Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intention among African Students in China

Abstract

Students’ perceptions towards entrepreneurship have been a focus for many researches in the field of Entrepreneurship: Given the role that entrepreneurship play in the economic development of a country, researchers acknowledge that students are the key population for entrepreneurial activities. Researchers want to predict and understand students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship through various studies largely based on: socio demographic characters, entrepreneurship training program, social background and motivation for the students regarding job choice. The study aims to find out the determinants of entrepreneurial intention among African students studying various disciplines in China base on the theory of planned behavior. The entrepreneurial intention model was tested and its verified hypothesis and descriptive statistics was used for empirical analysis. The study was conducted through a survey on 148 students and the results revealed the Africa economic environment, gender and fields of study are main determinants of African students’ entrepreneurial intention. These results revealed the importance of African students’ training in the fields of economics and engineering sciences to develop their entrepreneurial spirit and the need for African governments to create a suitable economic environment to further stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit of these students when they return to Africa.