Exploring the impact of college graduates' place attachment on entrepreneurial intention upon returning to hometowns: A study based on the theory of planned behavior

Cixian Lv; Jingjing Xu; Wenhao Chang; Xiaotong Zhi; Peijin Yang; Xinghua Wang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0300312

Exploring the impact of college graduates' place attachment on entrepreneurial intention upon returning to hometowns: A study based on the theory of planned behavior

PLoS One. 2024 Mar 29;19(3):e0300312. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300312. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Cixian Lv¹, Jingjing Xu², Wenhao Chang³, Xiaotong Zhi¹, Peijin Yang¹, Xinghua Wang^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Normal College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
² Institute of Education, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
³ Physical Science and Technology College, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China.
⁴ College of Business Management, Xiamen Huaxia University, Xiamen, China.

Abstract

The issue of the continuing decline of rural areas caused by urbanization has become a global concern. Encouraging college graduates to return to their hometowns to start businesses is an important initiative for countries to achieve sustainable rural development. Drawing from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study introduces two additional variables: place attachment and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Through a series of three model refinements, a comprehensive theoretical framework has been formulated to elucidate Chinese college graduates' hometown-based entrepreneurial intention and behavior. The samples for this study were 1151 college graduates selected from diverse universities across China. This study aims to explore the influence of college graduates' hometown-based entrepreneurial intention using Structural Equation Modelling. This analytical approach illuminates how variables such as college graduates' place attachment, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship, and attitude towards hometown-based entrepreneurship affected their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention. The research findings reveal the following insights: (1) The overall levels of college graduates' place attachment and hometown-based entrepreneurial intention were relatively low. (2) College graduates' place attachment, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship, and attitude towards hometown-based entrepreneurship, had a positive impact on their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention. (3) College graduates' place attachment and subjective norm for hometown-based entrepreneurship had a significant impact on their hometown-based entrepreneurial intention through the mediating variable of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This study then makes policy recommendations from theoretical and managerial aspects.

Copyright: © 2024 Lv et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

China
East Asian People
Entrepreneurship*
Humans
Intention*
Theory of Planned Behavior*
Universities

Grants and funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the National Social Science Foundation (Education) Project (http://www.nopss.gov.cn/), grant number BIA190164 (awarded to Cixian Lv). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.