In China, the number of university graduates is rapidly increasing every year due to the rapid expansion of higher education. As of 2020, the number of Chinese university graduates reached 8.74 million, the highest ever. In this environment of higher ...
In China, the number of university graduates is rapidly increasing every year due to the rapid expansion of higher education. As of 2020, the number of Chinese university graduates reached 8.74 million, the highest ever. In this environment of higher education, entrepreneurship is one of the main policies that China is pursuing to revitalize the government as a whole. The Chinese government's start-up policy can be summarized as increasing investment in start-ups and providing policy and financial subsidies to start-ups to foster the power to encourage entrepreneurship in society. In the new socio-economic environment, it has become an important task for university students to improve their entrepreneurial intention.
The purpose of this study was to establish a research model focusing on factors and theories that influence college students' entrepreneurial intention, and to examine the relationship between these variables. Through the literature analysis, the personality characteristics(risk-taking tendency and achievement desire), the entrepreneurial environment perception(government support, university support, and financial support), the entrepreneurial competence(creativity and communication competencies) were selected as the factors to affect the entrepreneurial intention.
The specific research questions to acheive the research purpose are as follows.
Questions 1. What are the overall trends in personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention?
Question 2. Are there differences in personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention according to university students' personal background variables (gender, single child, residence, academic background, etc.)?
Question 3. What is the relationship between personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention?
3-1. What is the correlation between personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention?
3-2. What factors affect entrepreneurial intention among college students' personality characteristics (risk-taking tendency and achievement desire), entrepreneurial environment perception(government support, university support, and financial support), and entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence)?
3-3. What is the structural relationship between college students' personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention?
3-4. Is there a mediating effect of entrepreneurial competence(creative competence, communication competence) between personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, and entrepreneurial intention?
6 hypotheses were established to verify the mediating effect of entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence) and the structural relationship between college students' personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention.
H1: College students' personality characteristics have a direct impact on entrepreneurial intention.
H2: College students' creative competence will mediate the relationship between personality characteristics and entrepreneurial intention.
H3: College students' communication competence will mediate the relationship between personality characteristics and entrepreneurial intention.
H4: College students' entrepreneurial environment perception have a direct impact on entrepreneurial intention.
H5: College students' creative competence will mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial environment perception and entrepreneurial intention.
H6: College students' communication competence will mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial environment perception and entrepreneurial intention.
In order to achieve the research purpose, a preliminary survey was conducted in February 2020 targeting 421 students at W University located in Shandong Province, China, and the reliability and validity of the measurement tool were verified and confirmed. The confirmed measurement tools include 4 items on the Entrepreneurial Intention Scale(Cronbach's α=0.905); 7 items for the creativity competence(Cronbach's α=0.950) and 11 items for the communication competence(Cronbach's α=0.958) in the Entrepreneurial Competence Scale; 4 items for the achievement desire(Cronbach's α=0.877) and 3 items for the risk-taking tendency(Cronbach's α=0.827) in the Personality Characteristics Scale; 7 items for the government support(Cronbach's α=0.967), 8 items for the financial support(Cronbach's α=0.940), and 8 items for university support (Cronbach's α=0.939) in the Entrepreneurial Environment Perception. This survey was conducted as an online survey from March to April 2020 and 1,730 copies were distributed and 1,717 copies were collected, showing a collection rate of 98.1%.
For the finally collected data, descriptive statistical analysis was performed with mean, standard deviation, kurtosis and skewness to see the overall trend, and Pearson correlation was performed for correlation analysis. Stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to verify the effect on entrepreneurship intention. Lastly, structural equation verification was conducted to understand the structural relationship between the personality characteristics of college students, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence(creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention. Bootstrapping was carried out to verify the mediating effect.
The research conclusion is as follows.
First, personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), and entrepreneurial intention were found to be high in general. Among them, achievement desire was the highest, and entrepreneurial environment perception(financial support) was the lowest. Skewness and kurtosis showed that the main variables used in this study satisfied the normal distribution assumption.
Second, males, only children, first-year students, students familiar with government policies and school policies, and students with entrepreneurial intentions have higher levels of entrepreneurial environment perception, creativity competence, communication competence, and entrepreneurial intention.
Third, entrepreneurial intention showed a statistically significant correlation with personality characteristics (risk-taking tendency, achievement desire), entrepreneurial environment perception(government support, university support, and financial support), and entrepreneurial competence (creative competence, communication competence), showed the highest correlation with creativity.
Fourth, personality characteristics, entrepreneurial environment perception, creativity and communication competence affect entrepreneurial intention. Among them, creative competency has the largest influence, followed by communication competency, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial environment perception, and personality characteristics.
Fifth, hypothesis 1 was adopted and hypothesis 4 was rejected because the personality characteristics of college students directly affect entrepreneurial intention. and entrepreneurial environment perception did not directly affect entrepreneurial intention.
Sixth, creativity and communication competency partially mediated the relationship between personality characteristics and entrepreneurial intention, while creativity and communication competence fully mediated the relationship between entrepreneurial environment perception and entrepreneurial intention.
The results of this study have limitations in generalization because they were sampled only at one university in China. The results of this study are expected to be utilized when conducting programs and undergraduate education to improve the entrepreneurial intention of college students.
Keywords: Personality Characteristics, Entrepreneurial Environment Perception, Entrepreneurial Competence, Structural Equality Modeling, Mediating Effect