An Assessment of Behavioral Intention of Budding Small Scale Entrepreneurs in Select Universities of Uttar Pradesh

The current study is an endeavor to identify the most promising determinants of the behavioral intention of budding small scale entrepreneurs towards entrepreneurship. Combining two different approaches of entrepreneurship research viz. personality traits approach and intentionality approach, the current research has cognized a conceptual hypothesized model extending the theory of planned behavioral (TPB) with entrepreneurial characteristics and entrepreneurship education. The foremost objective of this study is to investigate the direct effect of the underlying factors of TPB, entrepreneurial characteristics, and entrepreneurship education. Secondly, this study has also attempted to test the indirect effect of entrepreneurial characteristics on behavioral intention towards entrepreneurship via the mediation of entrepreneurial attitude and self-efficacy. Lastly, this study has also cognized the moderating role of entrepreneurship education on “entrepreneurial attitude-behavioral intention” and “entrepreneurial self-efficacy-behavioral intention” links. The data sample of 663 students from business and management background was collected from three different universities of Uttar Pradesh state of India. For the assessment of model validity and reliability, this study has employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The study has used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for testing the hypothesized direct and indirect effects, while for testing the moderation effect, this study has used Process Macro for SPSS. The current study has also employed the artificial neural networks analysis (ANN) technique to confirm the results of SEM. The findings were found in support of the hypothesized model, and all the hypothesized relationships were found supported. The findings of the current study are useful for universities and policymakers in designing the entrepreneurship course curriculum to instill entrepreneurial spirit among university students