From Entrepreneurial Learning to Entrepreneurial Career Intention: A Mediation-Moderated Framework

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the effect that entrepreneurship education has on entrepreneurial career intention among undergraduate students in a developing economy. The study also examines the parallel mediating effects of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial resilience and the serial mediating effect of entrepreneurial competence and the moderating effect of perceived family support.A quantitative, positivist, deductive research design method was used. For collecting data, three phases were used with purposive and snowball sampling with undergraduate students from Pakistani universities and resulted in a number of valid responses of 359. The data was analayzed with the functionalities of SPSS and SmartPLS.The entrepreneurship education had a significant impact on opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial resilience, which positively affected entrepreneurial competence. Entrepreneurial competence was a significant contributor to entrepreneurial career intention, in turn. The opportunity recognition and the relationship between opportunity recognition and resilience were very significant in the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial competence. The relationship between competence and career intention did not significantly depend on the perceived family support.The study extends social cognitive career theory to the framework of original integrated mediations between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial career intention in a developing-economy context through mediations of cognitive, adaptive and competence-building processes.The results motivate universities and policymakers to focus on improving experiential entrepreneurship education, opportunity-recognition training, the development of young university graduates' resilience, the provision of university incubation support, and competence-based entrepreneurship programmes to make entrepreneurship a meaningful career pathway for young university graduates in the whole country.