Technical and Business Undergraduates' Self-Efficacy in Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Abstract-This paper examined how technical and business undergraduates perceive their ability to cope, perform and be successful in entrepreneurship. Previous research findings suggest that entrepreneurial intentions and actions are affected by individuals' self-esteem or self-efficacy pertaining to the self-confidence and perceived competency in business affairs. Perceived competence often refers to knowledge, skills and behavior, which are considered as the antecedence of self-confidence. As such, business students may be assumed to have higher self-esteem in business affairs than non-business students. However, little is known whether or not this assumption is valid. To address this issue, a set of questionnaire were distributed to technical and business undergraduates at two higher learning institutions to gauge their level of self-efficacy in business affairs. The study aims to explain the relationships between the component of individuals' self-efficacy, background and the entrepreneurial intention of technical and business undergraduates. The findings revealed that individuals' self-efficacy correlated with their training¸ but not with their informal entrepreneurship exposure and entrepreneurship intentions. The results also indicate that business and non-business students differ in one of the attitude components of self-efficacy.