Entrepreneurial Characteristics Among Local & Foreign Students Studying in Malaysia: The Role of Gender
(2017). International Journal of Education, Learning & Training, 2(1), 12-27. DOI: 10.24924/ijelt/2017.04/v2.iss1/12.27
16 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2018
Date Written: April 21, 2017
Abstract
The purpose of the research is to examine the impact of entrepreneurial characteristics among students and the role of gender on inclination towards entrepreneurship. Based on past literature specific traits such as risk-taking propensity, innovativeness, tolerance of ambiguity, self-efficacy and need for achievement were used to measure Entrepreneurial characteristics. 240 students both females and males from different races and faculties from Asia Pacific University (APU) were surveyed using a combination of descriptive and explanatory research design. The reliability was calculated using alpha Cronbach (α=.952). The descriptive statistics ANOVA, regression linear was applied to test the hypotheses. We found that tolerance for ambiguity and need for achievement traits are most prevalent two attributes of entrepreneurship among the students. Foreign students scored a higher mean on five entrepreneurial traits. The most prevalent traits of among foreign students is tolerance of ambiguity while need for achievements traits is most prevalent trait among the local students. Also we found that all the five entrepreneurial attributes are more prevalent among the male students than female students among both locals and foreign students. Need for achievement scored highest mean value among both female and male students among both local and foreign students. In terms of regression, we found that risk taking, innovativeness and need for achievement are not significant towards entrepreneurial inclination among female students while all the traits of entrepreneurial attributes has significant impact towards entrepreneurial inclination except tolerance of ambiguity among male students. Similarly we found that risk taking behaviour is not significant with inclination toward entrepreneurship among both local and foreign students. In terms of innovativeness we found that there is no significant influence towards entrepreneurial inclination among local students while among foreign students, we found there is a negative influence towards entrepreneurial inclination. Overall among all students; innovativeness has a significant but negative influence towards inclination of entrepreneurship. However all other traits of entrepreneurship have a significant and positive impact towards entrepreneurial intention. Therefore the concept of entrepreneurship should be considered and an appropriate condition for developing entrepreneurship activities in student’s curriculum and training should be provided.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Gender, Inclination Towards Entrepreneurship, Foreign and Malaysian
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