The mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in entrepreneurial intention – a study in Saudi Arabian context

  • Received September 29, 2017;
    Accepted February 6, 2018;
    Published March 15, 2018
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.16(1).2018.26
  • Article Info
    Volume 16 2018, Issue #1, pp. 267-275
  • TO CITE АНОТАЦІЯ
  • Cited by
    7 articles
  • 2089 Views
  • 269 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

The purpose of the present study is to test how do the four important psychological antecedents, namely need for achievement (nAch), propensity to risk (PtR), self-confidence (SeC), internal locus of control (IlC) are mediated by the entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) to predict the entrepreneurial intention (EI) in a traditionally oil-based Saudi economy striving for economic diversification. Hypotheses are tested by applying the partial least square (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) to a sample of 282 undergraduate business students (male and female) collected from a public university of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results suggest that psychological variables and self-efficacy play a fundamental role in enhancing entrepreneurial intention (EI) of Saudi students. Personality-related variables have direct influence over EI in other context, but in Saudi context, psychological variables are necessary but not sufficient to develop entrepreneurial intention unless combined with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has a strong mediating effect between psychological variables and entrepreneurial intentions in Saudi context.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Figure 1. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) hypothesized model
    • Figure 2. Final model results
    • Table 1. Data characteristics
    • Table 2. Descriptive statistics
    • Table 3. Pattern matrix
    • Table 4. Summary reliability and validity statistics
    • Table 5. Final mediation results