Incentives for Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intentions of Youth With Higher Education Studies in Romania

Abstract

"The performed empirical study identified some factors that lead to the encouragement and stimulation of sustainable entrepreneurial intentions, by integrating the variables from the theory of planned behavior in the model of the entrepreneurial event, adapted to the context of sustainable entrepreneurship. For a sample of 170 students of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration within the West University of Timisoara, the empirical results showed that: perceived desire and feasibility for sustainable entrepreneurship are direct antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial intentions; the individual attitude regarding entrepreneurship, subjective norms and behavioral control determine the perceived desire and feasibility regarding sustainable entrepreneurship, under the conditions of environmental values influence. The increase of respondents’ number and the inclusion of additional variables in the research model, with moderating or mediating role, would allow the obtained results to be generalized for young people with university studies who have taken entrepreneurship courses through their academic curriculum and would guide to an expansion of research on stimulating factors of sustainable entrepreneurial intention. Keywords: sustainable entrepreneurial intention, sustainable entrepreneurship, environmental values, theory of planned behavior, entrepreneurial event theory. JEL Classification: L26, Q56. Recommended citation: Nitu-Antonie, R.D., Feder, E-S., Stamenovic, K., Incentives for sustainable entrepreneurial intentions of youth with higher education studies in Romania, Studia UBB Negotia, vol. 67, issue 1 (March) 2022, pp. 27-44, doi: 10.24193/subbnegotia.2022.1.02 "

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].…”

“…Both perceived desire and feasibility have been tested for their influence on entrepreneurial intention [39,42] and there are studies that have considered these two factors as direct antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial intention and have tested these links [7,20,22,35]. Some empirical papers on samples of students from different countries have shown direct and positive influences of perceived entrepreneurial desire and feasibility on sustainable entrepreneurial intention [7,22,35,45,46]. Other similar empirical studies have found a significant influence only of perceived entrepreneurial desire [40,47] or only of perceived entrepreneurial feasibility [48] on sustainable entrepreneurial intention.…”

“…In the face of these pressures, imposed by changes in the environment, environmental values can influence the behavioral factors (personal attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) of the potential entrepreneurs to determine their sustainable entrepreneurial intention. Potential entrepreneurs may consider environmental values in their business plans but focusing exclusively on the economic performance of their future firm may lead them to disregard these values [35], which makes it necessary to identify the direct link between environmental values and behavioral factors.…”

“…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.…”