The Systematic Impact of Personal Characteristics on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Engineering Students

Hongyi Sun; Wenbin Ni; Pei-Lee Teh; Carol Lo

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01072

The Systematic Impact of Personal Characteristics on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Engineering Students

Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 3:11:1072. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01072. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Hongyi Sun¹, Wenbin Ni², Pei-Lee Teh³, Carol Lo⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
² School of Business Administration, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou, China.
³ School of Business, Monash University Malaysia, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
⁴ Occupational Health and Safety Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

Abstract

The impact of personal characteristics on entrepreneurial intention is a classic topic in the field of entrepreneurship research. Previous research mostly used simple linear models, leading to a gap in the study on the interrelationship among personal characteristics and their systematic influence on entrepreneurial intention. This study investigates the interrelationship among the four specific entrepreneurial characteristics (i.e., need for achievement, locus of control, risk-taking propensity, and creativity) and their systematic influence on the entrepreneurial intention of engineering students. The research data is from 210 engineering students via a survey. Logistic regression and path analysis were used for data analysis. The findings suggest that creativity and risk-taking directly influence entrepreneurial intention while the need for achievement and the locus of control influence it indirectly. Implications for entrepreneurship education are finally discussed.

Keywords: creativity; entrepreneurial intention; entrepreneurship education; locus of control; need for achievement; personal characteristics; risk-taking propensity.