard rotation method(Kaiser, 1958). All the statements are
loaded on 3 factors. The three components arrived after factor analysis is named after
their perceptions of entrepreneurs as self centered, service oriented and inspiring.
Perception Statements
Reliability
Self
centred
0.639
Service
oriented
Inspiring
Factor
loadings
destroy more jobs than they create
0.703
just to make money
0.632
do more harm than good
0.424
selfish
0.746
provide goods and services that people need 0.401
help india to compete in the world
0.734
India needs more entrepreneurs
0.441
They spend little time with their family and 0.462
friends
They inspire more people by their deeds
0.466
and actions
Plenty of opportunities for Indians to start
0.452
successful businesses
Starting a business is respectful
0.575
friends would respect
0.709
In India, wealthy people are admired
0.512
0.549
0.525
Similarly, reliability analysis for internal consistency is done for personality traits and
attitude are carried out and the values are as given below:
Reliability Statistics
Attitude
Cronbach's
Alpha
.632
N of
Items
14
Personality
traits
Cronbach's
Alpha
0.635
N of Items
12
observed that there is a linear relationship between the dependent variable and the factors
mentioned.
Regression analysis is done for the above model and the regression equation is as under:
Y = 0.069X1 + 0.851X2 -0.33X3 -0.021X4 + 0.025X5 + 0.086X6 + 0.119X7
Where Y = Attitude ; X1 = Perception; X2 = Personality trait; X3 = Gender; X4 = Place
of birth; X5 = Family income; X6 = Parents in business; X7 = Relatives in business.
P value is 0.538 which is greater than 0.05 and hence can be concluded that place
of birth of the respondents do not have an impact on the entrepreneurial attitude.
He: There is no significant association between Family income and attitude
In this case also, p value is 0.478, and hence null hypothesis is accepted.
Hf: There is no significant association between family background(parents in business
and relatives in business) and entrepreneurial attitude.
Two factors are considered under family background. P values obtained are 0.016
and 0.001 respectively and are less than 0.05 suggesting that the family background has
an significant influence on the respondents attitude towards entrepreneurship.
R, the multiple correlation coefficient, is the correlation between the observed and
predicted values of the dependent variable, and ranges from 0 to 1. Larger values of R
indicate stronger relationships. The values of R 2 range from 0 to 1. Small values indicate
that the model does not fit the data well; R 2 is the proportion of variation in the
dependent variable explained by the regression model (Hair et al., 1998).
R value for this dataset is 0.927 and R square value is 0.860. The high values of R and
R2 suggest a stronger relationships between the attitude and other independent variables.
A variable may be considered a mediator to the extent to which it carries the influence of
a given independent variable (IV) to a given dependent variable (DV).
SOBEL TEST
Sobel test was used to study the mediating effect of personality traits on perception to
attitude relationship. Firstly, regression analysis with perception predicting personality
trait was done. From this the standard error and regression coefficients are taken for
calculation. Similarly a regression analysis with perception and personality traits
predicting attitude was done. These values are entered in program which calculated the
critical ratio as a test of whether the indirect effect of the IV on the DV via the mediator
is significantly different from zero.
a
b
sa
Input
0.348
0.327
0.132
sb
0.076
Sobel
Aroian test
Goodman
test
Test statistic
2.24793758
2.20505543
2.29342296
Std.error
0.0506224
0.05160687
0.04961841
p-value
0.02458017
0.02745021
0.02182367
The reported p-values (rounded to 8 decimal places) are drawn from the unit normal
distribution under the assumption of a two-tailed z-test of the hypothesis that the
mediated effect equals zero in the population. +/- 1.96 are the critical values of the test
ratio which contain the central 95% of the unit normal distribution. P-values <0.05
suggest that the mediating effect of personality trait on perception to attitude relationship
is significant.
CONCLUSION
The study discusses the entrepreneurial attitude of engineering and technology students in
Tamil Nadu. For the purpose of analyzing the determinants of attitude, the study uses
demographic details, family background, perceptions towards entrepreneurship and
personality traits. Extant literature revealed the major influence of these factors.
The perceptions of the students are identified through a factor analysis of the important
underlying variables. In the perception of the students, these variables might influence
them in starting a venture in the future. Perception and attitude relationship is found to be
mediated by personality traits.
The study has few limitations : only engineering and technology students are considered
for the study and also the area of study is confined to Thiruvallur district only. Hence
universal generalizations of the findings have to be done with care.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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