Drivers of Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intentions in the Case of Serbian Students

Abstract

The present research aims to establish the antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial intention, having as reference theoretical framework the model of entrepreneurial event and the model of planned behavior, integrated and adapted to the context of sustainable entrepreneurship. At the level of investigated population, consisting of 150 students from two Serbian universities, the empirical results emphasized that: personality traits and environmental values are significant and direct predictors of behavioral characteristics; entrepreneurial education and behavioral characteristics have an indirect influence on sustainable entrepreneurial intention being mediated by the desire and feasibility of sustainable entrepreneurship perceived by respondents. As theoretical utility of the research, the current study is among the few that tried to integrate and expand two competing models in order to establish the antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial intent. The research model adopted variables specific for the two models and integrated personality traits, environmental values and entrepreneurial education in order to establish direct and indirect determinants of sustainable entrepreneurial intention. At practical level, the validation of the research model emphasizes the utility of stimulating youth’ sustainable entrepreneurial intention and applicability for future academic research endeavors. In order to stimulate sustainable entrepreneurial intentions, the validated research model indicates to governmental and university decision makers the need to implement programs promoting environmental values and integrating sustainability into the entrepreneurial education of youth.

Entrepreneurial Intention of Management Students In Pokhara University

“…Various studies have been conducted on understanding the factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions. Nițu-Antonie et al (2022) integrated planned behavior and entrepreneurial events models to examine sustainable entrepreneurial intentions among students in Serbia. The study highlighted the predictive roles of personality traits, environmental values, and entrepreneurial education in shaping sustainable entrepreneurial intentions.…”

A Moderated Serial–Parallel Mediation Model of Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intention of Youth with Higher Education Studies in Romania

“…In previous studies, the influencing factors of sustainable entrepreneurial intention have been taken from the entrepreneurial event theoretical model [17] and from the planned behavior theoretical model [18,19]. These models have been tested in different national contexts, either in their original form as within the majority of extant studies or as integrated into a single research model [7,12,22,31,35].…”

“…Studies in entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship have mainly focused on identifying factors that would determine the likelihood of a person to start a business in the future, thus investigating entrepreneurship through the lens of entrepreneurial intention and by incorporating economic, behavioral, psychological, demographic, educational, social, and environmental factors into different theories and models [16]. The majority of these studies took the entrepreneurial event model [17] or the planned behavior model [18,19] as their theoretical framework of reference, adapted to the context of sustainable entrepreneurship and tested within different countries [12,[20][21][22]. The research field is considered fragmented and lacking empirical precision and there is a need to reduce the number of alternative models by considering more comprehensive models that integrate the determinants of entrepreneurial intention identified within the competitive models [23].…”

“…There is extensive academic research regarding the identification of factors that stimulate entrepreneurial intention among young people in Romania who have completed various university degree programs [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], although this is rather limited in terms of identifying antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial intention among youth [35].…”

“…The research topic addressed in this paper aimed to identify the factors that mediate and shape the relationship between environmental values and sustainable entrepreneurial intention based on a research model that integrates the planned behavior theoretical model [18,19] and the entrepreneurial event theoretical model [17], adapted to the context of sustainable entrepreneurship. These models have been applied mostly separately in previous studies to test specific antecedents of entrepreneurial intention and only a few have integrated them or adapted them to the context of sustainable entrepreneurship [12,20,22,35], although there is an extant debate concerning whether the two models overlap [38] or are roughly similar [39]. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish, in the context of an emerging country, such as Romania, whether the two models can be integrated into a single comprehensive model that allows the serial and parallel delimitation of the mediating role of variables in the two considered models (behavioral factors, perceived desire, and feasibility of sustainable entrepreneurship) within the main relationship between environmental values and sustainable entrepreneurial intention of youth with higher education studies, as well as the moderating role of the university-level entrepreneurial education variable within the main relationship.…”