Entrepreneurial intentions among university students in Italy

The evidence from OECD nations showed that less than 10% of young population was involved in starting new ventures during early 2000s (Nolan, 2003). Twaalfhoven (2003) found that the proportions of the European students who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs within 3 years after their graduation are only 10%. The situation is not very appreciable in Italy due to the noticeable dispersion of micro-firms and self-employment in total employment. For instance, the entrepreneurial activity was found less than 5% among adult population involved in starting and managing a new business which is significantly lower when compared to most advanced economies (Bosma and Leve, 2009). Furthermore, the startup rate of new businesses has constantly decreased, whereas the mortality rate of firms has been increased which generated a destructive and growing demographic imbalance (Arrighetti and Traù, 2006, 2012).

According to GEM (2014), among the innovation driven economies; Italy has the second lowest values for TEA (Total early-stage Entrepreneurial Activity) with the rate of 4.4%. This remained stagnant during 2016 (GEM, 2016). The perception of entrepreneurial opportunities in Italy is also quite low, about the half of average of Innovation-Driven countries which can be due to the fear of failure (GEM, 2016). The data from previous studies revealed that the TEA always remained very limited in Italy in recent years, particularly after 2007. After the very low level (3.4%) registered in 2013, it is back to 4.3% which is equal to the level seen in 2012.

The latest relevant studies conducted in Italy were by Ferrante et al. (2016) and Fini et al. (2016) who described the students’ entrepreneurial engagement as well as their entrepreneurial intentions and showed a large share of intentional entrepreneurs in Italian universities. While in another relevant study, Arrighetti et al. (2013) estimated the sources of entrepreneurial intentions, differentiating between the propensity to start a new business and the perceived likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur. The latter study specifically discusses about the entrepreneurial mind-set of the students by analysing the influencing factors and provides a valuable contribution to the literature with the set of specific variables which is not currently available in the Italian context.

Regular and full-time (I and II bachelor and Master) students enrolled at University of Cassino and Southern Lazio (4000 appx.) were sent the questionnaires via email for a survey. However, due to incomplete/wrong email addresses in the student database, some students couldn’t receive the questionnaires. The parameters of 5% margin of error, 99% confidence level and 20% estimated response rate were fixed. Total 586 respondents were needed but only 510 students (both male and female) responded and produced 13% response rate. Overall, after completion of survey, the actual margin of error was 5.33%.

The research goals/questions of this study needed the exploration of certain relationships. The survey strategy was based on a self-prepared questionnaire designed in Italian language. Cronbach’s Alpha test was used to analyse the reliability while KMO and Bartlett’s test for the validity of the questionnaire. The questionnaire contained total 5 sections. The first section of the questionnaire contained demographic information. The second section was related to environmental support and involves two variables which are Finance availability and Government support. The third section described the entrepreneurial education. The fourth section was related to entrepreneurial intentions while the last section was devoted to the analysis of the personality traits.

A total of 18 independent variables (gender, age, degree, department, HS education, HS grades, job experience, business experience, family background (i.e. parent’s education, parent’s occupation), availability of capital, government support, entrepreneurial education, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) were used to analyse the effect on the entrepreneurial intentions (dependent variable). Only continuous variables including entrepreneurial intentions were measured on the 5 point Likert scale. Multiple regression model was applied to analyse the date using IBM SPSS 22.

Table 1 shows the frequency and percentages of all the categorical variables while the mean values and standard deviation are given for the continuous variables.

According to Tables 2, 10 variables which are Age, Gender (female), Previous grades, Mother occupation, Business experience, Entrepreneurial education, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness were showing significant values, which means that these are the only best predictors of the model. The last column of Table 2 shows the Collinearity Statistics where tolerance and VIF of all the variables are perfect and multicollinearity does not exist at all.

The detail of the analysis is as follows: University students with the age group of 21–23 and 24–25 contribute less to the dependent variable (Entrepreneurial Intentions) as compared to the age group of 20 or less.

The slope of Female entrepreneurial intentions is significantly negative as compared to the slope of the male students which indicates that female students have less interest in entrepreneurship. Students with HS diploma grade from 60 to 70 showed a stronger intention towards entrepreneurship against the students with grades from 91 to 100. The students whose mothers were entrepreneurs showed a positive influence on the entrepreneurial choice as compared to the students whose mothers are freelancers or employees. University students with any previous experience in starting or running a business were 20% more likely to become entrepreneurs as compared to the students without any business experience. Entrepreneurial education had a positive effect on students’ entrepreneurial intentions as one unit increased in entrepreneurial education; intentions to become an entrepreneur increased by 0.09 units. In personality test, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience showed a positive sign while neuroticism showed a negative sign.

In Table 3, R square represents 27%. In other terms, 27% of the variance in the dependent variable (entrepreneurial intention) is explained by the model, therefore, the regressors are sufficiently explain the response variable.

ANOVA results in Table 4 showed the fitness of the model. Based on the significance values (0.000), the null hypothesis was rejected and it was concluded that the overall model was fit and significant.

Various categorical and continuous variables were analysed during the present study but only statistically significant variables are discussed.

To analyse the relation between age groups with students’ entrepreneurial intentions, the age was inserted in the multiple regression model (Table 2). Although, only 2 age groups (21–23 and 24–25) were found with the statistically significant results in the comparison of the base age group (20 or less). It was concluded that the students with the age group of 20 or less are more inclined to become entrepreneurs as compared to the other groups. The younger individuals showed higher intention for entrepreneurial behaviours than the older individuals, implying that individual’s age is negatively related to entrepreneurial intention which is in consistent with the previous findings of Criaco (2012); Hatak et al. (2014).

