Effects of Human Behavior on Enterpreneurial Intention of Fourth Year Students in Kenya

Abstract

Objective: Entrepreneurial intentions are individual’s willingness to learn about entrepreneurial activity or become self-employed. Yet, the antecedence of entrepreneurial intention is important to understanding the process of entrepreneurial intent. The relationship between human behavior and entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate university students are neglected. Thus, the broad objective was to investigate the effect of human behavior (attitudes towards behavior, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) on entrepreneurial intentions. Design: Explanatory research design was employed in this study as it examined cause-and-effect relationships. The study population comprised the fourth pursuing entrepreneurship. The study employed proportionate, stratified, and simple random sampling to choose 400 respondents. Closed ended questionnaire with likert scale was used to obtain the data. The hypotheses were tested using Hayes model six. Findings: The findings revealed that attitudes towards behavior had a positive and significant influence on entrepreneurial intent (β1=0.564, p value = 0.000 (p < 0.05) and t (13.357) higher than the critical t (1.96), subjective norms had no significant influence on entrepreneurial intention (β2=0.007,p value = 0.849 (p>0.05) and t (0.190) which is lower than critical t (1.96) and perceived behavioral control had coefficient estimates which were significant (β3=0.256, p value =0.000 ( p<.05) and the calculated t (6.122) is higher than the critical t (1.96).The findings conclude that human behavior encourages entrepreneurial intention among undergraduate university students. Policy implications: These findings suggest that politicians and institutions should work to strengthen these motivating factors in order to increase students' entrepreneurial intentions. While more perceived c behavioral control may be good, it is unlikely to influence students' attitudes toward entrepreneurship.