Both international studies and the Danish Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Schøtt, 2011; Amorós and Bosma, 2014;) found a consistent pattern of a larger share of males in the engagement of entrepreneurial activities compared to females (as measured by an intention to start a new business). The present study also explored that how gender might differ in entrepreneurial intentions. Table 2 shows that male (43.8%) and female students (56.2%) intend to start their career as employees. The share of intentional entrepreneurs among males was significantly higher (25%) than among females. Interestingly, the share of male and female students who intend to become employees after 5 years of their graduation is lower for both male (14.3%) and female (15.8%) students and the share of female students was found slightly higher than the share of male students (Table 5).

This investigation shows a positive relationship between university students’ entrepreneurial intentions and their HS diploma grade. The students were asked to select their HS grades from given categories. In multiple regression model (Table 2), the first two categories (60 and 60—71) were statistically significant, indicating a negative relationship between grades and entrepreneurial intention among university students.

Family background were divided into two sections; parents’ level of education and parents’ occupation. It has been already pointed out by Ozaralli and Rivenburgh (2016) that families with entrepreneurial occupation provide youngsters with an opportunity to obtain certain business skills, confidence, experience, and vision, all of which contribute to the inclination to start a new business. In accordance, the results of present study showed that the students whose mothers were working as entrepreneurs had significantly more intentions to start a business, compared to the students whose mothers were involved in any other occupation. These results, thus, support the evidence of the previous studies (Shapero, 1984; Scott and Twomey, 1988; Katz, 1992) showing that the family background influences entrepreneurial intentions. Similarly, Peterman and Kennedy (2003) found that the intention to start a new business becomes more positive by prior exposure to entrepreneurship.

The statistically significant relationship between extraversion and students’ entrepreneurial intentions was found and hence confirms the findings in the leadership literature which proposes that extraversion is positively related to leadership (Burch and Anderson, 2008). Furthermore, as individuals who are extravert, are usually more certain about their abilities, their intentions are louder than someone who is more introverted.

Openness to experience appears to be the personality dimensions that have the strongest effect on entrepreneurial intentions in this study because the individuals who score high in openness to experience are more likely to be intellectually curious, imaginative and creative, related to opportunity recognition (Ciavarella et al., 2004). The results showed that the openness personality traits have positive association with student’s entrepreneurial intentions. The more the student was curious and imaginative, the more he/she is likely to start a business. The current findings support the previous studies i.e. Schumpeter (1911) who argued that exploring new ideas, being creative, and taking novel approaches were essential for starting a new venture as well as Caliendo et al., (2011) about the effect of openness on self-employment.

Previous studies suggest that entrepreneurs are expected to score lower on agreeableness (Singh and DeNoble 2003; Zhao and Seibert, 2006; Zhao, 2009). An agreeable individual is more likely to be manipulated and influenced by others (Liang et al., 2015). On the other hand, a high level of agreeableness was necessary to receive the required support, for instance, to start up a new venture. Entrepreneurs who create trusting, flexible and polite relationships with their customers should expect to reap the profits of repeat business (Ciavarella et al., 2004). Furthermore, high scores of agreeableness tend to reduce the rate of failure for entrepreneurs in vastly innovative businesses (Cantner, Silbereisen, and Wilfling, 2011). The results of this study are in line with Ciavarella et al., 2004, Cantner, Silbereisen, and Wilfling, 2011, as we found significant evidence of a positive relationship between agreeableness and students’ entrepreneurial intentions.

Prior studies confirm that entrepreneurs tend to score low on Neuroticism which is the reversed version of emotional stability (Zhao and Seibert, 2006). This also comes back when observing the entrepreneurial personality positing that a high score on Emotional stability is anticipated for an entrepreneur (Schmitt-Rodermund, 2004). Emotional stability has shown a positive relationship with entrepreneurial performance (Zhao, Seibert, and Lumpkin 2010). Unexpectedly, our findings revealed that neuroticism, a negative emotionality such as feeling anxious, worried, touchy, and tense enhance entrepreneurial intentions. Uysal and Pohlmeier (2011) revealed that neuroticism had a negative association with the probability of finding a job. Thus, it seems that the lack of amiability and vulnerability motivate people with high neuroticism to build up their own business.

Entrepreneurial education is one of the most important and significant variables in this study. The findings reveal a strong relationship between entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intentions. Previous studies (e.g. Basu and Virick, 2008; Davey et al., 2011) support these findings. Likewise, Solesvik (2013) found that the students participated in entrepreneurial education had higher perceived entrepreneurial motivation than the students who did not study entrepreneurial courses. Therefore, it can be stated that a strong relationship and positive correlation exists between entrepreneurial education and intent towards entrepreneurship. However, only 10% of the students in this study have participated in any of the entrepreneurial course at least once at the time of this study. This implies that it is fundamental to have a good entrepreneurial education program to develop positive entrepreneurial intentions among students.

The objective of this study was to explore factors motivating the university students to embrace self-employment. To achieve this objective, the study explored the entrepreneurial intentions among the university students. The analysis confirms many previous findings in the literature on students’ entrepreneurial intentions. For instance, the research has given further evidence of the importance of entrepreneurial education to make entrepreneurial mindset as well as supported the previous findings which stated that the male students were more interested towards entrepreneurship than the female students. This research also explored some interesting findings that the students with the younger age and low previous education grades were more inclined to become self-employed. This can make sense as the young blood is likely to take high risks which is considered as one of the essential entrepreneurial traits. Moreover, The creative individuals were often found with low grades or dropouts. Relating to the parents’ occupation, students whose mothers were working as entrepreneurs showed positive response towards self-employment. Furthermore, the decision to start a new venture seems to be influenced by personality traits as extroversion, agreeableness and openness draw a positive while neuroticism has a negative impact on students’ entrepreneurial intentions.